[Closed] I feel dirty

Don't worry your light hearted virtue signalling will probably keep you safe from the big hitters...

trail centres are for exactly this purpose, you're not damaging any natural trails, you're keeping a degree of fitness, and as you say they're dead mid week in winter... it's their raison d'etre

look at me, all french like, oo la la 8)

My local one has a load of split log boardwalk which becomes lethally slippy for half the winter, which sort of defeats the object of having an all-weather trail centre for when the local trails are slop.

Or as the French would say, 'Their reason to be'

Kind of like the supposed division between road and mountain bikes, I never understood anti-trail centre comments.

I have only used two trail centres and loved both of them. 99% of the time, though, I ride on natural trails.

I'll take what I can get and enjoy it as much as possible.

martinhutch Gisburn? If so don't worry the main section of boardwalk has collapsed into the bog (which is why it was there because the ground was too wet to take a normal trail). The diversion is via a non slippy fire road.

Yeah, why worry? a ride is a ride - there are no bonus points up for grabs here. Long suspected a touch of snobbery in the TC v Natural debate. Who gives a **** as long as you are living, breathing and out there?

Almost all my off reading is trail centres, I live next to one, I don't have time to hunt out the local secret stuff and don't ride with anyone to show it me. Riding the main trails at Cannock (between 6-8am is my normal time) let's me get a decent ride in with minimal faffing.

Whenever I'm away from home I'm time restricted too as I'm on holiday with the family so the local trip centres do me nicely there too.

I love a good trail centre me. Not saying I wouldn't love to ride the peaks or snowdon or somewhere in the tweed valley but I'm happy enough as I am at the mo.

I live next to Cannock Chase as well - I can ride from my house to Birches valley in 20 mins 😀
In Winter yes, Dog and Monkey (Donkey) but in summer don't touch em, it's cheekies all the way. Most welcome to come on a ride in the summer and we'll show you some good trails - there are some belters out there.

martinhutch Gisburn? If so don't worry the main section of boardwalk has collapsed into the bog (which is why it was there because the ground was too wet to take a normal trail). The diversion is via a non slippy fire road.

Can't say I'll be mourning the death of the boardwalk, but I quite like the climb through the quarry.

My local one has a load of split log boardwalk which becomes lethally slippy for half the winter, which sort of defeats the object of having an all-weather trail centre for when the local trails are slop.

I always get a good rush of adrenaline riding Gisburn in the snow / ice. 😆

martinhutch Gisburn? If so don't worry the main section of boardwalk has collapsed into the bog (which is why it was there because the ground was too wet to take a normal trail). The diversion is via a non slippy fire road.

Ah just seen the facebook post re that now.

Don't worry it'll be back, might be sometime though.

As a South Downs local I'd bloody love to have an all weather trail centre nearby. It'll be bloody awful up there at the moment, the chalk and clay in winter is why I have a road bike

To be fair 5 riders from what we could see in the car park today all good fun but I can imagine Degla being hell on earth on a sunny weekend

Motozulu - might take you up on that depending on what time you ride. Takes me 20mins to birches valley too, where about many are you? I'm up in hednesford by the tower.

Down in Roojelly town, there is a trail runs from the town centre to the start of the Dog - brilliant for me as from my house I have to ride 100 yards of road then it's all walking/biking trail to the forest.
My riding buddy been riding much longer than me and knows so many cheeky trails up the Chase - we don't ride em in winter but you'll have to come out with us when the cheekies dry a bit..

Sounds good, the couple of cheeky bits I've ridden would be really sloppy in the winter so definitely happy to wait for the warmer weather. Hopefully will have my bike sorted finally then too.

It's ace round here innit I've got probably 5-600m of tarmac before I hit the chase fire roads too 8)

davosaurusrex - Member

As a South Downs local I'd bloody love to have an all weather trail centre nearby. It'll be bloody awful up there at the moment, the chalk and clay in winter is why I have a road bike

QECP Blue Trail 😉

I love Trail Centres this time of year.

Is the blue fully surfaced Scott? Might have to take a drive over.

I feel dirty and used , because I quite enjoyed it ..

I love Cannock I'd go every day if I could

I assume you mean the trail centre rocketman? I'd be happy never to set foot in the town for the rest of my life (now that there's a Wetherspoons in Hednesford)

😆 yes the Chase prawny

Is Cannock Chase mountain biking? Many of these courses (FoD, Swinley, Llandegla, Bedgebury) seem like they'd be great on a CycloX bike but I've ridden them and didn't get much out of it. None of these places are barely on hills, let alone mountains.

Afan, Cwm Carn, Brechfa still feel that they can offer something although the Penydd Trail is pretty bad too.

Will be interesting to see what happens to many of these places after brexit if they cannot be maintained. I wonder if the sport will retain the number of riders.

Many of these courses (FoD, Swinley, Llandegla, Bedgebury) seem like they'd be great on a CycloX bike but I've ridden them and didn't get much out of it

Let me know how Red15 goes on a CX bike, or Tank Traps... lol.

I could ride it on a pushalong trike... but doesn't make it bright idea.

Lol, my roadie mate hates mountain bikes, mainly because they never get used on mountains.

To be fair, we live in the UK, if we don't call it mountain biking unless there's an actual mountain involved then a lot of us are screwed.

Also, yes you could ride cannock on a CX bike, fairly easily, it wouldnt' be fast though, so it depends on how you like to ride. I'd say that if you rode FoD, Swinley, Llandegla and Cannock and got nothing out of it you're not going fast enough.

Just add speed till you get to your comfort zone, then go a bit faster.

Such dislike for trail centres! Is everyone like this with camp sites too? 😉

It's not the speed issue for me, I can ride fast (ex-BMX racer), I just think that the centres listed here really are the embodiment of the McTrail model.

Don't really understand the trail centre model personally. Y Wall, Cafel are great but you could be riding the Gap or Elan Valley only a bit further on. But the newer (and mainly English sites) seem to have been over engineered, over risk assessed, built to standards and 'best practice guides'. And what is it with these stupid names for every section - 'Berm Baby Berm', 'The Eye of the Needle'?

I also find it impossible to get your mates to ride anything else once they've ridden a centre.

The "stupid names" are Strava segments - for people who ride with their mates 🙂

I think for an ex BMX racer to moan about groomed trails is a bit odd.

Each to their own though. Trail centres fit my lifestyle, as much as I'd love to go and do epic rides it's not happening any time soon. That's just my POV though, if I lived in the peak district and not 6 minutes ride from Marquis Drive visitor centre then I'm sure I'd be more likely to ride there instead.

I also find it impossible to get your mates to ride anything else once they've ridden a centre.

Which goes to prove that your opinion of TC's is a minority one 😉
They are fun, that's all. I can leave my house on my 'Mountain Bike' and be on the marked ( or natural! 8) ) trails in 20 minutes, no loading a car up or pissing about.
I do agree that they are over sanitised though, my favourite parts of the Donkey are always the one's that need repairing and are full of braking bumps and eroded trail.
Still, they serve a purpose - and anyone who looks down their noses at them are just, well, bike snobs.
By the way, it is mountain biking because we are riding mountain bikes. I've done Snowdon, Lakes, Peaks on my bikes as well - I get just as much out of TC's as any natural stuff.

Mr Prawny,

TBH, I probably just voicing my own frustrations too. I have a 3 and 1 year old at home so my own riding is a little constrained at the moment. To get an epic ride I tend to take the bike to work, head to a hostel for the night (£15). Get up early (6-ish), ride say the Gap, Doethie Valley, or one of the Exmoor routes. Done by 11-ish. Home for 1pm in the afternoon.

I’ve found that if I don’t then I either ride the centres (remember Cannock makes leighwoods look like the Alps), or I don’t get a great ride. I’d prefer a great ride less ofter at the moment than short rides on man-made trails a lot.

Bear in mind that you could be on the Shropshire Hills in an hour from North of Brum.

We are all the same, I work shifts - so if I have an afternoon free, I either waste 3 hours loading and driving somewhere 'epic' or I spend that entire time riding favourite cheeky trails and discovering new ones.
Horses for courses, innit.
Don't forget Cannock isn't just the Dog and Monkey - there is some great stuff out there.
It's generally flat, in comparison to Peaks etc, but there are some great, testing and steep runs out there in the forest - if you know where to find them 😉

Deleted

I'm being a grumpy arse.

Yep, spot on Prawny - we all do what we can. I've got mates who live on the edge of the Peaks, so why would they ride Cannock? then there is you and me, who have our own reasons for not wanting to venture far from home, but are dead lucky to have 30 square miles of varied forest on our doorsteps.
As long as you have a grin on your face - who gives a flying one if the gnarly crew look down on you? I certainly don't, I'm not after MTB bonus points - enjoy! life's too ****in short - and if you don't like a place - don't ****in well ride there, more room for me and my fat bike then 😀

Nope, you were spot on.

And being a grumpy arse 😀

If I am forced to use a trail centre for convenience I usually ride my kids balance bike. I save my cx bike for epics like the snowdon descent in midwinter darkness.

davosaurusrex - Member

Is the blue fully surfaced Scott? Might have to take a drive over.

i would have no problem in using a TC if i could ride to it from my front door... but if im gonna drive for an hour somewhere i probably wouldnt choose one. saying that, met a mate a degla before crimbo and had a reet good blast!!

It was Degla where I went and again it was only an hours drive ,it was a hoot even in the snow but for me as above if im driving for over an hour its the Lakes all day lon.

You cannee beat a good up and shoulder

If you bored of Uk trail centre's ,then hop over the irish sea,few good ones over here and more being developed with funding from colite,(FC) equiv .
Then we have Wicklow,Dublin mountains, then Galtees,Comerargh to name but a few.

Don't really understand the trail centre model personally. Y Wall, Cafel are great but you could be riding the Gap or Elan Valley only a bit further on.

Well, only if you have time to do those longer rides. But the Gap, whilst fun, is nothing like the same experience as Cafall. It's like comparing the M6 over Shap with Silverstone.

I hadn't ridden a trail centre in over a decade until last year, but I've been making up for it - knocking off all the Welsh centres, joining them up by bikepacking the intervening 'natural' trails. I rode some of the reds (Cwmcarn, BPW, CyB, Llandegla) with the luggage on the bike, as a through route. I'll be doing the final linking section next week, from Cwm Rhaeadr to Machynlleth. I started off with various preconceptions, some right, some wrong. It's been an interesting exercise, and both points of view above could be seen as having merit.

I rode Cwmcarn on a fully rigid bike, and it was not much fun at all. A blast on the FS though.

Main plus for me of trail centres is that you know what you're getting - access to a MTB sized area with little risk of idiots putting razor wire across trails, little risk of running into groups of walkers or dogs, no stiles or fences, decent navigation without having to plot out a route before hand, and enough others around you to add perhaps a little safety factor so you know you're unlikely to end up on a mountain overnight with a broken leg as no-one knows you're there.

There's definitely a place for them!

Personally, I think to many people say there's a place for them but in fact don't ride any thing else.

My bugbear with centres is that (for me) I just find I'm riding with what the least fit, least skilled person in the group can cope with.

So in the end, I ride a TC, or ride alone. Weening people off of them seems impossible, but they mirror the homogenisation of every thing. Capitalism has been successful because of this

Don't forget Cannock isn't just the Dog and Monkey - there is some great stuff out there.
It's generally flat, in comparison to Peaks etc, but there are some great, testing and steep runs out there in the forest - if you know where to find them

Exactly - although January hasn't been kind to the unofficial stuff. It was horrid Sunday morning.

I don't ride the Donkey much these days, but had fun on it yesterday taking Stile Cop in as well.

I don't really get the hate for trail centres - if you do hate them don't go. Simples.

My bugbear with centres is that (for me) I just find I'm riding with what the least fit, least skilled person in the group can cope with.

Time to find some equally rad mates then.

thebatesbristol - Member
Personally, I think to many people say there's a place for them but in fact don't ride any thing else.

My bugbear with centres is that (for me) I just find I'm riding with what the least fit, least skilled person in the group can cope with.

So in the end, I ride a TC, or ride alone. Weening people off of them seems impossible, but they mirror the homogenisation of every thing. Capitalism has been successful because of this

It seems like your complaint is more about peoples lifestyles choices and various social issues than the apparent horrors of trail centres...

My take is that TCs are there to provide convenience, and to serve as an introduction to a MTBing... Nobody is claiming they are the Epitome of the sport...

Some people try MTBing at a TC, they catch the bug and within a couple of years they'll be planning epic adventures and riding all sorts of places on "Natural" terrain and man made trails.

Others will be content with that maintained, relatively safe TC 30 min's from home a couple of times a week and never feel the need to branch out, the social side to it has as much, if not more importance for them, riding with friends, enjoying their company without it needing to be a competitive physical Challenge every time... are they really such terrible people for that?

It's just cycling as a leisure activity not some grand political statement, there's room in the world for various different takes on MTBing...

thebatesbristol - what a strange person you seem to be....

Weening people off of them seems impossible, but they mirror the homogenisation of every thing

What? You know the natural trails are all still there, don't you?

My bugbear with centres is that (for me) I just find I'm riding with what the least fit, least skilled person in the group can cope with.

You sound like a right git and quite possibly not suited at all to group rides!

I only play real tennis. None of this Wimbledon stuff.

obviously TC's are not real mountain biking and those that ride them can not call themselves real mountain bikers. Only wild countryside and wild terrain is real mountain biking and those that ride these are real mountain bikers. Gotta go my caramel latte is ready. Yum

genesiscore502011 - Member
obviously TC's are not real mountain biking and those that ride them can not call themselves real mountain bikers. Only wild countryside and wild terrain is real mountain biking and those that ride these are real mountain bikers. Gotta go my caramel latte is ready. Yum

😀