[Closed] Mallards Pike

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You park at Mallards pike car park! (Google go ape FOD)easiest way to find trails is explore but to get in the right area. From the car park head to the lake and look for the bridge in the right hand corner. Cross it and ride along the lake until you see a short muddy climb on the right. Head up that and at the top turn left onto fire road. Keep heading along and the fire road turns hard right. Keep peddling up and you will start to see the. Bottom of trails on your left hand side. Eventually you will see a climb on the left which you head left up (it’s obvious bikes head up there) and that should take you to the top. I’m not there this weekend else I would happily show you around

I don't want to sound preachy, but the trails there are showing a fair bit of wear due to volume of traffic over this winter. A lot of them don't stand up well to use in the wet and have suffered a bit. Personally I'd wait till the ground is a bit drier.

I would also agree with Mark90 - wait till it dries out a bit.

Thanks everyone for your guidance and time. I think I'll wait untill the summer months when the days are longer with the travelling.

Cheers guys

These are the trails outside my house and they’re getting properly mashed up during winter at the moment because of their rising popularity. Much better in summer when they harden off a bit. Going easy on them during late winter / spring gives the boar and deer a bit of respite when their young are born and keeps the nitwits from the FC off everyone’s back. Also, as good fun as those trails are, in reality they’re not as good as the ‘approved’ ones at Sallow Vallets.

Do you live on top, next door to Sonia then ?

Thing with these trails now go back 5 years or so it was only the Lawn mover trail now there are loads and loads of riders.

What they said .... these trails like much of FoD 'off piste' are getting hammered by big groups & 'EnduroBros' .. . If you can't find stuff with a map & a modicum of common sense then probably best to leave it alone.

Yep it’s true, we were talking about this in the week with my mates. Mallards always takes a hammering at this time of year, it drains poorly. But even the more hardpacked off piste stuff like the Dowies are looking sorry for themselves. I don’t think Ebikes are helping hearing people brag that they can do 10 times the runs at mallards or dowies compared to their trail bike. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that trails are going to take a pummelling. Not to mention seeing people of 40lb bikes smashing the hell of of corners skidding through natural berms. Part of the issue is the trails around the centre are either winch and plummet downhill trails (also smashed) or basic blue or red xc route. There is more stuff being build towards the rubber duck climb and Y2K, but you can see why people are heading to places like mallards. Especially when PABA build a cafe there!! Also worth noting the amount of races being held around PABA seems to increase (2 weeks on the bounce now) people are going to look elsewhere

But even the more hardpacked off piste stuff like the Dowies are looking sorry for themselves

I don't ride Dowies much but went the other week and noticed how hammered the trails were. Braking bumps not just before the corners but all the way through the berms. And all the holes filling with water on what were previously very well draining trails.

It certainly the case the FOD off piste has become somewhat a victim of it's own success as traffic has increased noticeably over the last couple of years.

I have been riding the Forest since 1990 as said above first its the uplift so you get loads more bikes down the downhill runs which are well hammered to the degree they make more trails to get around it then you get strava etc so people don't cycle from the pedalway to the Dowies so much, when you get there by the pottery shop theres loads of cars/vans these days so they are now getting more used generally not to many big bikes that way as you know its not far from the Dowies to shutcastle so they are getting over used Hey Ho great place just getting to popular in places.

In case it's of interest, I think I read somewhere that Mallards Pike was closed today/tomorrow. Not sure whether that meant just the cafe or the car park too, due to the wind presumably

I've ridden the off piste stuff in the Fod for over a decade now , unfortunately in the last couple of years the amount of groups of e-bikes has risen massively. A few weeks ago I was out on my own and didn't see another old school pedal bike but i saw around 20 e-bike riders . I'm no way in the anti e-bike camp - not an my age 🙃 .but the huge growth of the e-bike market seems to have coincided with the deterioration of off piste trails .

Do you live on top, next door to Sonia then ?

I wish. Ruspidge.