Rock and Roller - Dalbeattie

Last day of riding in Scotland for that week and I wanted to make it an epic day.  The choice was between Mabie, Ae and Dalbeattie so I went with the closest to where we were and headed off to Dalbeattie.

Dalbeattie's web page makes a big deal of the rocky outcrops along the trail and some digging on forums and youtube revealed a couple of really steep, black-graded rock sections, all options from the red graded 25km long Hardrock Trail.

It was an early morning start and the car park was deserted when I arrived.  Tightly squeezed into the woods, the car park had a really peaceful air about it, and a useful map of the trails.  Rolling into the start of the trail, the mellow theme continued with a fun but not too technical set of singletrack stretches.  To liven it up a bit I hit all of the rocky obstacles on either side of the trail but my enthusiasm was soon tempered by the first climb of the day.

Ipod firmly plugged into my ears, the trail wound up to the highest point of the day and the views were of rolling low hills and similar forests all around.  The centre is located near the coast and had a fresh feel to the air the day that I was there but at no point could I see the sea itself.

Shortly, on a singletrack descent, and just after thinking that the music may be a distraction, I went right when I should have gone left and ploughed into a cunningly disguised tree stump, launching myself over the bars into the ground.

Ego suitably knocked back to size and bum dusted off, the trail continued and to be fair, took in a lot of fire road.  There were some excellent sections of single track that wound through the forest and on the forest's edge.  One in particular ran through down a gulley and was a rough gnarly section with rocks and small drops, the type of trail that you get more out of the more you put in.

Arriving at the Slab, a 15 meter stretch of step rock, covered in diagonal ruts, I realised it looked a LOT more gnar in real life than on the internet.  I rode down the far left of this section which avoids the majority of the first part of the slab.  Personally, I didn't feel there was much reward and the Slab proves more a test of nerve than a fun section to ride, especially since where the bottom of the slab transitions back onto the forest floor there are crazy braking bumps, making for a harsh re-entry.  I'd like to see black sections filled with jumps and drops, maybe north shore type sections (and not just skinnies!!) instead of just rolling down a big rutted rock face - perhaps this is one case we can all learn from Llandegla!

Despite being named after a low-end Specialized hardtail, the composition of the singletrack sections mean that this is definitely one beast best enjoyed on a full sus rig.  When I arrived at the last section which doubled as a skills loop, and as harsh as this sounds in retrospect, I was left with the feeling that a few laps around that would have been more enjoyable than the bulk of the actual Hardrock trail itself.

The trail was over too quickly for my liking and didn't build up to any epic descents, taking in way too much fire road.  In fact, it would have taken in less fire road that day had I not dodged underneath diversion tape to poach "closed" singletrack so I could experience the whole trail.

My first mountain biking visit to Scotland revealed a clear winner in my eyes - Kirroughtree.  It's red/black combination of the Twister and Black Craigs an absolute winner and one of the best trails I have ever ridden!

I've had a long time off riding over the summer, weirdly, due to work, other holidays, doing up my house, and family events but the Forest of Dean is calling...

Enjoying the views - Glentrool

Another sunny morning in Dumfries and Galloway surrounded me as I loaded the bike on to the back of my car for the third time that week.  The 7 stanes centre at Glentrool was my destination for the day and it was only a short, and very scenic, drive away from where we were staying.

Once you're nearby, the 7 stanes centres are well signed so I was able to find the car park easily.  Because we were staying nearby and I like early starts, I was the first car to park up that day and the midges were very excited by this fact!  The trail head is just over a small bridge and so a combination of the nearby river and hot summer days meant I was eaten alive by insects while getting ready to ride!  A small bird examined me quizzically through my car window as I pulled up too; he didn't seem used to having visitors at that time of the morning.

One unique feature of Glentrool is an epic 58k route which takes in, as far as I can tell, a loop of a huge portion of the forest.  I've heard and read that the scenery is great, but is a fire road / road style affair so I was content to give it a miss on my full-sus rig.

The 9k blue trail, confusingly called The Green Torr, winds slowly out of the car park and begins a pretty straight forward climb up the hill through the woods.  The very beginning is on a well established path which becomes fire road after not too long.  The blue is not the longest trail in the world, and more or less features an initial climb with one or two sections of flowing singletrack which are not too technical at all, including some more climbing, before a major purpose built descent which takes up maybe 1/3 of the total trail length and plants you back in the car park.  Total singletrack, 65%

Once I'd gained most of the height the first section of singletrack proper was a pleasant surprise and shows that whoever designed the trail knows how to build a track that flows.  It left me wanting more of the same and there was a little, but most is reserved for the final section.

After a further singletrack climb, I was spat out onto some more fireroad which had amazing views out across the hills of the Galloway Forest Park.  I literally had to stop to take photos every 50 meters or so as the view gradually got better and better as more of the view down the valley towards Loch Trool and Loch Dee was revealed.

More singletrack led to the start of the last descent.  The whole final section was well surfaced and was 2-3 feet wide, like a machine-made trail.  Undulating and with large easy to ride berms before a darker section in the depths of the woods, this last section can be ridden flat out aside from a couple of flatter corners towards the end.  Grin-inducing and worth a second lap.

Returning to our lodge, I picked up my girlfriend and her bike for a stab at the Palgowan green route in the afternoon.  This was a 14k circuit that shares the intial climb with the blue route but only has a very small amount of singletrack, the overwhelming majority being on fire roads, and a very short section on adopted road.  The route takes you out further from the trail head than The Green Torr does so we took it easy and enjoyed the sunshine and the excellent views across the hills of Galloway Forest Park.

The final descent is another long one, this time on a wide, straight fire road. I tucked in aero-stylee and shot down the slope at terminal velocity, glad of the stability from my big raked out forks; not normally the bike I'd choose for a mellow trail!

It was a thumbs up all round for the Glentrool centre, although with the proviso that there is little here for the experienced mountain biker looking for a technical challenge.  More beer and "self-catering" (read takeaway) was to follow that night!

You slay me - Kirroughtree

The weather was atrocious on the drive up to Scotland for the start of my week's holiday in Dumfries and Galloway.  My bike and my girlfriend's were strapped to the back of the car and when we arrived at the self-catering chalet, we were pretty pleased with our (her!) choice.  The hot tub helped.

We stayed really close to Newton Stewart and only about two miles away from Kirroughtree, one of the 7 Stanes trail centres.  It was 12th June and signage to the trail centre was good and the parking facilities were spot on, as was finding the start of the trail.  I couldn't resist aiming to ride the black route, as I'd heard good things and had a whole day to kill.  Staying just a few minutes drive away from the trails means I had no long drive to endure afterwards, it was great.

The trail started winding up a mellow hill into the woods from the field surrounding the car park.  There was a mini skills loop just off to the side featuring technical black and red lines, as well as blue, and I assume, green lines.  The trail flowed smoothly through the woods as I followed the red route, taking all of the black options that I could.

My face, having a break

The forest was really mellow, the previous day's rain saturating the ground helping to keep the day cool despite the good sunshine.  Most of the trail was on singletrack at this point which criss-crossed a few runs of fireroad.  After an hour or so I saw a clearing by the side of a river and stopped to have a break and a snack.

Continuing on, further from the car park, the feel of the forest changed; the trail seemed a bit flatter as we'd gained a fair amount of height and it now felt that I was pretty far into the trail.  Many sections had names, like Rivendell and the White Witch, and some of the markers showed percentage completion which was pretty motivating towards the end!

After transitioning onto the black trail, crossing a bridge on fire road, there was a long open climb up to the start of a section called Mc Moab.  This was a highly technical section of undulating rock, with tiny arrows on the rock surface itself to highlight the best route.  I followed it as best I could, but can't say I cleaned it at all!  I was pretty excited about this section, and ultimately I feel it wasn't as fun as I was expecting, and you could argue that was down to my skill level, but for me it just didn't flow and I suppose the surface was just not to my taste.

McMoab's undulating granite

The next section, Heartbreak Hill, was just that.  A hardcore steep ascent up to a fire road.  My legs were a bit dead by this point so I just walked up and began spinning again once I'd reached the fire road.  At the beginning of the next singletrack, I took another break and sat down to munch on a couple of snacks (these things are amazing - energy dense and damn tasty too - do tend to stick to the roof of your mouth a little though!).

A rider passed me at this point, the only other cyclist I'd seen all day. Black Craig was an awesome section! It reminded me a lot of some sections of Original Sin in Whistler and was the highest point of the trail with great views back down the valley and in the other direction off into the hills.  The trail was rough and flowed really well, a lovely technical trail with rocks, roots, drops, short climbs and some great chances to build up speed.

Coming round a rooty corner, I met the rider that passed me at the start of the section.  He'd had a puncture so I lent a pump and we managed to get him back on the trail.  It was a good hour plus back to the car while riding so it would have been a long walk out if I hadn't been passing.  He had been riding at Innerleithin and Glentress the day before and his riding buddy who had been riding with him wasn't up to the black that day and had turned back to the car while still on the initial red section.

View south from part of the Black Craigs section - had all that height to lose over the rest of the ride!

Over the next few miles we passed each other on the trail a few times, with my bike being a little more downhill friendly and his (and hit fitness level) being better suited to the climbs.  Getting back to the red section involved some more rough trails where I was glad I had my full sus bike.  It was a proper all mountain trail in my eyes and riding it on a hard trail would have robbed it of much of its fun.  On one particularly steep climb I was passed for the last time and after a good few hours of riding had to push to the top, my legs were done in.

Properly re-joining the red, the technicality of the trail eased and it was easier to maintain a good speed.  Pulling back into the car park, I was please to have ridden one of the longest trails to date and was stoked to know that I had so many other quality trails within an hour or so's drive!

Mud pack, rise and a blow dry - Lee and Cragg Quarries

Back in May, browsing the internet during lunch time at work, I'd seen the website for the Lee and Cragg Quarry sites. The videos were really impressive and the trails sounded, and looked sweet.  

Build with involvement by Rowan Sorrell, the site features a high percentage of man made singletrack, a couple of pump tracks, some jumps, and the loops include technical features like berms, jumps and rock sections. Both quarries have a different feel, Lee has the pump tracks and more technical features, while Cragg is a short ride over the hills away and is a more technical-XC style loop. 

It was a reasonable drive up to Rossendale, north of Manchester, on May 29th but the weather was good and as I drove on the small A roads to the site, the hill tops loomed over the horizon. It was fair to say I was exited to get up there.

The car park is basically the road servicing an industrial park whose construction seems to have stopped for some reason. Regardless, it's free and pretty close to the trail. As I was setting up my bike I chatted to a couple of friendly riders that had just come down the hill from their ride. They were relatively local to the trail centre and also spoke highly of the 7 stanes.

Out of the car park there's a ride up a wide access road to the start of the red loop around Lee quarry. The trail started out hardpack and gravelly, but soon became heaving stone clad, and was very rough indeed, even on the Coilair! I was glad when a decent trail surface returned after a short while.

The trail had a good mix of short climbs and short downhill sections, with solid berms that let you really carve up the corners and some surprisingly good tabletops that had me pushing back up to have another go. There were some nice drops too and I made a point of riding all of the red options about half of the way around, where it looks designed to be ridden down, then pushed back up so you can have a go on another bit of the trail.

I met two of the grumpiest riders I've had the misfortune to try to chat to at one of the pump tracks.  I swiftly ignored them and had a quick play on both pump tracks, which seemed really well made although the full sus Coilair was immensely hard work in this environment.

I carried on round the back of the quarry and the heavens opened. I hadn't been out that long so I was keen to keep going. The rain slowed to a grim drizzle and I hit the main black option in the quarry. This was really rough, and for me didn't have very good flow. When this section made it to the quarry floor, the trail provided a do-able technical challenge through muddy puddles with rocky paths through them, but was not waymarked particularly well. Hard to complain when the whole section felt like less than half a kilometer though.

Heading back up out of the quarry, I was aware that I hadn't seen the start of the multi-user path that exists to link the two quarries. Met a nice guy on a Marin mount vision from ~99 who pointed me in the right direction. The path was fireroad width, gravel, and all up hill out of Lee quarry. The rain became heavier and the path I was on eventually came to a T junction. 

With no signage in sight, I decided to go left, trusting my internal singletrack radar to lead me in the right direction. after a few minutes of relatively flat riding, the southerly path had looped west and became paved with bricks. The rain had really closed in and visibility was pretty bad. I saw a couple of other riders in the murk and headed more or less in their direction.

Both of these chaps were looking for Cragg quarry too so we rode together for a bit. After a while we stumbled upon a quarry, which looked like it may have been used for motocross riders. There was no obvious singletrack so I felt confident that this was not what we were looking for. My inner trail finder led me up a path to the north of the Quarry, through some huge puddles and away from my short term riding buddies who had chosen another path. I was near some massive wind turbines at this point and they were pretty noisy up close! 

The path became steeper, and more boggy, and just when I thought I'd have to turn back I came out onto a more well built path that I was happy to explore. 

After not long, I struck trail gold. There was some very definite singletrack, complete with arrows. Spot on! I'd found, more by luck than anything else, the Cragg quarry trails. I was really pleased as the trail was great, swoopy and twisty (technical terms!) and well drained. I suffered a nasty snakebite puncture about half way round though but fate smiled and the rain stopped so I could carry out the repairs. This made the fact that I carry a spare tube with me in my kit all the time finally worth it, but the lack of tyre levers made sure my hands had a good work out! The flim Halfords spare tube was exceedingly poor and made sure I treated my rear wheel with some respect for the rest of the day.

The views were pretty good, although not great and to be fair the trail was all of one flavour if you like, not much variation. What there was was a lot of fun though. A couple of laps would definitely have been in order if I hadn't taken so long to find it! I headed back to Lee Quarry and by this time the sun was shining once more. I met the other lost riders and pointed them in the right direction before enjoying the couple of mile high speed descent back to the first quarry. The final sections of single track were ok, and included some safe tables which would have been a lot more fun if it weren't for the cross-wind that day. 

Lee and Cragg quarries make for a fun ride and sessioning sections and a couple of loops of Cragg could make a full day out. In my opinion a really epic downhill section back to the car park from the top of the red loop would make sure this trail ended on a high. The current finale hints at this, but is over too quickly for my taste. The rain made this day heavy going so I was satisfied and enjoyed some cake on the way home with not long to wait before my first trip to the 7 Stanes.

I'll get you next time... Guisborough

I was really aware that I'd not been out riding for a couple of weekends.  Time had gotten away from me as it tends to do, with the multiple bank holidays and May being a very busy month for me in work.  With a free day coming up I hastily picked a trail from my list that sounded like it wouldn't be super hardcore so I could continue racking up the numbers.  The centre I selected was Guisborough.

Situated to the north of the Yorkshire moors, Guisborough was the longest drive yet.  The roads were pretty good though and the scenery as I approached the trail centre had me thinking it was going to be a good one.

Parking was free and the visitor centre looked nice, albeit closed.  There were a number of information boards around and some sculptures carved out of logs.  The wide fire road style path from the visitor centre to the forest passed little ponds and a playground, making this a great place to bring your kids for an afternoon out.  But would it be any good to ride?

Guisborough has a blue and a black trail.  As far as I could tell they share quite a bit of fire road, the blue being 100% fire road and the black featuring a fair amount of dedicated singletrack.  I checked out the big map of the trails before I set out so I had a clue about where to go.

Turns out I didn't pay all that much attention to the map in the end!  The trails start out with a hefty chunk of fire road, which magically feels like it's all up hill.  Nothing like the Marin trail initial climb or even the gradient towards the start of follow the dog but it wore on a bit.  The arrows were pretty far apart so I was worried I'd taken a wrong turn.  Ominously, I'd heard that the black was closed due to forestry works, but this normally means diversions or simply ignoring the signs.  At the end of the day, I've yet to come across forestry operations on a Sunday.

The weather forecast that morning was for wind.  It didn't disappoint!  The weather came in waves all day long, alternating between being a really bright sunny day and being quite grim, with blustery wind and driving showers. 

After a good while on fireroads with sightings of more interesting unsigned singletrack off to the sides, I decided to break the tedium by investigating some of these offshoots.  One led up to the top of a small exposed summit which was quite a slog with a bike on tow.  The elevation of this point meant I could see out towards the North Sea, across Guisborough and Redcar.  It was a great view and worth the climb.  

The weather took one of its miserable turns and I decided to carry on with the trail.  The weather cleared for a while and I carried on with more bog standard fire road (this time flat).  During the next shower I followed another piece of unmarked singletrack and found a cool but short bit of downhill with proper corners and drops.

Ploughing on with the main trail, I was convinced my arrow-following skills had taken the day off.  There were sill signs, but they were blank.  Disconcerting to say the least but I think this was one occasion where "black trail closed" actually means closed.  At least, unless you've ridden it before and know where you're going!

As following blank signposts wasn't getting me very far, at least my sense of direction saw me right and got me back to the trailhead.  I'd had a good ride and felt exercised at least but I was gutted about making a mistake and the map of the site showed me where I'd gone wrong, only a couple of miles in too!  I swear I followed the signage that was there though.  Nevermind.  Next time Guisborough, next time...

Zen and the East of England - Theford Forest

After about an hour's predictable A-road voyage from Chicksands, I was nearing Thetford Forest Park.  I passed a big airforce base before arriving at the centre and the small villages I passed in the car looked really interesting too.  I'd never been to East Anglia properly before and with the blue skies giving a certain springtime quality to the light, good weather, and a very open feel to the woods once I was there it had a similar vibe to holidays in France.

Straight away the centre reminded me of Sherwood Pines in its layout and approach to proving the visitor with facilities.  There was quite a drive from the road to the large naturally finished car parks, situated some way into the woods, with both a large grassy area for families and BBQs and a decent visitors centre and cafe with outdoor seating.  This area also had a cool piece of art showing all the layers of the earth in the area and some of the archaeological finds.

The bike was put together in short order and I immediately found the trail signs.  For a pleasant change the signage was excellent.  Occasionally it was hard to tell the colour of the posts apart but nothing like the worst offending centres!  How can it be so hard to make green, blue and black look different?  Perhaps mountain bike trails could do with taking a cue from snow sports and using symbols as well as colour to set the markers apart.  One for the future I suppose.

A genuine section of Black graded trail, get the body armour quick! Admittedly this stuff was in the minority

Thetford is really flat.  I pedalled the entire length of the trail almost from beginning to end!  The ground was undulating the whole way and the trails were pretty rutted but were dry and super fast on the day that I was there.  Don't get me wrong though, the trail was so much fun!  The bike flowed as I pumped and pedalled my way through the terrain, the sense of momentum was immense!  No idea whether it was by luck or by design but Thetford is home to some serious flow.  It was pretty incredible really!

As there are a few trails in the Forest, the family groups and people there on rental bikes seemed to have taken the hint and the red trail that I started on was pretty devoid of other riders.  I did catch up to people a few times, but more often than not they let me past fairly quickly.

There was a very chilled atmosphere in the forest that day

The trails seemed good for beginners because of the the lack of hills and the presence of some good flow but I was really aware that the more I put in, the more I got out of the tracks. Both the read and the black felt about the same to me in terms of how technical they were.  The red has a few machine made / heavily reinforced sections with little berms and small rollers, while the black felt more natural throughout.

I found it really easy to get 'in the zone' while riding at Thetford.  Perhaps it was the flowing, uninterrupted routes combined with the limited height gain / loss.  It was like I was riding on autopilot; just dealing automatically with the trails as they unfolded.  Mountain bike zen where nothing else interferes with your thoughts and  you're intent on the ride.  It was really nice.

One of the latter downhill sections, dubbed the Beast, was a rollercoaster ride of awesome that made me perk up and pay attention.  It had a natural singletrack feel to it, with mini bomb holes and roots you could catch air off.  Felt very old school and was over too soon.

Thetford is pretty out of the way and it's definitely not somewhere I would have thought to go if not for this project, but I'm 100% glad I did.  Hitting the red and the black together make this worth the trip.

XC wasteland - Chicksands

Alright.  29th April.  Chicksands.  Renowned dirt jump and freeride spot.  Listed in the Mountain Bike Trail Centres book, having both a red and a blue XC trail.

Turned up, sorted my bike and gear and rode across the road to the woods from the car park. Guy at the gate asks me for £5 to ride.  It's been pay to ride for a while although I was sure the XC trails were free.  More willing to help fund decent trails than I was to argue with the gate keeper I parted with my hard-earned and went into the park.

Honestly, I was expecting to see some signage at this point indicating the start of the XC trails. No chance. I stormed down a singletrack run to the freeride area.  Only to find all the wooden northshore trails had been demolished, something to do with how they were no longer insurable. The 4x and dirt jump area was still up and running though and was reasonably busy considering the time of day.

There are a number of things wrong with this picture

Having a vague idea of where the trails were I rode to the boundary of the park.  With the gates having been removed and replaced with a fence, imprisoning one and all within, I jumped the fence to get out into the rest of the forest.  There was a red arrow, part of the XC trail signage, just nearby so I followed it up to a T-junction.  No more signs to be seen.  I headed off away from the bike park, my internal singletrack radar set to maximum.

To cut to the chase, all signage has been removed on the red and blue XC routes, leaving them impossible to follow unless you've ridden them in the past.  There were red and yellow arrows on some trees, so I decided to follow them, hoping for the best.

This would have been fine but in places the arrows were horrendously obscure:

There is a trail marker arrow in this pic.  No seriously there is.

..or there were about 50 in one place:

Right, so.. eh?

Either way I think you'll agree this is not conducive to a decent mountain biking experience.  I followed the trails round, largely making up my own route and I did a good lap of the entire forest, although the quality of the trails were no more than footpaths really.  Right near the end I hit a nice hidden section that had flow, berms and a tiny drop, but this was way too little, way too late.

Something else got me thinking too; most of the jumps on the mini-DH runs in leading down from the freeride area were doubles, some with wooden kickers and a fair gap to the landing.  In short, there was barely anything for the beginner or novice rider at all.

Having ridden in France and Whistler, it's clear that it's very important for bike parks to create a situation  where riders can progress in a reasonably safe environment, and one in which beginners are welcomed and able to get involved.  Otherwise, where are the future riders going to come from?  And perhaps more importantly for a business with trail maintenance needs and insurance costs, where is your future income going to come from?

Whoever's in charge of Chicksands seems to be focussing on the DJ / 4x riders exclusively.  The freeride area is a complete mess with dismantled trails all over the place, with signs promising something else will be built soon. The mini-DH runs live up to their billing and are extremely short, making almost any other centre with similar facilities a better choice for this kind of riding.

At least it was a good warm up for trail number 7 later in the day!

Crucially, it seems the XC trails were purposely taken out of action, and by doing this the people in charge have done themselves out of a lot of traffic and good word of mouth.  A decent loop could be made in the woods and by adding a pay car park and doing away with the £5 per day charge the level of income would increase and better facilities / more maintenance and construction could be paid for.

The existing loop shows almost no indication that any real thought was put into its layout and many of the climbs and descents are straight up or down the slopes, meaning erosion and wet weather would be big issues.  Tracks that zig-zag the hillsides are more interesting to ride, hold up better to weathering, and remain more rideable in wet weather.

With the right people behind it, Chicksands could be a good little venue, it definitely seems to pull in the numbers, but I wonder whether DJ and 4x alone can sustain the place.  I was really disappointed that the freeride area had gone and with no sign of new sections being built to replace the northshore I feel that there's little there to occupy owners of big freeride / DH bikes or trail bike riders.

Putting that swiftly behind me, I was planning to make the most of the extra bank holiday and head over to trail number 7!

A Monkey's First Birthday - Cannock Chase

Sunday 17th April.  I'd passed through the surprisingly busy camping ground, coming towards the final couple of section of the Follow the Dog trail.  Putting in a few powerful pedal strokes to get back up to speed I manualled through the narrow gap at the side of a wide gate across the fire road and aimed the Coilair towards the entrance to the singletrack.  The trails were flowing well and my bike was running smoothly; suspension at both ends dealing easily with the man-made trail surface, allowing me to let the bike go at its own pace and stay off the brakes.  Shortly, I could hear other riders in the distance, chains clattering on the stays.  Were they about to catch up?  Not if I could help it.

Cannock is one of the most established and the best trail centres in the Midlands.  It's in a great location for riders from Birmingham and it not too bad for anyone within reach of the A50.

A red graded trail known as Follow the Dog was the main attraction here fro a long time.  A 7 mile loop, it was common to do a couple of laps per visit and all in all it was a good ride.  Nothing too dramatic, which was fair enough considering the lay of the land but to me the trail had been designed with some solid thought behind it, making it far more fun to ride than a certain other Midlands trail centre based in Nottinghamshire!

Exactly a year ago, the loop was extended to a full 15 miles with the opening of the Monkey Trail.  By all accounts this was a poorly kept secret, and riders on the forums had been discussing sections for a while before the official opening.

Bike store and hire at Birches Valley Forest Centre, Cannock Chase

I was super excited to ride the trail on that opening day, and the atmosphere was pretty good that day too!  Giant is involved with the centre in some way, I believe they supply the rental fleet, and trade stands were up for demo bikes and at least two places were cooking locally produced BBQ food.  A guy gave me a banana while I was on my way back to the car too.  Can't say fairer than that!

So I heard recently that it was coming up to the one year anniversary of the trail opening, and, despite wanting to broaden my mountain biking horizons a little, I felt that this was a perfect  excuse to hit up the Chase.

I'd worked to awaken my full suspension bike from its winter hibernation with some time in the garage a couple of evenings before and with the suspension fettled, the brakes properly aligned, and the whole thing cleansed of last summer's mud, it was ready to roll.

After my first ride a year ago I posted a quick review to moredirt.com, and here it is!

So 1 year on, how have things changed?  Importantly, the trail is still a lot of fun.  There are climbs, and while I imagine they are nothing to rival anything at the majority of Welsh or Scottish centres, there is always a pay off.  As I mentioned above, the trail crew know what they are doing here and by and large the Monkey trail single track has held up pretty well in the last 12 months.  I believe the centre was voted as the UK's favourite by readers of MBR recently, so considering the high level of traffic, the wear and tear to some sections is well within reason.

Work is going on at the moment to repair the trail in places, which is good to see.  I rode the Chase just before I started this list of Trail Centres, on a very wet day.  The erosion to the trails lead to a serious amount of large puddles which was a bit off putting but most of the surface seems to drain pretty well and the mud really didn't make too much difference to the ride.

One of the best views across the Chase, towards the end of the Monkey trail

My favourite sections are the two final descents on the Monkey trail, before it crosses back over the road and railway line to rejoin the Dog.  The last one in particular can be taken as fast as you like, it flows really well and has some nice roller / tables near the top and some sweet berms towards the end which I always try to go all out on, just in case anyone's watching from the fire road!

It's good to see a trail centre doing well and the main and overflow carparks were absolutely heaving as I was packing up in the early afternoon!  The weather helped and there seemed to be a cycling charity event taking place on the blue trail, which had clearly attracted more people to the forest.  Requiring a reasonable level of technical ability and fitness, and with a boatload of flow, I'd recommend every mountain biker makes some time to ride here.

Old School! – The Marin Trail

The oldest purpose built trail in the country?  Perhaps not, but it must be one of the more famous early mountain bike trails built in the UK that is still in regular use.

It’s fair to say I’m pretty familiar with the Marin trail, build in the edges of the Gwydr Forest at Llanrwst in North Wales.  It was the nearest trail to where I grew up and I’ve ridden it on a variety of bikes with a bunch of different people in all kinds of weather over the years.

As trail centres go, it barely qualifies.  Originally the car park was more of a layby although today the facilities have expanded to include a proper purpose built car park and... and, well that’s about it.

The evening before, following Llandegla and Delamere, I’d had to do some emergency surgery to my rear wheel using a vice.  Brutal but effective. It completely held up all day too with not so much as a hint of my brakes rubbing. 

The heavens opened as I was approaching and I sat in the car for a few minutes in the car park hoping the rain would go away.  Just as I’d built up the resolve to get soaked and had started assembling my kit, the rain gradually stopped and the sun tentatively peeked out.  It turned into a lovely day.

I love this view!

I may have moaned a bit about the first climb at Llandegla, but nowhere I’ve ever ridden has a climb like the fist one out of the car park on the Marin.  I’ve always ground slowly up it but it really is a killer, sit there and spin sort of a climb.

But, the reason this is all good is that the quality of the single track at the end of each section of fireroad climb is excellent.  True virtually all the singletrack is downhill, but is that such a loss?  Around 2000/2001 I’d ride this on a Marin B-17 and it was a great choice for this trail, light enough to climb but enough suspension to make the descents super fun.

I don’t think much maintenance is carried out on this trail but you know what?  I don’t think it has really suffered.  Other trails seems to get ruined with braking bumps and pot holes but the singletrack on this beast just seems to survive and it’s as rideable today as it ever was in my opinion.  It’s like some primal force is keeping it going, ready to welcome more riders.

This day, there were some signs that forestry work was being carried out and that a section (called Blue) was closed.  Being a Sunday I decided that I’d follow the original trail anyway and was rewarded by seeing the changes that have happened to this section.  The fir trees had really closed in over the last few years, giving the section a completely different feel, and likely helping with the drainage too.  Another big shock was the amount that the woods have grown in around another deforested area, just before a section called Endor.  In the past this areas was quite open with just some young trees.  I've seen birds of prey perched on the taller remains of old, larger trees in this section but today it felt similar to some other parts of the trail.

Aside from the final descent, my favourite section is the Dragon’s Tail; an undulating section with incredible views to the South West, built to follow a rocky ridge.  It can be a back-breaking ride on a rigid bike, and duly my back felt a bit worse for wear after.  If anything though I rode it just as fast as ever.

Same view, no face(it was camera phone only today, sorry for the pics!)

As usual I was glad to see Llyn Parc toward the end of the ride, knowing that just one killer climb lay ahead before a superb descent to the finish.  Had a really sketchy moment when my mind wandered and I got caught in the wrong place on some crazily muddy double track and nearly caused a high-speed close encounter between my face and a fir tree. 

All was good though and the last descent was just as good as ever.  In fairness some corners need maintenance but in the grand scheme of things the trail is technical in an old school sense so some deterioration almost adds to the charm.

Three centres in two days had made for a pretty full on weekend.  Back to the Midlands for a rest and work on Monday!

New School! - Llandegla

One of the newer trail centre in the UK as far as I’m concerned, Llandegla is somewhere I’ve ridden a few times on both a fully rigid hardtail and a big freeride bike.  It’s an odd place in that respect for me since I feel either way you miss out on something you would get from the other option.

It was a short drive from Delamere to Llandegla’s visitor centre.  The car park was rammed full and the sun was out.  Not bad for the beginning of April!  A chap was taking money for parking at the gate, he mentioned it was nearly always really busy these days.  That’s what comes of building proper trails in easy reach of some of the country’s biggest cities I suppose.

Chatted to a really enthusiastic guy in the car park while I was fitting my new cassette (bling!) who said he rode there a couple of times a week.  He had a pretty nice Trek full sus ride, probably quite well suited to the trail.  I was also told that the blue trail was worth a ride, something I’m still not sure about, as the red / black I was intending to ride isn’t what I’d call a tough trail.

Bike fixed, big smiley face in wonder of my now working gears, it was time to charge up the first slope out of the car park for a quick session at one of the skill centres.  These are new sections built at Llandegla to give people a taste of the skills they may need.  The first one featured some nice lines with small drops and some fun corners, and further along were a few sets of nice dirt jumps. 

The first part of the red / blue is a more or less uphill 4 or so kilometers.  Most of this used to be in the woods and could get really bogged down in the winter with mud.  Massive areas of the hill have been deforested though so in the spring sunshine the gravelly trail surface was spot on as I hauled myself to the start of the red / black single track. 

Looking East from the end of the first climb, awesome clouds!

The red is a trail in its own right, with black extensions throughout the forest.  Aside from the dirt jumps just about half way round I hit all the black sections, as they’re not tech, but really fast if you let the bike go.  Tech in a different way I suppose as the challenge comes from letting the bike go and taking the obstacles the singletrack throws at you.

Without trees, I couldn’t tell how much of the trail was new since the last time I’d ridden there, the view was great and the trail was good too, although ludicrously rocky with my hardtail.  You see, while a hardtail is definitely best for the hills, a full sus is by far better for the black descents as you can lap up the speed and go even faster.  Each time I go there are people on big bikes pushing up the hills.  Lets just say they do not have smile on their faces at that exact moment!  Can’t say I envy them.  A short travel full sus rig would be right on the money.

View to the West in the middle of the deforested area, trail begins to get good here as the memory of the grind from the carpark fades.

A wickedly long black descent later, and a nasty switchbacked climb and the bulk of the trail is over.  There was a super steep, super loose climb at one stage, which had me busting my guts to clean it to the top. The trail finished near the recently build pump track and a 4x course.  The pump track was full of about 10 kids on a mixture of bmx, 24” and 26” jump / 4x bikes.  Some of those guys had some nice style over the jumps and were good to watch.  The 4x track looked pretty big and I’ll take a more jumpy bike to the place soon to ride both, as well as the previously mentioned dirt jumps.

Storming around the very most final last bit of the entire trail, laying the bike down into a massive berm coming out from under the bridge on the 4x track my rear wheel hit a rock (probably it’s hundredth of the day) and made a nasty metallic thumping sound.  I knew straight away something had gone more wrong that it should have for such an innocuous piece of trail and back at the car the rim was indeed quite smashed up.  A 2” flat spot had appeared and one of the braking surfaces was bowed outwards quite a way.

Because everybody loves helmet hair

Becoming a well established trail centre, while it doesn’t have something for everyone, it’s pretty accessible.  Dirt jump / 4x / pump track riders could easily spend a few hours here, and I’d say it was worth an hour or so’s drive in that case.  For me, the trail seems like marmite.  I’ve spoken to people who love it, but I can’t recommend it as much as they do.  The first climb is too long and could easily have some single track sections along the way, the last few k back to the car park are equally poorly thought out.  The black descent in the middle of the ride is a lot of fun but, to me, not technical enough in terms of rocks and roots, size of the “jumps” etc.  Maybe I’m just hard to please?  Will any trail ever live up to A-line and Dirt Merchant?  I live in hope!

A great day out, a lot of miles covered, quite a bit of wrench work already done, and I was already anticipating plenty more before trail no.4. 

Always on the horizon - Delamere

Delamere was somewhere I never got go when I was just getting into mountain biking. It seemed just too far away from where I grew up to be easily accessible, but I occasionally heard stories of the trails there, jumps, mini DH tracks etc. So it feels like I've been meaning to ride here for years and years but for whatever reason never got round to it.

2nd April. A weekend riding lay ahead. Managed to get to Delamere mid morning after installing a new SRAM chain supplied by chainreactioncycles.com. Pretty unassuming car park, nice visitor centre and bike rental shop set up nearby. For an added bonus, the satnav took me right to it!

Parking was a bit steep but the weather was nice so my nicely cleaned bike and I set off to conquer the Whitemoor trail.  I'd barely got 200 meters down the road before I realised something was up.

The Hardrock - a second hand bargain to be thrashed, I'm impressed so far

My old chain was clearly really worn, along with the cassette and chainrings, and the drivetrain was just not going to work with the new chain; it was skipping like crazy, 3 or four times per revolution.

I really didn't want to take another bike round the trail and I didn't want to go and consult with the guys at the bike shop, just to confirm my mistake. But I had no choice really, it was that or give up the riding that weekend and fix the bike at home. I do not like giving up!

The obvious was confirmed and I agreed to take out a rental bike for the morning. It was a Kona Cinder Cone, new with shimano discs, decent kenda tyres, and a soul crushing 90mm stem and almost flat low-rise bars. No amount of adjusting made the bars any more bearable and the stem made the ride super sedate. The rock shox tora forks were incredibly under sprung. Riding with the lockout on full made them bearable (I'm guessing the lock out is really just ramped up compression damping) although brake jack was immense; they'd shoot through virtually all of the travel at the slightest touch of the front brake!

The most "hardcore" waymarked trail is graded white at Delamere and the white arrows on a white background were pretty hard to see, making me have to get right up to the posts to see which direction I had to go. Not the best!

It was 14k or so and all on fire roads. Looked like there was probably some nice singletrack in the woods but the centre desperately needs a proper waymarked mountain bike route. The topography of the place would lend it to some lovely singetrack and short northshore runs, just needs some decent investment in my opinion. As it stands currently there’s little to attract trail centre fans to this location.

The Cinder Cone in its natural habitat

In the northwest corner of the forest is a freeride / DH area which looked pretty fun. There was no way on earth my rental bike was up to this though so I'll save that for another day. Definitely will go back for that too, but not for an XC / trail ride until some waymarked single-track is sorted out. I can't impress enough how much this place needs a decent trail for visiting mountain bikers. I've heard such good stories about Delamere but without some exploring any decent singletrack is going to remain hidden. For me at least the appeal of trail centres is that you can rock up and be more or less guaranteed a decent ride (braking bumps aside!).

Another pretty big issue is sharing the trails with non-riders, whether this means pedestrians, horses, kids with stabilisers, dogs, people who think the best way to walk down a 15 foot fire road is as if they're searching for a murder weapon, 6 or 7 abreast. You forget how nice it is not to have to worry about that kind of thing when you're on dedicated trails like those at Cannock or Coed-y–Brenin and can focus on shredding the trails.

After less than an hour's blast around Delamere, I was back at the visitor centre. I'd been wondering about what to do about my own bike's gears and had after discussing a weekend-long rental, decided to buy a new cassette. Turned out to be 8 speed SLX, at a price that wasn't too shabby from Tracs, the bike shop at Delamere. It doesn't have a spider to reduce weight on the larger rings like an XT model but the rings are quite extensively drilled so I was pleased.

Loaded the orange beast back into my car and it was off to trail number 3!

The first step doesn't commit you to anything - Sherwood Pines

Decided to ride at Sherwood Pines today. The weather was looking a lot poorer than the early part of the week, but waterproof jacket in hand I made a not-so early start; it must have been 11:30 when I left the house after waking up with good intentions to get out and ride.

For the entire drive the time I'd reach my destination per the satnav was 30 mins or so too long. Even when I arrived at 12:15, the device maintained I'd be delayed until 12:45. And yes, the clock was set correctly. Weird.

A friendly guy in the car park who was leaving lent me his ticket, saving £3 in change I'd neglected to bring with me. To be fair I had been planning to wing it, due to the lack of change - something to remember in future!

Some mellow trails at Sherwood

The start of the red graded Kitchener trail was fairly obscure compared to the green and blue trails. The fact that it started from the opposite side of the car park to the more family oriented trails that I'd ridden before at this centre took some figuring out from the not greatly helpful map! In fairness I notices at least three really big signs in the car park after my ride that could have pointed me in the right direction, if I'd only looked about!

The trail itself was a pleasant surprise. The initial section was mildly downhill swoopy singletrack. Nice and flowing. The majority of the trail is on singletrack, but it's not very technical in my opinion. It seemed to be either well worn but flowing dirt, pretty rutted with a fair amount of black mud, or newly reinforced, as a few sections were.

Took my Specialized Hardrock trail centre machine with me today and it ate up the track. There are no real climbs to speak of but equally there are no real descents either. I'd imagine that's what an XC race circuit feels like, if I'd ever competed, and I know the centre does host events of that kind.

Towards the end, on a particularly slippery wooded section, my chain decided to give up the ghost. Not in the way some chains do, snapping and catapulting the rider away from the bike as the pedaling forces are unleashed with the sudden lack of resistance. No it just made a feeble kind of snapping sound, I looked down and thought the chain had succumbed to chainsuck (again) but it lazily slid off the chainset, as if exhausted from the effort.

The death of a chain, this is exactly the position in which it fell off!

I rescued the downed chain, slightly annoyed with myself as only yesterday I'd wondered why, as an SRAM chain, it had no split link and whether I should carry one as a spare. Well the answer is yes I should, although with my luck with bikes a chain will never snap while I'm out on a trail again with a split link handy!

Along similar lines, I always ride with a pump, tyre levers and a spare tube in my pack (and normally very little else) but for life of me I can't remember the last time I had a puncture in a remote part of the trail. Better to be prepared though I guess, as a 10 mile hike out of some trails would be pretty harsh!

I scooted and pumped the hell out of the rest of the track, which was a good technical work out just to keep the bike moving. Had no choice but to push up some of the flatter / uphill parts, but I was probably only 15 mins from the finish at that point.

Overall not a bad trail, considering there are no hills to speak of. Definitely worth doing a couple of laps of if you end up riding it, but personally, I need satisfying climbs and longer descents to put the adrenaline-fuelled grin on my face!

Most irritating bike part of the day: Specialized BG saddle, for creaking every time I even went near it. At least the chain had the decency to die with a whimper.

When a plan comes together - The List is born

Finished the first draft of the list this morning!  There are 69 trail centres or similar locations that I want to ride.

I'm calling it a first draft, as I'm sure it will change over the course of the next year and a half, what with it still containing places like the UK Bike Park and Esher, which I want to ride, but don't really fit the description of a trail centre and in Esher's case, has been ripped down.

I had to leave out a couple of places listed on the internet though.  Some sounded like they'd be very good to ride, but had no waymarked trails such as the Surrey Hills and Swinley Forest.  Other sounded epic, but again were not waymarked and would make a great basis for another series of rides, but not quite in keeping with this one, such as the Clwyd Hills and the Brecon Beacons.  Perhaps that's something to follow up on afterwards when I've got my big mountain legs back!

I've made a quick map in google maps too, to help decide which centres would be good to ride in a long weekend and which are going to take the most effort to get to.  For me the Scottish ones and the South coast will be the worst travel time, and are both areas where I've limited experience of travelling.

This week, I'm on leave from work, so aiming to hit up a couple of centres at least and get my full sus bikes services and ready for summer.

View = UK Mountain Bike Trail Centres = (fortodayweride.blogspot.com) in a larger map

Choose your own adventure - A new start

Spring cleaning.  Time to clear out your old things and chase the cobwebs form the corners.  The corners of your garage and your mind.

Today's Sunday and it's the first day of the year to have really great weather.  The birds are singing and there are wisps of cloud slowly floating past in a pale blue sky.  It's a day I've looked out for every year since I was a teenager, since I took up mountain biking and waited for the new summer riding season to begin.  It's the first day that you know winter's over and summer is coming, even if it still feels far off.

Smells like summer

But unlike any other year, I had a funny realisation this week.  In less than 7 days I'll be 28 and a half.  No big deal right?  Well it means I'll be 30 in 18 months and most everyone has heard of the idea of a cliched list of "things to do before you're 30".  Why 30?  Who knows...

So last Tuesday lunchtime I sat at work and thought, what DO I want to do before I'm 30? The seemingly popular bungee jumping, skydiving, backpacking round the far east and the like didn't really seem to appeal.  But one thing did.  More mountain biking.

I've been riding mountain bikes for a shocking 14 or so years.  I lived in Whistler for the summer 2005 season and had a blast.  Coming back to the UK and a full time job seemed to rob me of much of my time to ride.

I decided that this excuse was getting stale.  I quickly realised that something awesome to do would be to ride all of the UK's trail centres in the next year and a half, before I'm 30.

I had no idea how long it would take to put a worthy list together!  As of right now I'm about 50% through putting together a draft list of centres from Tom Fenton's excellent book "Mountian biking trail centres" and other sources.  I think I've easily got 60+ centres, so if things pan out it's going to be a busy 18 months!