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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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