Local knowledge - The Forest of Dean

I left Cwmcarn and drove up to the Forest of Dean, arriving at the Cannop cycle centre early afternoon.

I was impressed to see the facilities on offer - a decent shop, cafe, bike rental and DH uplift service, topped off with a very full car park!  It was so full in fact that parking had extended up the fireroad to the right of the main parking area.

The Forest of Dean has a range of DH trails, as well as two waymarked trails, the blue Verderer's at 11km and the red Freeminer at around 3km.  As I'd already hacked my way around the Twrch a couple of hours earlier, I chose to do the harder of the two first.

Both trails start right next to each other and the Freeminer is made up of a small number of a relatively short singletrack sections.  Some looked like they were recently constructed, while other looked like they hardly saw any use at all and were quite overgrown, including thorny briars running at head height across certain boardwalk sections, which I stopped to remove.  There were a couple of small berms and rollers, but ultimately this trail felt only a step or two above a ride around your local woods.

The Verderers trail takes in a little more fireroad to start with but the route quickly turns into a mostly purpose built single track trail.  This trail is graded for more inexperienced riders and the surface is mostly of the man made and more heavily groomed variety so a full sus is definitely not required.  The woodland and the way roots feature in the trail reminded me of Thetford, but with more significant climbs and somewhat less flow. 

Aside from a nicely designed loosely switchbacked climb there were no overly technical or stand out sections at all until the final downhill run.  But this final run was worth the effort!  Stacks of berms, rollers, and table tops meant that I couldn't help but get airborne and had to throw in a few whips and old-school X-ups on the way down.

And I liked that last section.  It was fun and appeared well made but safe; the type of trail that you get more out of the more you put in when it comes to speed and technical ability.  However it just makes me question the rest of the blue trail more in comparison.  When held up against the final downhill run, I felt that the entire rest of the trail was thoroughly dull and should basically be avoided (instead take the fireroad up to session the last blue downhill).

The obvious popularity of the centre measured by the crowds present means it must be doing something right and I suspect this is on two fronts.  On the one hand the DH trails and uplift provide a great facility for the gravity-oriented crowd and on the other hand the blue provides a varied introduction to mountain biking, with a somewhat-out-of-place awesome final section. 

The Forest of Dean is renowned as a venue that is brimming with singletrack you can only find with local knowledge; otherwise it's easy to get lost.  If you were a relatively experienced rider planning to stick to the waymarked trails but looking for a longer route outside of the DH runs, you would be better off looking elsewhere, especially with some of the South Wales centres nearby. Introduce a 16-19km red graded route, a pump track and more suitable parking to deal with busy days and we'd really see a fully-equipped venue.

That said, I'm looking forward to my next Forest of Dean visit with the Downhill bike in tow!