MTB trails: Follow the Dog, Cannock Forest, Staffordshire
June 17, 2009 by Coop Dogg
Filed under Cycling routes, MTB, Off road
Whilst this trail is in the mainland UK, we like to give you ideas for MTB trails further afield than just the Isle of Wight.
Start: Birches Valley Forest Centre, Cannock Forest , Staffordshire
Finish: circular
Effort: 4 out of 5
Distance 7 miles
Marked route: yes
OS Grid: SK018170 http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/getamap/
This single track route tests your skill rather than your speed and is aimed at the intermediate and experienced rider. The trail courses takes you through an 8,700 acre beauty spot, whilst avoiding sensitive terrain elsewhere in the Cannock Chase Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
Tight twists and turns along the way can be expected on this route.
Families and leisure rides an choose less challenging routes which start out from Birches Valley.
Follow the dog was named by Gary Galpin of Chase Trails, by the way in which his Jack Russell dog led him through the route.
MTB trails: Deadwater Mountain, Northumberland
June 17, 2009 by Coop Dogg
Filed under Cycling routes, MTB, Off road
Whilst this trail is in the mainland UK, we like to give you ideas for MTB trails further afield than just the Isle of Wight.
Bike trail, Kielder Forest Park, Northumberland
Start: Kielder Castle Forest Park Centre
Finish: circular
Distance: 9.5 miles
Effort: 4 to 5 out of 5
Marked route: yes
OS Grid: NY632934: http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/getamap/
Description: Two single track trails with some superb views of amazing countryside in Britain. Deadwater red grade trail or the tough ‘up and over’ black grade trail will take you across the 1,900 ft summit of Deadwater Fell, which straddles the English/Scottish border and gives you a 360 degree view from coast to coast on a clear, fine day.
Coed y Brenin
May 29, 2009 by Tim
Filed under IW Cycling News, Trail Reviews
Trails away from the Island/The South?
Well yes! Although there are some good local trails, its always a bonus to ride something new, more challenging and well…different.
So how does Coedy stack up? Its one of the the older trail centres in the UK, and one I hadn’t ridden before, so it was a good time to find out.
So first things first, you need somewhere to stay:
Accommodation:
Can’t say too much about this, because I’ve only got experience of the site that we stayed at. We stayed at the Trawsfynydd Holiday Village Log Cabins, which are nice, if a little small and a bit strange/disturbing in a cutesy-this-could-be-your-nans-house kinda way. But clean and spread out enough that no-one seemed to mind 3 of us with a few beers and a stereo, and enough secure space for bikes and kit.
The cabins are about a 5 minute drive from the Coed y Brenin Mountain Bike Centre - you can ride there but its a main road which seemed more like a tarmac special stage so we opted to chuck the bikes on the car. There’s a few back road routes to the centre that we spotted on the map, but we never got round to investigating them, and to be honest no-one had the legs to ride home anyway.
There’s also a nice local pub on the site, which serves a really welsh ale – nice enough that I can’t remember what it was called 
The Trails
Not a complete review I’m afraid – we were only up for the weekend so didn’t have chance to ride everything on offer, but tried to get a good mix of stuff in, with emphasis on the more technical trails on offer. Woke up on Saturday morning to beautiful sunshine and clear skies – First one on Saturday morning was…
31.1k and 700m of climbing (19.3 miles and 2,300 ft), or if your like me, a bastardisation of the two systems.
Ranked as a Black ‘Severe’ trail, and makes up a part of the larger “The Beast” Trail. Due to limited time, and local suggestions, we opted to ride the shorter route of Dragons back and save ourselves for another route in the afternoon – that and none of us wanted to do more climbing than absolutely necessary.
The trail starts abruptly with a singletrack run purely over rocks named Badger, which quickly rattles you into the groove and gets you concentrating, that slowly turns into a singletrack climb as it reverts back to earth, winding its way up the hill. Not too bad and gets the legs working early on. The trail carries on like this alternating between singletrack/doubletrack climbs and some brilliant twisty descents andsoon enough you start to gain a fair bit of height, with the odd surprise of a couple of steep road sections. At the second such section there is a nice looking cafe at this point, complete with bike stands and rammed with bikers, but we didn’t stop in, opting to keep going and keep away from any bunches of riders on the descents.
At this point the trail changes, and starts to gain a lot of height on a fire road, which at first is encouraging, until you get to the top and realise that it also looses a fair bit of height on said fire road – annoying after all that effort, but I guess the trail builders have to work with the terrain/tracks they have, and it does gain you a fair bit of altitude and is worth it for the next section – the Addams Family. This is a series of 5 trails (Gomez, Morticia, Pugsley, Lurch and Uncle Fester) and are VERY good. Mixture of out and out rock gardens, singletrack, with the odd drop and short climb mixed in gardens, its well worth all the effort. A short climb then leads you into Pink Heifer – a long rocky singletrack descent with lots of twists and turns and lots of opportunity to carry speed.
The trail then reverts back to another long fireroad slog, before dropping back down through some ace, if short, descents The Beginning of the End and Glide which leads you back to the carpark, and then through Lifes Good, which contains a section of deep, steep and twisted tree roots that probably catches a fair few out and is a challenge to ride at speed, dumping you back at the Visitor Centre.
8.7k and 170m of climbing
We opted to do a shorter loop in the afternoon as some of us (mainly me) were feeling quite wrecked and cramped.
Temtiw is basically the last 3rd of Dragons Back – so if you read the last paragraph ^up there^ you’ve just about summed it up. Only the climb was a little bit more knackering this time out, and the descents a bit faster and with more bravery
202.2 k and 460m of climbing
On Sunday morning we headed back down the road to the Visitor Centre to do the Tawr trail, which takes in parts of the original Red Bull trail, and hence is a bit of a classic.
The trail starts with a long fireroad and double track climb that drags you up the side of the valley, taking in some epic view along the way, and eventually leads you to the Heart of Darkness, a tight and twisty fast singletrack section. A short fireroad section takes you to 3 short fast rocky descents known as Snap, Crackle & Pop – the last two of which you can easily circle back to repeat – a lot faster the 2nd time!
At this point the bearings in my rear wheel decided to collapse, completely locking the wheel – I’d been suffering badly with tired legs and cramping muscles constantly since we started riding on Saturday – I’d put this down to poor fitness , although it turns out this probably wasn’t helped by dragging round a partially seized rear wheel – I’d waived off the noise as a dragging rear disc brake. So I resorted to carrying my bike the 3 miles back to the visitor centre (in SPD shoes – blister time!) and left my compadres to finish the loop. Their review was that there are some excellent and quite harsh rocky descents, but a lot of height was lost on lacklustre trails/fireroads which was frustrating after a lot of climbing.
18.4k and 410m of climbing
After an extended lunch break at the visitor, patching up myself with help from the rather lovely reception girl, and my bike with the help of the Coedy bike shop and a molten credit card (New Hope Hoop is all you have left?…oh go on then…woo its clicky), the MBR trail was next. Like Tawr, this trail takes in some of original sections from Coedy’s past, and also shares some sections with Dragons Back.
You start by climbing out of the visitor centre on the rocks of Badger, but it then separates and heads off up to a fairly heavily logged area of the forest, with a long initial fire road climb, intermixed with some surprisingly rocky, and brilliant, short single track sections through Brutus, Cain, Slated and Abel. A double track climb then leads you into False Teeth, a nice rocky singletrack, and then to more singletrack at Bugsy.
You then descend back to the bottom of the valley, and here it follows the same final section as Dragons Back. Loooong climb, and then some superb descents.
So, worth the nigh on 600 mile round trip from the south coast? Yes indeedy. Its brilliant to get out of your normal riding zone and push things a bit on really well made trails. You can ride to the edge of your talent envelope, and push it a bit further. The only thing that slows you down is bravery – there’s plenty of opportunity to carry speed with good high berms (man made and natural), and lots of natural woops and jumps, but you do need to pedal, so the gravity only pack need not apply.
Mid to long travel forks/bikes, big tyres and good brakes are advised, if only to let you ride faster for longer – arms and legs get battered over the rocks and hanging on to your brakes will pump your forearms up in no time – I was on an On-One 456 with 140mm Pikes, 2.4″ Schwalbe tyres and 8/6″ Avid Juicy’s, and it never felt out place, so full sus isn’t essential…I did have a mighty sore arse though.