Follow the dog - Cannock Chase

Randomer

Hi all

Anything on Follow the dog at Cannock that would trouble a relative new comer?

james-m-h

no not really there is one big up hill, and as long as you stay of the monkey trail to youve gained expercience and stick to the red route you will be fine

cooldad

Apart from bears, wolves and psychos with chainsaws?

angry_bird

Nope. If you take it sensibly you'll be fine, if you go racing off and trying to go too fast you might come unstuck a bit, but it's a fairly easy trail to just ride. There's a couple of bits that might be a bit daunting, but there are alternatives.

Randomer

Sounds good then, got two weeks leave coming up and wanted to give it a go.

Think I'll avoid the numerous DH runs they have there though

paul.skibum

I don't think it will take you two weeks either.

Randomer

You haven't seen me ride!

Another quick question, is it membership only? or can you pay on the gate, if you will?

angry_bird

Randomer wrote:

Another quick question, is it membership only? or can you pay on the gate, if you will?

Eh? Turn up, pay the parking £1.50 for an hour, £3 for more (you'll want more), go ride the trails. There are other places to park the car but it's not uncommon for cars to be targetted in these areas. At least at the FC car park there are always people around.

Edit: £3 for more than 1 hour, you can stay up until 23.59 if you really want to, although the gates are locked at 9pm.

Randomer

Cool. Figured it was a fairly nooby question, but their site mentions membership so figured id ask.

Will see about getting down there next week i think.

ElliesDad

I'm a noob too and find FTD fine, been round half a dozen times so far and confidence and skills getting better every time. I'm thinking of getting over there on Tuesday morning for a spin round if you want someone to ride with! As long as you don't mind riding with someone slow and unfit!

Gizmodo

Don't bother paying for parking, park at Marquis Drive, WS12 4PW for your sat nav. There's a visitors centre there and always plenty of people around.

There are less obvious signs at the start, but you only have to go a few yards in to pick up the Red arrow posts.

See http://app.strava.com/rides/18022603 for my normal parking spot and the route (not my fastest time).
Put it onto Satellite view and zoom right in, you'll see all the cars parked on the road and the entry point to the trail.

paul.skibum

Gizmodo wrote:

Don't bother paying for parking, park at Marquis Drive, WS12 4PW for your sat nav. There's a visitors centre there and always plenty of people around.

There are less obvious signs at the start, but you only have to go a few yards in to pick up the Red arrow posts.

See http://app.strava.com/rides/18022603 for my normal parking spot and the route (not my fastest time).
Put it onto Satellite view and zoom right in, you'll see all the cars parked on the road and the entry point to the trail.

Or pay for parking and actually put some money into the forestry's pockets to make them see that mtb has a place on their land and benefits them so they continue to expand the network. There is little enough reason for the FC to allow biking on their land as it is, if they dont make any money from it there becomes less.

Personally I think we should all acknowledge that if we are getting trails to use purpose built for our bikes there is a cost associated with those trails and we might at some point have to pay for them.

I do trail building days here in BC in payment for my use of an established network of trails in our local parks. If those trails were run by the land owner I'd be happy to pay a small fee to use them.

waby1234

+1 I second that, always pay the parking.

I take the view that I'm using and benefiting from the forest, so I'm happy to pay a relatively small amount to ensure maintenance and access continues. It's great value in my opinion.

stanny_uk

there nothing too bad on the monkey if you ride within ya talent zone.. a newby could easily do it if sensible. i did!! first time out... some nasty horrible switchbacks to go up i found them the worst bit when i first started.. not the downs..

The Rookie

My daughter (who is normally a very girly girl) did the Dog on her old CBR attack, 19" (I'd built it for her for road use, it was too big for her off road) with cheap shonky steel Suntour forks, she loved it, the only thing 'good' on the bike where the tyres (cheap tyres don't grip the wet shale very well). Just take your time planning your route at the technical sections before going for it.

As she loved it so much I've now rebuilt it for her as a new 'real' MTB (Scott YZ3 frame, Suntour XC60 forks etc).

graham_tillett

You should try it on a single speed, thats fun!!