Best Trail Centre?

DCR00

I couldn't give a monkeys if its a trail centre or not. Time on my bike has to be booked in so I dont really care if its a trail centre, the important thing is its time biking. My fave place to ride is Antur Stiniog.

Cookeh

Of my limited Trail Centre experience (Cwmcarn, Sherwood, Cannock, and FoD), I thoroughly enjoyed FoD - the blue (Verderers?) is an excellent 'XC' trail and arguably much more technical than the Reds at Sherwood/Cannock (my locals). Can't wait to see what the expansion and the 417Uplift just down the road adds to the scene.

rockmonkeysc

Something is wrong if there red trails which are less technical than verderers. I like verderes, its a good fun trail but it's not at all technical.

Chunkers1980

Depends how fast you go. You're clearly slow.

rockmonkeysc

Going faster doesn't make it more technical. A blue trail is a blue trail no matter how fast you ride it. The features don't suddenly appear or get bigger.

ilovedirt

Trails get more difficult to ride the faster you ride them, obstacles appear faster, it's common sense.

rockmonkeysc

But a trail doesn't become more technical. A simple trail ridden fast may be more difficult but not more technical.
On verderers it's just berms and rollers. Very easy to ride scary fast on the final descent. There are a few jumps but they are so friendly to ride, never harsh.

Cookeh

I agree, Sherwood and Cannock should be downgraded - but as it stands they are reds and they are less technical than Verderers by quite some margin imo. Also may not be that technical for you, but it is for someone who went there on their third ever mtb trip :P In hindsight, is it that technical? No, not really, but for someone inexperienced, going faster than they have ridden before, on a new trail, I found it pretty technical!

Ryan Jones

By virtue of how rutted it is, and how liable you are to wash out on a load of gravel mid corner, I'd say Cannock is more "technical" than the red route at Llandegla, which is like a lovely magic carpet in comparison. Only thing more difficult comes through the likelihood of becoming airbourne at 'Degla in my books, you have to make a deliberate effort to do so over Cannock.

Penmachno & Coed Y Brenin do the techy stuff better for me though, jagged rocks ftw.

Myster101

Out of the few I've been to Whinlatter is my favourite, good mix of most things on the three trails. Decent facilities and an adventure playground for the kids, which the wife can take them to when I'm off biking

Going there tomorrow as it's only 20mins away.

Cookeh

Cannock has had (and is still having) its trails revamped, fewer ruts, fewer massive 'potholes' in the corners from people slamming on the brakes.

paul.skibum

To my way of thinking evolution of a trail is part of it being used - if a trail becomes more tech as a result of a bit of use that should be allowed to happen or the trail should be built to not erode over time in the first place.

Trail centres give you a sanitised view of riding - great fun for the day and odd visit but if that is all you ride you are missing a lot - I hate to sound like some kind of "natural" riding evangelist but there is so much good stuff out there that might actually warrant those 150mm big travel trail bikes you owe it to yourselves to go and explore.

Festerfeet

I think you are all very lucky having so many places to ride in a relatively safe environment. There are no officially sanctioned trail centres in China. There are attempts to put together races on agricultural land but they tend to only survive a few years at most as land sales are the currency that is fuelling local government modernisation.

I am not complaining as there are advantages to this, including the chance to ride in mountains breathtakingly beautiful that have never been touched by MTB-ers.

It would be nice occaisionally to just turn up on prepared trails with facilities like bike maintenance, showers and cake shops just to see what it is like.

I read a lot in the news about the negative things happening in the UK so it is great to hear about the positive things like new trail centres opening, expanding or being planned. I celebrate the fact there're so many people willing to give their time to a recreation that is both good for the soul as well as the body.

Enjoy what you have and help make it better, if every rider gave up a couple of days a year to trail maintenance and building you would have even more opportunities to ride what you want.

Thewaylander

FOD = less technical than Cannock elevation doesn't make techincal.

personally my favourite trail centre is Cwm my local, one of the few trail centres that leave most of the natural rocks and wear in place

rockmonkeysc

FoD less technical than Cannock?????
The easiest trail at FoD is less technical than the most technical at Cannock but there are several red trails at FoD which are technical enough for downhill races to be held on them regularly.

welshkev

For once I agree with rocket monkey. FoD is 100% a blue trail and there's nothing technical about it at all.

It is great fun though

Thewaylander

RockmonkeySC wrote:

FoD less technical than Cannock?????
The easiest trail at FoD is less technical than the most technical at Cannock but there are several red trails at FoD which are technical enough for downhill races to be held on them regularly.

There are several DH routes yarp. but the XC routes are pretty simple affairs, most people here are talking about xc trails not DH stuff for the most part so i left it at that.

lostboysaint

Coed-y-Brenin. Great variety of riding, loads of trails, some off piste stuff if you get a friendly local to show you.

rockmonkeysc

Thewaylander wrote:

RockmonkeySC wrote:

FoD less technical than Cannock?????
The easiest trail at FoD is less technical than the most technical at Cannock but there are several red trails at FoD which are technical enough for downhill races to be held on them regularly.

There are several DH routes yarp. but the XC routes are pretty simple affairs, most people here are talking about xc trails not DH stuff for the most part so i left it at that.

Even the red xc trail at FoD is more tech than the red at Cannock. Cannock is the third most boring place I have ridden (Swinley and Ashton Court are more boring)

lostboysaint

Yep, I don't get the love for Swinley. It's an ongoing "discussion" I have with someone on another forum, it's just like a road ride.

cooldad

Obviously not everyone is a super gnarrly DH god.

It's close to civilisation, has enough variety, especially off piste.

And did I mention it's close to civilisation?

I wouldn't travel hours to get there, but as a back garden it's not bad.

ilovedirt

I found cannock quite tech, but in the wrong way. Trees super close together, some fairly steep rock gardens in the black offshoots with flat corners at the bottom, and did i mention the super tight trees?! Made for some slightly scary riding, especially in the pissing wet. It wasn't the sort of tech I enjoy though, it felt more like the only reason it was difficult was because the trails had been badly built. And then there was the unending pedalling between the (few) good sections. There were one or two descents near the end that i remember being fun, that was about it though.

rockmonkeysc

cooldad wrote:

Obviously not everyone is a super gnarrly DH god.

It's close to civilisation, has enough variety, especially off piste.

And did I mention it's close to civilisation?

I wouldn't travel hours to get there, but as a back garden it's not bad.

Swinly is close to Slough, surely that's a big enough negative no matter how good the riding is?
The trails are so boring though, Swinley sucks hairy dog balls.

Chunkers1980

WTF ^^

Riding a mountain bike is riding a moutain bike, it's what you make of it. If you put more effort into getting there then you expect more out of it.

rockmonkeysc

Swinley trails are flat and featureless. It's nice to ride a bike but everywhere else I can think of to ride is much more fun, even Cannock is better.

declan1

Golspie is great - don't know how it compares with trail centres down south though.

Cqc

But if you do the swinley trails flat out and non stop the can still be fun. Slow and gnarly is my preferred trail type, but ' flat and featureless' is still fun if done mega quick and non stop ( ie blue plus red loops in 1:30 hrs)

rockmonkeysc

Swinley is no fun at any speed. Even the cafe is sh1t

welshkev

Riding a featureless trail fast isn't always going to make it fun.

I guess riding what's available is always the main reason people ride places like swinley (I've never been)

But I have ridden Ashton court and it was ok to kill some time, but I wouldn't go back unless I was wasting time to meet someone again. I did 3 laps, tried going as fast as I could and it was still pretty dull

On a similar note - how far is swinley from sunbury?

cooldad

welshkev wrote:

Riding a featureless trail fast isn't always going to make it fun.

I guess riding what's available is always the main reason people ride places like swinley (I've never been)

But I have ridden Ashton court and it was ok to kill some time, but I wouldn't go back unless I was wasting time to meet someone again. I did 3 laps, tried going as fast as I could and it was still pretty dull

On a similar note - how far is swinley from sunbury?

Lazy farker