Hi All

I posted up a couple of months ago about moving into the Bromsgrove area and asking for advice on routes and areas to ride.

We’re now happily settled in to Catshill and I’ve had chance to sort out a nice little 10-12 mile after-work loop.

I’m looking to try out the Lickey area now but could do with a little guidance. Someone to ride with and would be nice too.

Anyone with any pointers or fancy showing me around one weekend let me know.

BTW We still haven’t got a reliable internet connection at the new place so I’ll be posting up infrequently. My email addy is in my STW profile if anyone wants to share some trail gems in private 🙂

Cheers

can you not go a little further afield and try some of the clent/wyre forest riding?

Wyre is shirely not worth messing with for at least another month (of dry weather!)

Used to do route this from clent when I lived in Brum, lot of road work to link it togther, but you could it from section 4 as it’s Wood lane in Fairfield (lane after pub in explaination).
Lots to be done at Clent but I’ve never explored it that much

Will be out Wednesday night, email in profile

I was in the wyre yday and it was surprisingly dry in places, in fact I was astounded with how dry it was!

Wyre and Clent are on the list to explore definitely, but at the moment I’m really enjoying riding from home as I’ve never been able to before, combined with a trip or two a week to the Chase and I’ve been pretty busy, but I’ll get around to it.

Cheers Rocketdog, will get in touch.

Golfchick interesting, are the trails are badly cut up as FB group suggests? (Tbh I know the trails will flatten out again)

yeah the top section around button oak is ruined but once you get towards 3 bears, camber and the caravan run its just the usual wyre dried out mud effect.

Zippy’s above link is what I tend to ride from Birmingham so I can get out quickly, you can easily link it in to Catshill just pick it up out of Fairfield, or go up Doctors Hill. You could only be 500m from it depending where you are exactly.

Strava link if you want a map rather than just the instructions: https://www.strava.com/activities/259056411

Clent village and you want Vine Lane, past the Vine Pub (tempting but believe me you don’t want a pint in you on this last section). The next bit of road is St Kenelms pass, which is a bit of a bitch. At the top of the pass, turn right back to the car park.

even more of a bitch but much more fun is the off road route at the back of the cottages, much more fun downhill when coming in the opposite direction (which i do & still climb via the deer farm)

There are plenty of pretty dry options in Wyre. Not everyone rides in the valleys and chases the streams down during winter. Had an hour or two in there yesterday, great fun and not much bike cleaning to do.
Why the sudden panic on social media I have no idea though. Bikes, horses and people, let alone the forestry workers all play their part in the cycle of Wyre winter mud. Happens every year.

Is this the “bring official #mtb trails to the wyre” thing that someone on FB has started? A Huge mistake imo

Utterly agree RD.
There almost seems to be some motive behind it which I don’t get. ( possibly commercial ?)
Two of my FB friends ‘ liked ‘ the page. They have since been ‘ killed’ and now form a temporarily less soft base to a muddy puddle 😉
It just needs leaving alone. Riders , walkers and the horsey set can work it out between them.

Yep, once a “cycle trail” is built, there will be an excuse to ban bikes from everywhere but the trail. You can imagine the reception that got in the group, it’s either a commercial thing, a cunning way to get bikes banned or stupidity

I agree on the ‘official route in the wyre’ idea being a terrible one. Its all about evolving trails and modifying our routes when the weather is particularly bad and I pass that opinion on to anyone who I show around. I tell everyone the wyre forest has its own micro climate and its totally true. Where some places are dry you can go there and its a completely different ball game

Last thing I want is an offical route, rode 23 miles of glorious natural single track there today, it’s lovely over there! Drying in places I haven’t seen dry in ages.

The Wyre is so quick at the moment, even I’ve managed to pick up some Strava top 10’s, and a load of PR’s in the last couple of days! 😯

Make the most of it whilst it lasts, it will only take a downpour or two to go back to its old self…