Hello,

I’m looking at relocating from North Wales to Loughborough area for work, and I wondered what the biking is like? I’ve been down there a few times already with the cross bike, and there doesn’t seem to be much riding around other than roadying….

Given that I can currently ride Snowdon from home, I’m not expecting it to be up to that standard, but please give me a little glimmer of hope!

Cheers

Toby

The woods near Whitwick and woods up around Beacon Hill and Swithland are okay, you can link these up to make a 30ish mile loop(with a little road between)or ride them individually. Nothing spectacular, not compared to what you’ve got at the moment.

Cannocks not far away. and the peaks.

Some reasonable riding in a fairly compact area as per PGreen’s comments. Not all ‘obvious’ riding at first glance though. There’s some altitude at least, which is better than most of the Midlands 🙂

I’ve been tipped off about bardon hill nr coalville by a friend but not been there myself yet. Dunno if anyone else has been there off here. But it’s not a million miles away from loughborough.

Cheers all, much appreciated.

I’ve had a mooch around Beacon Hill, and some of the woods around there, and it seemed better than expected. It’s more the proximity to the Peak that helps. There isn’t a lot of altitude though.

Thanks again,

Toby

The best stuff is a bit cheeky, and some places you may get a bit of whingy walkers and the odd ranger telling off. But keep it low-key and all is good.

Obviously not as good as where you are coming from, but the outsiders I have taken round my local trails have always been pleasantly surprised. But think XC singletrack and the odd play spot rather than gnar.

The bonus is good road links to get to better places.

dibboid – Bardon Hill is half quarry. There is a footpath that runs to the top, which could be a fun descent. The quarry owns all the land around it and may not be too welcoming to bikes. so keep it discrete. 😀

Has anyone got any .gpx files of the routes they take to help find the cheeky bits. I’ve lived in that side of Leicestershire all my life and still don’t know where to look.

Ridden Bardon(Good View off the top). Its part of the ride I mentioned earlier that links Beacon/Swithland with Whitwick. Nothing technical about that, its fast though, so quite fun. That route is known as ‘the three peaks’ around these parts I believe.

As mentioned above, lots of cheeky, just be discrete and friendly and most people will be alright.(Ride like hell if they arent.)

Feel free to drop me an email and I can send you links to the best bits to ride!

Has anyone got any .gpx files of the routes they take to help find the cheeky bits. I’ve lived in that side of Leicestershire all my life and still don’t know where to look.

Really!!???

I would try looking at an OS map, look for the bits that aren’t houses and aren’t fields.

Oh! And go very early in the morning/at night, that way you won’t ruin it for the rest of us.
http://www.cheekytrails.co.uk/ethics.htm

@PGreen.

You can do a fairly techy and twisty descent off of Bardon (actually on the proper footpath). It is interrupted by a fence, though.

I agree entirely, though – nearly all the decent riding in the area is cheeky, but only a few amateur fun police seem to mind.

Just keep it discrete, stop and get off for walkers, be polite etc, and we should be fine.

Hello Charnwood-ites.

Seeing as this thread is fairly recent, I thought I’d use it for a PSA.

Out tonight on my cheeky night ride around the area I have noticed a lot of ‘locked back wheel’ evidence. I doubt it is people that reside on here, but getting the word out can’t hurt.

The fifth commandment of cheeky states ‘skids are for kids’. I am really hoping we are on the brink of a cracking summer, so let’s not balls it up now. If it is kids, there’s probably not a lot we can do, but please don’t add any visible evidence if you can help it.

I’ve noticed a fair amount of trapping in the area as well. I move what I can as far off the trail as I can. Let’s make sure we stay on the (morally) right side of cheeky and don’t stray into blatant.

Sermon over. Let’s have a great summer.

Another L’boro biker here.
I was in N Wales 2 weeks ago cos the riding here in pants!
TBH it’s not too bad…as pointed out by others, the cheeky stuff is the best but don’t rub non-bikers noses in it. Whitwick Woods has a good flow to it but it will be nothing like as good as you’re used to.
Cannock and Peaks just over an hour away though…email me if you’re out and about one Sun if you like…can show you the decent ride-based boozers are 🙂

I was in loughborough yesterday, didn’t see any hills or mtbs, just lots of chinese lads on hybrids. Maybe that’s the trend to follow round there. 🙂

dannyh, I’ve seen the same in Swithland woods and to be honest it is kids or more likely the Rad Freeriderz who seem hell bent on making a mess by locking their wheels after everything little drop.

Also, I have seen some relatively big groups of lads who, how can I put this, sort of give the impression that they might be new to the sport so they might not be aware of the Rules of Cheek.

Last time I was at swithland 2 full on idiots came hooning round past the fenced off quarry on non branded bikes skidding as much as seemed humanly possible. I wasn’t impressed and was met with complete blankness when I suggested they learnt a proper braking technique.

We have very little round here as it is and fools like this will end up ruining it for us.

I must admit, Swithland Woods does seem to attract a high ratio of groups of ‘tards in tracky bots on Halfords specials that have no idea what a helmet is. With the lack of ‘proper’ gear is a lack of technique and how to be cheeky discreetly – sadly they spoil it for the rest of us 🙄

Always the same in school hols – fervent digging with me dad’s spade, cans/bottles everywhere – then abandoned until the next school break!

I’m less than a mile from Cademan, it’s drying up slowly after the wettest I’ve known it for 15 years.

Go early/late, avoid big groups as it’s all cheeky and be chatty to the locals – most of them are friendly-it’s good local fun, but avoid the all pervading dog toffee 🙂

I don’t think you need to go early or late for swithland, spoken to many officials on rides who seem cool with our activities, skidding idiots will of course make them rethink that position.

For what it’s worth I hate living in this barren land!

There are legal routes through Swithy woods (anything marked with Horse Track) but the good bits are cheeky. I would encourage early/late riding but it’s probably not as critical as some of the nearby areas.

Anyway, you’ll have a better ride if you go when it’s quiet anyway.

I’ve been caught many many times on the cheeky bits, your initial attitude will determine if your asked to leave or allowed to carry on In my experience.

I do always ride solo though so that helps.

Braggy park is a completely different story! Those rangers are brutal.

Those rangers are brutal.

Same set of rangers… 😉 Bradgate park Trust “manage” (I use the term loosely) both.

However, they are only brutal if they catch you (which they won’t if you go outside of 8am to about 7pm on the weekends.)
They also are very reluctant to leave the comfort of their Landrovers.

I lived in Lboro for a decade and in the end I just got fed up with the limited MTBing and got a road bike! I was out 3-4 times a week.

If I had to go back I’d get a CX – theres a good few loops on the sustrans/farm tracks out to Derby and Nottingham. And the roads are much better as they’re nice and wide and there isn’t that much traffic.

It starts getting interesting just North of Derby, so you’d have about 20-30 miles to ride out to any hills from Lboro, which kind of means you’re in car range.

Drop these guys an email – http://www.lsu-cycling.co.uk/ there’s usually some kind of weekend trip going on, and students generally don’t have (reliable) cars, so you get biking mates and free petrol 😀 Some of them might be quite quick though…

The way I see the current riding spots is:

Swithland Wood seems to be semi-legit. I know for a fact that rangers in Bradgate Park have directed people on bikes out of the park and down to there deliberately. Although the intention may have been to direct them only to the bridleways. The main problems here seem to be amateur trappers dragging sticks and logs across tracks and amateur fun police making the odd comment.

Braggie Park is the worst in the area for conflict. I only ever ride it on evenings now. There are no rangers after about 7pm and the users seem more chilled out in the evening compared to the professional dog-walkers you get sometimes. The rangers are also actually very reluctant to get off their backsides and do anything (as said above).

Beacon Hill is mostly ranger-less. You still get the odd amateur trapper and fun police. I apply the same restrictions as Braggie Park to myself with the exception that I will ride it in bad weather as there tends to be no one about.

Cademan and Gracedieu have the best riding in the area. I have seen some amateur trapping, and been spoken at once, but the walkers here are generally a more relaxed lot (I find walkers near the ‘posher’ villages are correspondingly more arsey). The ‘over the road’ bit (after the ‘brap yer mum’ graffiti) is private woodland. The thing I thought was a car park (built a couple of year back) is actually for loading logging trucks. I spoke to one of the blokes who was putting up the fence to find this out. It would be a shame if you couldn’t ride through onto the bit of woodland as they have no chance of keeping the kids from the estate at the side out, so why would they need to keep us out?

Bardon is cheeky, but I’ve never had any problems here. There is some damage to the fences (probably kids trying to get near to the edge of the quarry). This is the single biggest problem I can see at Bardon. If some idiot ends up falling into the quarry, then they’d probably close down all the ROWs on the hill.

Just keep it polite, cheeky not blatant and we’ll all be fine (although by the sounds of it I am preaching to the converted already).

dannyh, bang on but braggy is fine before 8am on the weekends too in my experience. But I am an early riser.

I think we have met btw…I ride a Black Ragley Blue Pig…

Have a look at http://www.natsmtb.com , an East Midlands based club who ride all over the area. There are a few guys around the Loughborough area and the club ride was around Whitick woods a couple of weeks ago

Dave

BillOddie. Yes, orange genesis core here.

We traded phone details, but to be honest with work and kids, my ride times vary a lot! The only times I tend to do planned rides with others is either with a couple of mates from uni in the Peaks or Yorks, or on shop rides with flattyres (based out of Chester).

I’ll probably see you out and about at some point. It’s quite rare on summer night rides not to end up tagging along with a group for a bit.

Good to know there are ‘regulars’ still out and about enjoying the limited stuff we have. I’m now at the point where Leics stuff works much better as a night ride due to the familiarity of the trails.

We’ve been riding up Bardon Hill for 20 years and only ever had one confrontation (just a miserable old women saying you shouldn’t be up here). Most of the stuff around Coalville is cheeky (Holly Hayes wood, Cademan wood, the quarry etc.

There are legitimate trails around the Beacon and Swithland, but they’re not that exciting. Find Moat Road in Loughborough and follow the bridleway up to the beacon.

There is also Martinshaw woods near Ratby, Ticknall in South Derbyshire and Hicks Lodge near Ashby. It would be a long ride out to Ticknall from Loughborough including a loop around the bridleways, so if that’s too far, you could always drive to Hicks Lodge, do the loop there and then ride out to Ticknall.

The last 8 months of Sommesque conditions have resulted in Martinshaw being basically unrideable I’m reliably informed.

I’ll check next week assuming but it has been no go for months.

If you are after any routes/info on the local area then just drop me an e-mail (in profile) been riding the area for 9 years and have collected a ridiculous number of gps tracks for the area and have ticked off every wood I can see on the map in all directions.

Riding is not that bad, the only people I have had issues with are the rangers in bradgate and outwoods so I just avoid these areas (unless night riding). Otherwise a firendly hello and easing up near other people keeps everyone happy.

I’ve just seen some no-mark ride a motorbike to the tankard in Braggy.

It seems I can forget all the responsible mtb riding preaching, some pillock is going to screw it all up for us. There were loads of folk around with cameras as the clear evening seemed to have caused some kind of photography gathering. Just effing brilliant.

I have no right to be angry, but I am absolutely seething!

It was a beaut of an evening up until that point as well.