Morning All,

Off for a ride at Cannock this coming weekend.

Never been before. What is the riding like? Hilly, flat, both?

What do the conditions tend to be like? Claggy mud, sandy, other?

Are there facilities on site?

Good facilities, flat course. My advice would be to do as many laps of the monkey trail bit as you can. Follow the dog isn’t the most exciting trail IMO.

One of my favourite trail centres actually, they’ve done fantastically well with what elevation they’ve got. Can be a bit ‘greasey’ so be aware lol.

Don’t be expecting long rocky downhills but instead enjoy some sweet old school singletrack!

Monkey is far from ‘flat’ (Dog is flat, Monkey has a fair bit of elevation)

Ok its not epic hills but there is 4 decent switchbacked climbs, short but quite sharp
Was there Saturday, conditions are okay, lots of braking bumps everywhere, bit muddy in parts (mainly on older Dog sections) but generally okay
The local stones used in the surfacing are really slippy though especially at the moment, I was struggling for grip in places, makes it a bit more exciting

Birches Valley – £3 parking all day, cafe, toilets, Swinertons bike shop, bike wash, visitors centre, go-ape, official start to trails

Marquis Drive – £2 parking (or free on verge), cafe (better cafe than Birches in my opinion), toilets, joins onto last section of FtD trail

Style Cop – No facilities, start of all downhill trails

Oh and gets quite busy at weekends, especially round Birches Valley sections

Hi mate I was there on Friday, and it was brilliant fun. No epic climbs like White level but really fun fast twisty singletrack. Bit greasy but well worth a visit!

I’ll be up there on Sunday, will be blasting a lap of the monkey trail and messing about over at the DH stuff. Only done the monkey a couple of times, was brilliant fun though, some nice fast swoopy singletrack.

It does get really busy at weekends, if you’ve not been before probably best to park at Birches Valley.

Cheers guys 🙂

Monkey is far from ‘flat’ (Dog is flat, Monkey has a fair bit of elevation

Depends on your definition of “fair bit”. The climb before the nice swoopy bit takes 10-15 mins? I did like monkey though, just needs to be 4 or 5 times longer!
The majority of the trail is follow the dog though and I found it a little boring (no offence to regulars). Maybe I’m a bit spoilt!

The climb before the nice swoopy bit takes 10-15 mins?

10-15 mins???
Are you riding a Unicycle, backwards?
no climb on Monkey is more than 10 mins, even for me

The majority of the trail is follow the dog though

FtD is 7 miles
Monkey is also 7 miles

FtD is quite flat and boring, apart from the last new section through Tackeroo which can be fun but is badly cut up on the berms now. Personally though I also find huge chunks of Monkey boring as well now, apart from Upper and Lower Cliff, the switchback climbs and the cheeky link I use to cut out some fireroad
The whole section after the first Monkey downhill and back to Lower Cliff is just padding really, including the original Monkey Trail section
(but then Ive riden it probably about 20 times already this year)

Park in Birches Valley Forestry Centre, they have a cafe and wash facilities. Conditions should be pretty good now we have had a fair dryish spell, tends to be sandy more than claggy.

Whole ride is 15 miles normally take me about 2 hours and that is plenty for me! I have made some vids of all the best bits so this should give you a vary fair idea.

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=5F64F5466EA94593

FtD is 7 miles
Monkey is also 7 miles

Crikey. It must have been that FTD just felt a lot longer.
So the monkey climb is ~10 minutes, personally I don’t tend to time myself.

me neither but I cant ride for more than 10 mins without needing a breather and I can do the climb without resting halfway 😉

I like the Monkey but can’t ride it too often as it does get boring. The lower cliff descent is awesome 🙂

The lower cliff descent is awesome

Is that the bit across the train tracks/road?
If so, I agree. You can properly hit all of the jumps/drops with a degree of abandon. More like this please cannock! 😀

Yeah it’s the last one before you head back over to the birches valley side.

Was there on Sunday – ground conditions are pretty good if you bear in mind we’re in the middle of winter. Enough mud to make it interesting but not claggy enough to cause big problems. Some parts were fairly dry, but some (short) bits were manky.

I’m sure you’ll enjoy yourself.