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While they finish off the trail build I saw somewhere that some of the trails are closed. Is it worth the visit at the moment? We were planning to go this weekend but don't want a long drive there to find most of the trails are closed 🙁
FTD has a couple of sections closed and Phase 2 is about 4 weeks off - so unless you go exploring north or south, then save your petrol tokens till April 17.......... When the journey will be WELL worthwhile !
There's so much(better)riding than FOTD,but you need localknowledge,or a guide.
Iwouldn't travel too far for FOTD,even when it's all open. You'll have better local trails .....hopefully.
As above to an extent. I'm part of the creators of FtD but wouldn't travel miles just to ride FtD. The Chase has a lot to offer.
It makes a good basis for a longer ride if you can get a local guide.
We have 2 sections closed at the moment which have diversions in place and on 17th April will have the new Phase 2 trail launch meaning that FtD has a more interesting big brother!
Stu
www.chasetrails.co.uk
The whole 'locals only' clique at cannock is begging to annoy me.
FtD is lots of fun, and pretty good for taking parents/friends out for a first time or some tame mountainbiking. But can't someone just post up a map with the start of various trail sections marked?
As your from reading have you seen any of the maps of MTB map of swinley ?
ie this one
Have you then tried to follow them ?
Im not really sure its worth the effort.
It's not really a 'locals only clique' is it though? Just locals who ride there more have a greater knowledge of where to ride! i.e. good trails that were ridden before the creation of ftd, there are tons of them and they are spread right over the Chase, I couldn't find half of my favourite tracks on a map or google earth, I just know how to get to them when I'm riding certain areas!
Go explore, cross a few roads and see what you find!
Never actualy made it to Swinley, probably should at some point........
Either way, why has no one ever posted up/compiled a set of similar maps for Cannock? If someone asked me where the cheeky tracks are in the local woods back home I'd happily tell them how to find them, Cannock just seemd to have developed this "give a local a nudge and a wink in the car park" which on the Chase could lead to something else entirely!
Its not just a cliquey thing.
For example, there are many trails which come and go (can't be ridden in winter - too muddy and slippy, can't be ridden in summer - overgrown with bracken) there are trails which are too delicate to be ridden when wet, so we tend to keep off them until it's dry and dusty (like last night) and there are trails that get rediscovered just days before the loggers go in and thin the whole place out. (Like that fantastic one at the bottom of tackeroo that I rode for the first and probably last time last night.
thisisnotaspoon- If folks hook up with locals then they will be shown stuff, simple as that. Posting positions of illegal trails is just wrong and most local riders cant read nor write anyway.
It's not just about 'illegal' trails either, it's just not really possible to describe where things are! Imagine trying to direct someone to a specific trail down into Sherbrook from in between Brocton and the Hendesford road somewhere when their only point of reference is Birches Valley cafe!
Shit, I even pick the wrong track down sometimes and only notice half way down when the turning I'm looking for doesn't appear!
thisisnotaspoon, apologies if my reply sounded cliquey, it wasn't intended to at all. The fact is very much as people have mentioned above. The Chase is a tricky place to describe trails within being a fairly anonymous FC tree farm in many places.
One of the reasons behind Follow the Dog (with the trail being conceived by me and a friend some time ago) was that around 8 years ago I was seeing a fair bit of interest on the forums for the Chase but there seemed to be a lot of references to people turning up for the first time, bashing around fire roads and leaving feeling disappointed by the quantity of trails here. Follow the Dog was intended to to provide a guaranteed ride for people regardless of whether they could successfully navigate their way around or inquisitive enough to find the aray of cheeky trails.
From an official point of view there is a hope that by having a waymarked mtb trail pressure will be taken off other sensitve areas of the Chase where over the years mountain bikers have earned (mostly unreasonably so) a bad reputation. The Chase is a very small place in reality and having 00's or 000's of riders turning up with gps logs or maps linking together unofficial or technically non existent trails would not only wreck what are in the main deer tracks but also raise the negative profile of mountain biking and jeopordise what is currently a very accepting and welcoming attitude that our particular FC team have towards cyclists. This I can see would come across as cliquey but is a fact surrounding our situation.
I have to say i went there once and a group of locals showed me round with no quibbles.
Id have to agree with Big John though if all the trails are shown to all riders they will get hammered and ruined within no time.
😀
I started riding in the Chase back in 1995 when I first came home from uni for summer with my shiny new student loan purchased cannondale (Thanks Alf Jones of Wrexham!).
Having started my mtb 'career' on the Berwyns/Clwyddians (including a pre trail centre llandegla-anyone remember 'muddy valley?) I was very dissapointed by the seeming lack of singletrack. I bashed around on fireroads for a few weeks, until I started to notice little singletrack sections all over the place. forward 6 years to living in Brum, I could do a whole day's worth of riding 90% singletrack up there. It took me that long to find it all and there was loads I'd not tried.
It was very hard to try and describe routes to people, as is the same with any type of local knowledge, so I just didn't bother. I'd happily show people round and give them pointers but tbh half of the fun was 'discovering' it all.
At least nowadays there's FTD and the soon to open new trail, but be adventurous and explore. Now I live in Hants that's what I do when I venture up to Swinley. A few years has now seen me able to stitch a fairly good ride together but again, I wouldn't be able to tell you what I'd ridden or how to get to it.
I suppose one solution would be GPS waypoints for start/finishes of good sections? At least that would give people something to follow initially.
Went to swinley yesterday, and hands down the Swinley way of doing things wins.
Ok so the fact you can be riding down a dead straight trail and suddenly find yourself confronted by a shear 12 ft drop, with a 6ft one as the chicken run might not be the FC's idea of health and safety, but it is rather awesome and certainly upps the learning curve a bit!
I do love Cannock, but Swinley is just mint!