Mrs FD will be living near Oswestry for 6 months for work.
I will be popping down every other weekend or so with our 7yr old son.
Am I better taking the road bike or mtb for local stuff ?
Obviously Snowdonia is not too far away so some weekends it will be the mtb, but where's good to ride?
Also what else is there to do in the area for a 7 yr old?
Ta
Ah Oswestry, nearest town to the Gold run DH races BITD.
Check out Nantmawr quarry, no idea what exists there now.
Llandegla forest 40 mins away. Stuff around Llangollen and I'm certain there's some stuff to the south of Wrexham
Long Mynd is about 40 minutes away.
Look here on the section called The Ceiriog Valley and Llangollen.
http://flattyres-mtb.co.uk/route-guides/north-wales-mtb-routes/
There's nothing at Nantmawr now, well at least there wasn't a couple of years ago
loads of good off road riding locally, in fact you could ride from town to good stuff with only short bits of tarmac. i could point you at some of teh good bridleays and riding bits that i know.
Stooge cycles are based there.
for a 7 year old, there's park hall farm, oswestry show - this weekend, chirk castle, swimming pool with wave machine etc at plas madoc near Ruabon, pontsycllyte aqueduct, rafting in llangollen, llanrhaedr waterfall.
it's mostly outdoorsy stuff, my in-laws live there, we like it but it's a bit out of the way.
Loads of riding around Oswestry good local scen loads of built trails that you can link up with Llangollen too. Oh and tons of riding in Llangollen. Forget about llandegla!
We're doing a 100km XC ride in a couple of weeks, and you're welcome to join us if that's your bag. (It's actually 2 50k loops so you can always bail after the first one!)
Thanks for all the input.
It will just be the odd hour here or there between family stuff. All sound promising so far!
My parents moved there about 10 years ago so we visit occasionally (as any dutiful son should) - i usually ride the BW out to the west of the town. Lots of wilderness (or wilderness feeling) areas. It's the only part of the world where even i can get a KOM!
Would be interested in some ideas on where to local for more 'challenging' riding than just the wide open tracks - as good as they are.
Get yourself up the racecourse, some nice tracks in the woods, take a walk through there and you will see the tyre tracks. 25 min ride out of town and you have some nice riding. I think they have finished all the logging now as well. There was talk of getting some proper trails built as there has been a bit of friction recently on some of the trails, however, not sure what's happening on that front.
Craven Arms has the best indoor play place I have ever seen. It is adult sized and you are encouraged to play too. The drop slides are genuinely scary. My kids had to be dragged out after more than 3 hours.
We have nice 45 mins to one hour loop from town. Big tarmac climb followed by some sweet cheeky single-track through the candy woods. Happy to show you. It's my favourite descent to do bar the marin. Ducking and diving through trees.
Or there is the ceiriog-valley and berwyns nearby which you can pedal to from O-town. Good riding. Or Degla down the road. Hopton is an hours drive.
..some great wilderness riding up above Rhydycroesau over to Treceiriog to Lanarmon DC, then back above Glyn Ceiriog..loads of trails to choose from. You can ride in the Berwyns all day and not see a soul, although you do get the odd moto-crosser at the weekend...have a look at "Best Mountain Bike Trails in North East Wales" (Bikefax Mountain Bike Guides) for some good trails..
I'm going to be up near Oswestry visiting the wrinklies soonish, will take a look at some of those.
And I've managed to prise them away from eating at Sweeney Hall...