Chicksands XC trails – easy to find/follow?

Thinking of heading out with my 9yo lad for a couple of hours tomorrow & as Chicksands is only 45mins away & I’ve never had chance to go, thought I’d give it a try.

We’ll only have a couple of hours there so I don’t want to spend the whole time searching for trails and faffing about, so I wondered how easy the trail heads were to find and are the trails well marked? Presume best place to park is the Bike Park carpark?

Any tips or advice welcome – thanks.

Well, depending on your point of view – they are either very easy, or very hard to follow.

Quite simply there are no XC trails.

But dont let that put you off, have a go on the Dual cross course. Its brilliant fun and completley ridable.

There are some rollable twisty single track bits worth playing on.

Its a tiny patch of woods so you wont need a map or directions. Park at the northern end of the woods, not in Chicksands.

Worth a play given your so close – I find it addictive and live 2 hours away. Most fun Ive had on my bike since the Alps.

There are a couple of ~ 3mile XC loops at chicksands, easier to find if you park at the official car park (rowney warren?) not the bike park site- the loops start out from the car park.

http://www.moredirt.co.uk/trail/East-Midlands/Chicksands—XC-Trails/26/

If you park at the Bikepark car park you’ll get charged for the pleasure as apparently its only for users of the fenced off Bikepark.

Park at the FC Rowney Warren car park for free on Sandy Lane, straight across the road on to the xc trails (not waymarked), although someone made an attempt to do a route via sprayed on arrows red & yellow route.

However the woods are absolutely full of trails from wide easy to follow tracks to singletrack tucked away. You will easily find your way around as your never more than 10 mins in a straightline from the edge. You will be easily able to use up 2 hours there , enjoy!!!

I read that they were no longer there due to issues with getting access from the FC ?

If your son is 9 he’ll probably get most fun inside the bike park, and its good for adults too.

The £5 charge is well worth paying, without doing so through gritted teeth, the place is well maintained IMO.

There are 2 Xc loops, marked with coloured arrows on trees (either red or blue) the red route is a surprisingly hard work out. Is about 5miles (from memory, visited last month and rode this with a local) with lots of short very steep climbs. Is a very good warm up.

Most fun is had from the dual track and 4x track, suspect a 9yr old would thoroughly enjoy both. Neither are intimadating and all parts of the tracks can be rolled.
There is also a pump track to find, which works well but often has standing water (has been built below ground level so suspect will always suffer with drainage issues).

No north shore remains which use to be a fun part of chicksands, the DH track is pretty mental and beyond me.

Hope this helps.

Trimix: they ain’t “officially marked trails”, but trails are there and access is permitted. just follow your nose.
(£5 fee isn’t worth paying imho, but BFT won’t be there during the day so you won’t have to pay it 😉 )

Also woods to the shefford side of Sandy Lane are officially out of bounds to cyclists, but again no one will bother you if you decide to ride a loop there – the warden doesn’t arrive till 6:30pm.

Finally: you can also spin along the bridleway over to Chicksands wood (check a map) and ride up the singletrack (thru the gate, turn to the right, follow your nose and ride back down on the forest road) .

enjoy

just a thought: check sportstracker – many loops I & others have ridden are visible there

Cheers all, sounds like there are plenty of options.
Just need the weather to co-operate now!