So for all those regulars and not so regulars at FOD, you probably are very aware of Launchpad. It’s a very fun trail which has been battered quite a bit since it’s inception, and now it needs some TLC. The dean trail volunteers are running a fundraiser to get it resurfaced and back to its former glory.

Just wanted to give everyone here a heads up in case they wanted to donate! Here’s the link:

Donate to the Launchpad refurb

Good signpost – launchpad is a great little swoopy trail and is definitely in need of some attention!

Donated

Love that particular trail, but how do they fund the trails there ? Do they not get funded by the parking ? I always pay to park rather than park for free down the road, as I was / am happy to pay for the trails.

Why do we need a fundraiser for this? I thought money from carparking was used for the maintenance and building of trails.

The forestry commission runs the car parks, so the money goes to the upkeep of the forest in general rather than the trails.

Saying that they did donate £65k recently to refurb the Verderers descent, which was pretty good of them. The DTV are an exclusively volunteer run organisation, so if you appreciate the trails at FOD, donating to them is the way to go.

Done, great trail for the kids to learn on.

I pay for the parking, but have of course paid for this too. Well worth the donation.

How rough has it been on the lower half? I rode the top section on my full suss couple months ago then swapped with my Dad and Rose the second half on his touring bike – of it was rough I wouldn’t have noticed as I was too busy laughing my arse off.

It’s rougher than a badger’s arse.

I’ll chuck a shilling in the pot.

Saying that they did donate £65k recently to refurb the Verderers descent

which is a piffling amount compared to what cyclists have paid.
So a conservative estimate:
200 cyclists’ parking cars a week (mostly weekends)
5 years of parking fees (since any serious trail investment)
£5 to park (average)

That’s over a quarter of a million quid. 20% to run the scheme, still leaves a lot left over.
there’s probably an FOI about the revenue online.

Yes like I said, it was donated. The revenue generated from the car park is nothing to do with the trails. All the trails are maintained by the Dean trail volunteers who take donations from the public and occasionally the FC.

The one side of it is falling away this always has been an odd thing where the DTV do it for nothing and build great trails so worth coughing up or helping out.

The FC have the funds from parking for the forest, they run the 5 sites, it costs money to operate and staff, the tracks have had funding recently, and there is further work ongoing to make the Cannop Centre even better for biking, i think Launchpad gets hit most by a wide range of riders, it’s pretty beat up these days, especially at the top near the little jumps, which puddle up badly, then you have the braking bumps at the berms that are getting worse, and the natural erosion around the corners, so a bit of work needed to keep it operating.

Remember the top half is countdown, not launchpad, it is a more ‘natural’ style trail, so can live with the erosion and so on better.

I put a few quid in the pot, I see the collection is over £3k now.

Just bumping this as there’s an update and the fundraiser has finished now with £8,200 raised, amazing! The work is starting later this month which is amazing news.

Also, just to address some concerns that propped up before, eg:

Why do we need a fundraiser for this? I thought money from carparking was used for the maintenance and building of trails.

As well as investing around £80,000 last year to help resurface the Verderers descent, Forestry England have now invested a further £43,000 on top of the £8,200 raised for Countdown and Launchpad.

Oh, and one further nice surprise:

In addition to the £43k investment in the downhill trails that we announced earlier this week, we are also over the moon to confirm that Verderers is going to get some attention too.
Work will start tomorrow on the first big climb and decent, resurfacing and reshaping it. It’s had a lot of use and needs a bit of love to get it back to it’s best.
We are really pleased to say that @forestryengland have invested £25,000 in the work. These kinds of investments wouldn’t be possible without the income we make from membership and car parking charges so thank you to everyone who has contributed.

So it does show that FE are really quite invested in keeping MTB at Cannop as popular as ever, and you can now feel safe in the fact that the membership and car park charges do indeed get reinvested in the trails you ride.

(I am not a FE employee and in no way affiliated with them, I’m just someone who gets a little annoyed at the constant complaints about them when a lot of the time it can be a little unjustified that’s all!)

planning on heading there 10th April, so will be very interesting to see how it’s going/done.

It’s planned to take 2 months so it might not be open for when you’re here. Still plenty else to ride here though.

Bit of a shame, but yup, plenty of other stuff there 😀

Great news. Everywhere is taking a battering so it’s great that there is some money going into some upkeep 🙏

Hopefully they keep the muppets off so it can actually be properly completed and bedded in, will also be interesting to see what a lot of the beginners do without this trail, sheep skull or ski run?!

Good question Argee, they’re clearly a decent step up from Countdown/LAunchpad in terms of tech/roots and very very different trails completely.

You can always go up the push up path and do laps of Verderers final descent, so much fun.

Yeah, but since they fixed it last year i’ve never seen so many falls and injuries, never really thought of how bad a fall could be on a downhill berm (the ones near the bottom crossover path) until i saw some poor girl do it last year!

The problem on some of the trails in the FOD is not the trails its the bikes people are riding and lack of skills when the verderers first opened there were ambulances there every weekend it was crazy I think the AE at Gloucester were getting a bit peed off by it great place not been there since this lockdown even though I live in the same county.

I think the problem with the fixed Verderers final descent is that it’s so much quicker and jumpy-er than the rest of the trail that Blue riders get taken by surprise. It is great fun, but I’m not surprised people get caught out by a skills shortage!

what a lot of the beginners do without this trail, sheep skull or ski run?!

Got to be sheepskull / flatlands surely – I find ski run quite a bit more difficult. Mainly the sort of slow speed drop sort of bits make me think. Only done corkscrew in the dark with a slightly rubbish head torch but that seemed a bit tricky too.

Beginners would be better off in Dowies normally – although I understood it’s ruined by logging at the moment which is a shame.

Doeys is all totally unofficial (and thus technically illegal trail building anyway) so wouldn’t be on peoples radar to disappear 5km down the road to find some off piste, especially a noob, when most people who ride FoD consider the old Mini Enduro trails within the park boundaries to be pushing it, in terms of exploring 🙂

It’s also under a load of logged trees & likely to stay that way for the rest of the year. Well, the easy flow stuff, anyway.

Sheepskull may be the next step up from countdown and launchpad but it’s a very big step up. I’d suggest doing freeminers before Sheepskull to get used to the roots and ruts.

Dowies would be perfect for someone looking to up their skill but yeah, it’s a no go currently.

I should image the clowns on their surron electric Mx bikes will have a field day on this unfortunately.