Hi all – I’m after a bit of advice as to where the best place to park around Cannock is to get on the trails at night? I’m not going off piste, but I assume the Birches valley car park closes after dark?

Dropped pin
near Marquis Dr, Cannock WS12
https://goo.gl/maps/tBLvjziwpjK2

Try that. Marquis Drive. Usually gets a few people driving past so chances of your car getting broken into should be less than the one at the bottom of the monkey or the one at Tackeroo.

From there you can join the dog and head onto the Tackeroo or bomb down to the monkey the other way. This thread will now automatically turn into a debate about parking charges. 😀

Birches Valley closes pretty early now teh days are short.

Either Marquis Drive or Tackeroo are your best bets.

As above, Tackeroo car park is unlit and out of the way so I don’t know if I’d fancy leaving my car there.

That said, marquis drive is fairly popular with scrotes hanging around in corsas eating KFC and smoking herbal cigarettes, but at least it’s lit. As are they.

Marquis is least dodgy for getting your car broken into as it’s relatively busy with bass bins. Don’t leave anything in your car you’ll miss either way.

What about leaving the car in Rugely? It’s only a short road ride to the visitor center from there.

We usually park in milford and Ride over, gets the legs warmed up, cars are safe and you can have a beer when you get back 🙂

Tackeroo always seems fine to me; just riders and dog walkers seem to use it, no yoofs double parked in cars being daft.

Do many people get their cars broken into then? Never ridden cannock at night before but was planning it for this Thursday, was just going to park next to water works at start of the monkey

There’s been a few at the waterworks.

As others have said Marquis Drive is your best bet.
Depending on how the ‘locals’ are behaving you have the added bonus of a Police car driving round occasionally.

There was a big thread from a regular on here who had his car broken into at the bottom of the monkey and had another bike nicked and a load of clothes. Can anyone find it?
I have also heard about cars being broken into after Dark at the tackeroo one.

There’s regularly broken window glass on most car parks, easy pickings and little chance of being caught. Same for flytipping.
Horns Inn?

Interested to know if there is anywhere decent to park at night.

Out of interest do people ride a trail centre on their own at night or would that be silly?

I’ve been all over the chase on my own after dark, trail centres or not… there’s phone signal pretty much everywhere, some nights it can actually be surprisingly busy out, so I’ve never been particularly bothered.

Usually more bikers than doggers, and that takes some high numbers.

Been out loads on my ownn in the dark, it’s great fun. Often happen upon deer feeding in the undergrowth which has never happened on the trails in the daytime, to me at least.
Maybe we should organise a group night Cannock ride?

I finished up a loop of ambergate and black rocks by going up black rocks in the gloom and coming down in pitch darkness on Saturday, on my lonesome. Slightly spooky!

Especially since over the summer up there I came across a group of guys stood in the undergrowth jumping up and down and chanting some sort of tribal sounding lyrics…. it was very odd.

When I ride at night it’s normally solo. I don’t do it often, though because I don’t massively enjoy it. I get ‘the fear’ accompanied by light runtime anxiety, so end up riding with my lights on the lowest setting to make sure I’ve definitely got enough juice left, and it makes it less enjoyable.

I ride from home though so at least parking isn’t an issue.

Horns Inn?

just flash your lights and wind the window down

Ride on the Chase a couple of evenings most weeks, some nights it seems busier than a Saturday afternoon. As others have said, Marquis Drive is probably your best bet for parking. We normally ride to Seven Springs, then either explore or go over to FTD from there. Not sure I’d recommend parking at Seven Springs though.

Isn’t there a barrier on Seven Springs now?

Definitely wouldn’t park there after dark…with all the dog sh!t around there I’m reluctant to ride round there too 😛 lol

There is a barrier, they closed it a few times towards the end of the summer, but I’ve not seen it closed since. The “this car park will be closed at…” signs are blank.

Yes, dog sh!t corner is best avoided.

you all saw that didn’t you guys, you can all park at Prawny’s house for free. 😆

off piste

night skiing cool.

jekkyl – Member
you all saw that didn’t you guys, you can all park at Prawny’s house for free.

You know, I did think about offering, but there’s no room for parking in my cul de sac unfortunately. Could maybe park by the park at the estate round the corner, but I’d have thought that wouldn’t be much better than Marquis Drive.

Thanks for all your help! I parked in Marquis as suggested, and I think half of the midlands MTB’ers were there too!

One note is deer are scarily huge when they appear on the trail in the dark!

Wicked, where abouts did you see them?
Several times I have seen they’ve always been around the same place.. high voltage and all that bit from where the monkey leaves the dog and down to the steps.

Is Marquis Drive just a road or is there a parcark off it?

Marquis is just the road at night. There is a car park, but it’s not free and it closes at dusk.

I’ve seen deer all over in the dark, I was riding early one morning and I stopped at the end of Snow White to wait for a mate, I heard this weird low growling sound – nearly shat myself – and spun round to see a huuuuuuge here if deer just off the path. Proper scared the crap out of me for a sec.

Also seen them on Rock n rollers and a muntjac near watch out trolls.

Marquis is a road that’s a 3 car widths wide, plenty of parking either side.
Do you reckon you say it mar-key or mar-qwis? like Newquay.

I’m not a funny talking local ..but the way I read it is Mar-kiss 😀

Better than some of the locals.
Heard it called Marcus Drive, Market Drive and various others….

If you climb back up the wiggly hill from Birches Valley at night there’s usually loads of deer about there.

Well it’s proper name is actually Cank not Cannock. Ay it.

Here you go:

While the proper French pronounciation is mahr-kee or mahr-keez, the English pronounciation is mahr-kwiz. In our modern day language, both are essentially correct pronunciations. The form “marquis” is French in origin and pronounced substantially “mar-KEY.” The English form is “marquess” and pronounced “mar-kwiss.”