Tour de Trail Centre! 19/9/13 to 25/9/13 . . . . Day 7

[jonnyboy666]

a little while ago i decided to do another roadtrip, now that i have hit my 18 days off (shift work has it's good points!) i have just got it booked, well the accommodation anyway!

so, here is the plan!

me and my mate Adam are gonna be hitting these trail centres on these dates, would be happy to have others riding with us so if you're in the area and fancy a ride post up on this thread and we'll see if we can meet up.

i'd recommend a full suspension bike for most of these places if you haven't ridden them before, i'll be using my Orange ST4 and my Orange Patriot, Adam has a 2013 Marin full suss with about 5 or 6 of travel, these trails are really designed for these type of bikes

so the play list is this:-

19/9/13 Cannock Chase, probably about 1pm, about 2 hour ride, hardtails are fine here

20/9/13 Gisburn forest, from about 1030, never ridden here, heard it's good

21/9/13 Glentress, again from about 1030, never ridden here, heard it's good

22/9/13 Kirroughtree, from about 1030, love it here, quite smooth trails, very pump track like in places

23/9/13 Coed y Brenin, from about 1030, probably the MBR trail but with added 'adams family' trails, rocky trails

24/9/13 Llandegla, from about 1030, it's a fun place, with some jumps drops and big smiles but quite smooth to ride

25/9/13 Bike Park Wales, from about 1030, new trail centre needs looking at!


so anyone fancy joining us?

 

[velomaniac]

Re: Tour de Trail Centre! 19/9/13 to 25/9/13 who's up for it

I've copied this over to the MacRetro section in case any of my lot fancy joining you for your Scotland Leg.
Glentress is generally hardtail friendly on all trail grades, how much bounce you need is reflected by how hard you ride.

 

[jonnyboy666]

Re: Tour de Trail Centre! 19/9/13 to 25/9/13 who's up for it

having not ridden there i didn't know but the others are defo pretty rocky so full suss is the way,

thanks for the publicity though

 

[FluffyChicken]

Re: Tour de Trail Centre! 19/9/13 to 25/9/13 who's up for it

You've got it all wrong, Retro is the way :facepalm:

 

[drystonepaul]

Re: Tour de Trail Centre! 19/9/13 to 25/9/13 who's up for it

Full suss at Llandegla... are you sure?
It's one of the tamest trail centres I've ridden, apart from all the fierce braking bumps.

Gisburn would also be fine on a hardtail. I've ridden it on old fully rigid bikes with no problems too.

 

[jonnyboy666]

Re: Tour de Trail Centre! 19/9/13 to 25/9/13 who's up for it

well, 2 of us are going, room for 3 bikes in total, in trail centres i tend to be faster downhill on full suss and the fun sections are what trail centres are about, so being able to blast the downhills as much as poss i think full suss is the best option, also for adam taking one bike for all means full suss is his best option overall, for me again, overall i think full suss is the way forward at most trail centres, especially welsh ones that tend to be rocky.

llandegla is relatively smooth in places but there are also some drops in places,aswel as braking bumps, i'm not saying i couldn't ride a hardtail here but i prefer full suss

 

[The Ken]

Re: Tour de Trail Centre! 19/9/13 to 25/9/13 who's up for it

Arrgghhh too short notice for me Jonnyboy, just used an all weekend pass doing the great glen.

 

[jonnyboy666]

Re: Tour de Trail Centre! 19/9/13 to 25/9/13 . . . . Day 1

Day 1

Cannock Chase

looking at the weather reports we expected rain, on the way there was lots of rain, 40 miles before getting to Cannock there was still rain, while sat in the Little Chef having munchies, there was rain . . . get to the car park . . . NO RAIN!!!

off we went, the sun was trying to break through, in places it actually succeeded aswel.

Adam is, frankly, new to riding outside of hampshire with the not so obvious exceptions of Whistler and the Alps! as he doesn't have a car he rides everywhere but doesn't go far from home, he has worked in Whistler and the Alps as a bike mechanic though, so this was his first UK roadtrip. he sort of wasn't expecting much, being used to hampshire you get bored easily as the trails are quite tame but his first venture to a specific bike park here and he was pleasantly surprised.

the trails were riding well even though they were muddy and wet but we both had a good laugh and as is usual on a weekday we saw only 2 other small groups for the whole ride, weekday riding is awesome!

only got one blurry pic of Adam on the black section :|

 

[drystonepaul]

Re: Tour de Trail Centre! 19/9/13 to 25/9/13 . . . . Day 1

Great start! I'll see you at Llandegla on Tuesday.

 

[Grannygrinder]

Re: Tour de Trail Centre! 19/9/13 to 25/9/13 . . . . Day 1

You'll enjoy Bikepark Wales mate, remember to lock everything up though as it is very near Merthyr!!!