The long awaited new Mountain Bike trails on Cannock Chase were finally opened in mid April. Having been away racing abroad and embroiled in the organisation of the British Orienteering Championships, May Bank Holiday Monday morning was the first opportunity for me to get out and explore the new route.
Riding from home in Milford, two of us on hard-tails decided to ride the new trail as the designers intended from Birches valley so after a 25 minute warm up ride out we started on the first part of the trail, the existing Follow the Dog section, though tweaked at the beginning to try to separate bikers from the many other users of the forest centre.
Saftey improvements are noticeable all round, with better signage, but the first rock garden before crossing the bridge over the brook out towards the black graded ‘log’ is a little difficult for beginners early on for those just doing Follow the Dog. The original single plank over the marshes also seems to have been changed to make it easier now, though.
The turning off the Follow the Dog route to get over the Rugeley to Cannock road comes off half way down a section that opened a couple of years ago. The new paths immediately benefit from machine built fast flowing bermed corners that sweep down hill to exit at the bottom of Kitbag Hill.
The railway crossing is fine but the road crossing is an accident waiting to happen. Cars really speed along this stretch and, although visibility is good, it is very difficult to judge how fast they are approaching. Although I’m sure it would be difficult to arrange because of land ownership, some warning signs would be useful for those new to the area.
Good to see once across onto Rawnsley it is a technical singletrack ascent that winds its way up the first ridge before cascading down the otherside rather than the classic trail-centre norms of long fire road climbs. This just repeats and repeats in a seemingly never ending series of switchbacks and swoops. The trails are very narrow, with fairly steep drops to the side and at times the distance between handlebar and trees is very small, but commitment rewards with the bike going light over the many humps and bumps.
There is only one fire road climb on the route, which is fairly gentle taking you up, before a series of fast crests leads to more of the same. Every so often a small rock garden can take you unawares, but the single tracks keep on coming. My guess is that of the 19km total of Follow the Dog and Monkey Trail, at least 15 kilometres must be on single track.
After a final climb the route seems to crescendo. A black rock garden option (we bottled that bit) starts a series of descending swoops that seem to build getting faster and faster, before having to brake to stop at the bottom to negotiate the “anti-chav” gate before returning back across the road and railway line.
Then the sting in the tail, known locally as kitbag hill (so named by the men who stayed at the RAF national service training camp that covered the area in the 50’s). This climb saps any remaining energy before returning back onto the classic Follow the Dog route until the second major change in the new route’s design.
The Forestry Commission, quite rightly, has tried to keep the various pedestrian and family users of Birches Valley separated from the MTB routes. Hence the original sections of Follow the Dog from the early noughties have now been shelved in favour of a new route down through Takeroo. These single tracks again build and build swooping and looping tightly through the trees, but we did feel that the technical drop off towards the end needs a chicken run option (edit -now a little easier), as both of us decided it was not worth risking our necks on and it came up as a shock with little warning.
A series of large rollers finish the lap which the Garmin 500 indicated at 19km with 470 metres climb. It took us about 1.5 hours to ride but we only stopped once for a couple of minutes for a drink and a bar after an hour, riding straight through the groups congregating at the tops of the climbs. I would expect that a leisurely group stopping regularly to chat could easily double this time.
We finished off with a spin out for home chatting about the route.
Both of us thought it a big improvement on the original follow the dog which although graded red was really blue in standard. In fact, rightly or wrongly, I have ridden the original Follow the Dog with my baby daughter on a seat on the back a few years ago. Monkey trail is a red-graded route for all its length and is way out of baby seat territory. It is a proper MTB route
I expected it to be busier than it was. In fact, after we pulled past a few groups at the beginning it was fairly quiet. Being so narrow I expect that the single track climbs could be a bottle neck and frustrating for stronger riders, but as long as people are happy to stand aside, I’m sure it will be fine.
The new surfaces seem to be standing up well with no real erosion kicking in but the underlying ground on this area of the Chase tends to be fairly gravelly anyway.
So congratulationss to Chase Trails and the Forestry Commission for providing the Midlands with a top class trail route that has now also addressed many of the safety and user conflicts of the original route.
