Mountain Biking in the Forest of Dean
Ever since taking photos of the Forest of Dean Enduro earlier in the year I’ve been wanting to ride there. During the Enduro the course looked really good with hard packed dusty trails and lots of flowing single track that seemed to go on forever.
I was in Bristol for a couple of days so decided to ride in the Forest of Dean on the way home. Jay, Matt and Beale were up for it too (as was Brad but he wasn’t allowed out!). Jay and Beale had to be back for lunch time so I arranged to meet everyone in the ‘Pedalabikeway’ car park at first light.
We all arrived on time and set off to look for the trails. Unfortunately there are actually many trails here. Just the short red-graded ‘FODCA’ trail. This is all single-track but only 3 miles long and eas closed due to felling operations. The only other ‘trail’ is a downhill course that was also closed as there was an event on there. We decided to follow the FODCA Trail anyway, but soon lost it due to the felling works and ended up doing it backwards. Once we’d finished we then did it the right way around before playing on the bottom of the downhill trail and then doing the FODCA trail for a third time.
The trail itself was OK, all single track with a few technical bits in it, but there is so much potential there that its a shame they haven’t opened up new trails and built some proper. longer cross-country trails through the forest. Hopefully they will soon.
Here’s Matt at the bottom of the downhill course.
At least we got out for a ride, and I think the others secretly enjoyed the early start!
