If you follow us on Facebook, you will probably have seen that we’re planning on opening some new trails in the Forest of Dean in April. These trails will mean we can get a third uplift bus running at weekends, and should also provide somewhere to ride more challenging, different features to what we currently have in the Forest.
The end result will be four new trails, which have been aptly named tracks one to four, until they’re built and while we decide what to call them! The trails are mainly being built by the Dean Trail Volunteers, a group of local riders who are happy to spend some time on the spade as well as on the pedals. There will be regular dig days over weekends and weekdays in the next couple of months, and it’s best to keep an eye on the DTV Facebook page for whats happening and when.
Like we’ve said, the new trails are being built to be more challenging than anything we currently uplift on in the FoD. Lines down a new, steep rock roll in will be used for two of the trails, while the other two new tracks will start on trails that already exist but aren’t currently accessible to the uplift without a fair amount of riding!
Two of the new trails will be mainly natural, with very minimal amounts of actual building, with a line marked out, catch berms made where needed and let the rest cut itself in! Obviously we’ll need to put a fair amount of maintenance into these two tracks, but it should pay off, with rooty, loamy turns that need full committal and a big bag of skills to ride fast.
The other two trails will have some bigger manmade features like drops and jumps, but built in a way that will make them a challenge to even the best riders. A mix of long low jumps, lips that kick you to the sky and some very awkward transitions should really sort the better riders out from the bunch. Berm to berm jumps and berms ending early with meter-high drops will be in there, and hopefully we’ll end up with a load of new trails to be proud of!
