We had a fabulous time at the Forest of Dean on Sunday, with a great bunch of people and some great riding.
There was a nice mixture of abilities in our group, from those that had never been to the Forest before, others trying out new bikes and a couple of seasoned lunatics, I mean downhillers! Fortunately the weather was considerably better than the day before, with no rain all day and only the occasional patch of mud, setting us up nicely.
We started with a lap of the showcase trail Verderers, stopping off at the Freeminers practice ramps. Lots of opportunity for getting warmed up and practicing, with some encouragement and tips from the group.
After that we set up the switchback climb before the first fast descent, which restored everyone to massive grins.
We continued on the trail, with a few stops to try some of the features on offer beside the trail, until we reached the start of the downhill tracks and split into 2 groups – one continued down the Verderers descent and Sparky led the others to the newer Y2K trail. Both groups returned to the cafe for lunch with big smiles all round.
After lunch we set off to the skills area to try our drops and jumps (with varied success!), before taking the push up to the downhill trails. We stopped to “encourage” Banjo to have a go at the bottom GBU group and in the end he followed Nathan and Sparky off it – and we haven’t heard the end of it since!
Up the top we again split into 2 groups, with some of us practicing the top sections of Sheepskull and Corkscrew, before trying Launchpad and Ski Run.
It was getting on when we met back up at Pedalabikeaway (4pm), but we figured we still had time for one last run out to Y2K before finally returning the cafe for war stories and well earned cake!
Big thanks to Sparky for showing us some cracking new trails and everyone that came and made it a great day out.
And here’s the video highlights for you