Stinky Jax and I have broken out the passports and are heading off to Staffordshire for a day or two.

Decided to call in at Cannock Chase to ride there, anyone got any experience of the trails there?

“Follow The Dog” and “Monkey Trail” are mentioned.

#1 priority. Where's the cafe and what are the cakes like?

#2 priority. What are the trails like, can anyone recommend any bit to head for?

Thanks Mark,

We'll be there in a couple of days. But often in that neck of the woods, could be there in January too, you never know!

Hopefully we'll avoid the forecast snow later this week by staying that side of the country!

Thanks guys, in the end only had time to call in to do the Follow the Dog section which is quite short, but will call in again to do the full loop with the Monkey extension next time. You were both right, nice fast single track. We were lucky with the weather, while you guys were shovelling snow we were out on a bright crisp (-3 or -4C if I remember right) and slightly breezy morning, but the route is well sheltered by the trees. Some exciting moments on the icy north-shore but managed to stay out of the ditches. One boring forest road uphill to complete not sure if that was another diversion or if they still have to build some official extra single-track in that area. There were signs of Debbie style alternative routes in the trees at least - that would be a good improvement.

Parking about £3 for the day I think. Trail map was £1.50 - a bit of a shock, used to them being free these days. The loop is really well signposted once you've found the start in amongst the go-ape setup, it wasn't obvious from the carpark. So probably not worth buying the map at all. Although we were a bit worried that some of the wire-obstacles were part of the red run at first. I think at least one section was closed off officially - but everyone seemed to carry on through it anyway - I guess it would have been a bit too short otherwise.

We rode with a friend who had never been offroad before and she managed the loop brilliantly. Technically I thought it was closer to some of the 7 Stanes blues up in Scotland just without the chicken-runs around the obstacles. 

Didn't try the cake-shop due to lack of time. What messed up priorities we have! So will have to return to do a more thorough check another time. Glad to hear that there are showers available there though - a sure sign of nice messy cakes

Following day Jax took on a personal long time challenge of cycling up The Wrekin near Telford. I took up the “at no time has it ever occurred to me” challenge of cycling up too. Jackie stormed up in something under 20 minutes. I couldn't time it properly for her because I couldn't keep up. Clearly Wrench Green is too small a challenge for her now!