Three times I've been to Cannock Chase now. Any more and I'll feel qualified to produce a 'Mountainboarders Guide to the Chase', or at very least a small pamphlet.....
That aside, here's that days write-up. If I get opportunity, I'll produce some maps as well, but only if I get a good opportunity or if someone asks for them in the meantime.
Anyways, in force once again was myself, MC and Mutley, with my mate Phill on board for his first experience of boarding outside Derby. As usual we went for the early start which allows a days combination of both boarding and family time/jobs round the house/Formula 1(delete as appropriate).
Why Phill and I decided the night before to turn a couple of quiet drinks at the local public house into several drinks at the local public house, I'm not so sure, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. Did my bowels no good whatsoever and my apologies to Phill who had to travel with the window down most of the way there.
But 8am we arrived at the carpark to find the others padding up and pretty much ready to roll. Even at this time there were another 4 cars parked up so we knew it wouldn't be just us out enjoying the tracks.
We started out travelling West, firstly because non of us knew the local area, so it didn't really matter which direction we travelled in, and secondly, we knew that if we travelled far enough (approximatley 800 metres) we'd hit the 'par of tits' from our original excursion, a pair of grassy trails that if nothing else, we knew were ridable even in poor weather.
Before we'd even gone far, we'd found a trail off to the left, grassy for around 100 metres, then around 150 metres through the forest to the top. On the way down it was possible to extend the run by an extra 50 metres or so by hoping over the main path and continuing on for a bit. Not a bad opening run at all and worked well in that the woods had better drainage, hence better grip and the grassy bits were slipperier, but more open should you need to skid out.
A little further on we found a similar path, again to the left of similar characteristics. This time however, the top section was so soft underfoot that speedchecking was totally unnecessary with quite dramatic measures required to try and keep the momentum up in order to get over the slightly elevated mid section. On a dryer week I imagine you'd get a nice bit of air off this midway path cutting perpendicular to the track, but not today.
Bit further again, we found ourselves at 'The Pair of Tits'. Funny how distances don't seem so far when out looking for trails.....
This was a good opportunity for me to try Mutleys springless set-up, an arrangement he was more than happy with, if only because of the absence of speed wobbles at high speed. My initial impressions were good - the board felt loose to stand on, but felt stable with a bit of speed. Easy to control, and no sign of speed wobble, though to be fair, I wasn't going fast enough for this to be an issue. My summary from this brief try-out is that they appear to be on to a good thing with the logic, and it appears to work, but as I don't often get fast enough to get the wobbles, and overall board weight is never something that I've tried to reduce by very much, it's probably not a 'right-now' purchase, but something for the future....
Back to the write-up; we decided it was a good time to head back in the direction of the car park - it was slightly downhill, so easy carving for much of the walk and there appeared to be plenty of trails South of the carpark. Met a chatty man along the way with many face piercing and four large dogs, one with very strange 'David Bowie-esk' eyes. Like many people I tend to meet when walking the board, he'd not seen us ride the boards, nor seen anyone else boarding before, but he instinctively knew where the best location for riding would be - 'Telegraph Hill' - 'Highest point in the Chase. You'll find it easy enough - just ask anyone along the way'. I had a quick google look that evening and found it on Rogers Trail guide already so someone knows about it.... one for another time me thinks.
Heading South this time from the carpark lead up on a 9 foot wide gravel path up on a slight gradient for several hundred metres until levelling off. A bit of a loop was explored with nothing much going on, so it was back to the gravel path and again, a nice carvey meander back down to the bottom. Whilst we could have gone quicker, there were too many walkers to really open up the throttle, but with plenty of scrub to the sides, it was easy to take things easy.
Heading out from the carpark to the south east this time, we found a nice little hill with short track down the middle. Might as well give it a quick buzz whilst we're here and Phill caught the whole thing on his camera (footage afterwards).
Continuing on we found a slightly longer track to the right, the bottom half very gravelly, with a tight left hander at the bottom. I didn't quite turn tight enough, but MC and Mutley made nice work of it. Plenty of falling leaf action going on here, which is always good practice, but knackering all the same. I keep thinking that someone should video falling leaf and other speedchecking techniques, as it's the kind of thing thats tricky to describe, but easy to show. Perhaps if there was some sort of beginners website or something?....
Heading onwards we were passed in the opposite direction by a couple of hundred two-wheelers who must have been doing some sort of competition or something. This was a good sign as it meant that at least they would be sticking to designated tracks....
On to my favourite run of the day: a 650 metre run down a less used wide gravel path with enough speed checking to keep things interesting, but fast enough and long enough to enjoy the whole thing, with a couple of left/rights at the end to hit fast enough to keep the momentum up. That took us close to midday, and a good point to end things on a high.
No major injuries, no board breakages, good exploring and good weather - not a bad mornings ride at all!
Big thanks as always in no particular order to Mark, Clayton and Phill!
Phills video: (no idea how to embed facebook videos)....
http://www.facebook.com/index.php?lh=0b884f750ae2d580d6ed3537f9578e28&#!/video/video.php?v=10150109610205761&comments
3 comments:
Gotta love the chase.
it's got to be a place for a weekend visit what with all it's campsites and all.
I know local lad Marvin tried to sort out a weekend event last summer sometime. I don't think it was very widely discussed outside of SurfingDirt and many of those who were interested could only make one of the days... but yes, you could be there for a few days and have plenty to do.
Cannock Chase ATBA-Downhill 2012! Just need to find a suitable track....
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