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Cannock Chase - Follow The Dog / Monkey Trail


forteh

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Having lived 10 miles from these trails since before they were built I figured it was about time I got off my arse and actually used my santacruz chameleon for something other than riding to my mates and back from the pub whilst pissed!

Headed up there with a mate (rehabilitating his leg after snapping tib and fib on his mx bike 13 months ago - He cant ride trials again yet because of weakness) on Saturday morning. Thoroughly under prepared, I had my camelback full of ice water and a banana, that was it. Completed follow the dog without any issues and decided to carry onto monkey trail.

Bailed on the second black section but managed to catch hold of a passing tree before I went flying down a rather big steep hill, other than that it was largely incident free.

Dehydration and thigh cramps hit me around 5 miles in so things started getting a bit slow and steady with more walking up hill than riding, down hills were still a blast if a little slower than preferred due to fading strength and concentration :(

It was my first xc ride (and indeed any ride more than 2 miles :$ ) in at least 5 years and all things considered it wasn't too bad, the trails are awesome and I'm looking forward to being able to ride them again soon, will probably park up at the bottom of monkey trail and just do that till fitness is better. I'm still a little saddle sore but wearing proper padded shorts should alleviate that, I was looking at getting either something from the endura line unless someone else can recommend something they've used :)

Given that I expected to be a broken mess for days afterwards I'm pleasantly surprised although admittedly we probably weren't that quick, perhaps the trials has kept me fitter than I thought :D

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Im down Cannock quite a lot, but i ride from Burton about 30ish miles and then just smash out the red, black and balboa tracks.

I've never been too keen on the XC loops as there badly maintained and the braking bumps are killers but there fun nonetheless.

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  • 1 month later...

Get yourself on Strava, especially if you're just starting again, will be good fun to see your times improving as your skills develop. There's plenty of "segments" in Cannock too

so long as you ride trails were no one can get a motorbike on, because some people are riding the trails on crossers

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Ive got a spare kore seatpost at work, not sure what size it is but I know it did fit my mk1 chameleon and it doesnt fit my current mk2 or 3 (2004) chameleon, Ill checke it tomorrow and let you know :)

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