Forest of Dean Cycle Centre: Trails, Hire, Uplift and Parking

The Forest of Dean Cycle Centre sits in the Cannop Valley, and it's where I send every beginner who asks me where to ride. It has waymarked trails for every level, 14 downhill tracks with an uplift, bike hire, and coffee and pints on site. The trails are free; you pay to park. Here's how I use it as a local.

Is the Cycle Centre free to ride? Parking and prices

The riding is free. What you pay for is the car park, which belongs to Forestry England.

Parking	Price (checked September 2026)
Up to 2 hours	£6
Up to 4 hours	£8
All day	£10
Arrive after 5pm (March to October only)	£3.50
Minibus, all day	£17

• Ride in and it's free. There's no charge if you arrive by bike or public transport.
• Members park free. Forestry England's Forest of Dean membership is £55 a year. It covers the Cycle Centre, Mallards Pike, Beechenhurst, Cannop Ponds, Symonds Yat Rock and Wenchford, and the Cycle Centre page says it covers the whole household.
• Opening hours. The site opens at 8am every day except Christmas Day. It closes at 5pm from November to February, 9pm from May to August, 7.30pm in September and 6.30pm in October (checked September 2026). The barrier is locked at night and there's no overnight parking.

For the sat nav, use GL16 7EH. It's on the B4234 in the Cannop Valley: take the B4226 Coleford to Cinderford road, turn north at the crossroads with the B4234, and follow the signs.

For what it's worth, I've lived in the Forest for thirty years and I've never paid for parking. You can park for free if you use the lay-bys, as long as you don't block the gates. Please don't park on the road or the verges. If you're driving in for a day on the trails, though, the car park is the easy option.

The trails, and which one to ride

Forestry England lists a family trail, green, blue and red cross-country trails, and 14 downhill trails. All figures below are Forestry England's.

Trail	Grade	Length	What it's like
Colliers Trail	Family (forest road)	14.5 km (9 miles) loop	Waymarked family loop with links to villages and picnic sites. The Hicksters Way Loop is a shorter 8 km option.
Old Bob's	Green	2 km (1.2 miles)	Three skills areas. Suits bikes with 2, 3 or 4 wheels, adaptive cycles and tag-a-longs.
Verderers Trail	Blue	11.3 km (7 miles)	Different surfaces, switchback climbs and flowing descents.
Adit	Red	4.5 km (2.8 miles)	Billed as the next step after Verderers, with a tight, technical descent. Join it from post 61 on Verderers or Freeminers, or ride it as its own loop.
Freeminers Trail	Red	11.5 km (7.1 miles)	Challenging, varied singletrack with natural and man-made features. Red skills area near the start.
Downhill trails	Blue to double black	0.5 to 1.5 km each	14 tracks, from Countdown and Launchpad (blue) to Ski Run, Cougar and GBU (double black).

My advice is simple. If you're a beginner, stick to the Cycle Centre. Ride the blue Verderers trail, or the Colliers Trail if you've got kids or family with you. Old Bob's, the 2 km green, has three skills areas to find your feet on. My beginners' guide has a first day in order.

If you've been riding a while, the reds are the step up. Forestry England bills Adit as the next challenge after the Verderers, and Freeminers is the longer red, with a red skills area near the start to warm up on. For how it stacks up against everything else in the Forest, see my best trails in the Forest of Dean.

Downhill trails, the uplift and the push-up

Then there's the downhill. Forestry England grades the 14 tracks from blue up to double black, so be honest about your level. Launchpad is designed to be fully accessible for riders without pedal power.

Here's my local view. By bike park standards the downhill tracks here are graded fairly easy. If you ride BikePark Wales, Morzine or the other big spots, you'll probably find them pretty easy, but they're still really fun. My picks:

• Ski Run, the classic.
• GBU.
• Twisted Sister, if you fancy something easier.

They run pretty fast, they're well maintained, and they're great for intermediate and advanced riders. Forestry England grades Ski Run and GBU double black and Twisted Sister red, so if you're new to downhill, start on the blues and build up.

Getting to the top. You've got three ways up:

• The uplift. FlyUp runs the only official uplift, and has been going since May 2010. It's relatively quick. It opens at 10am and may finish a bit earlier in winter when the light goes. Book directly with FlyUp through its online booking, where you'll find the days and prices, and book ahead, especially at weekends.
• The push-up track. It takes about 10 to 15 minutes on foot.
• Pedal up on an e-bike. More and more riders self-shuttle on e-bikes, and it's completely normal. Use the push-up track, same as everyone else. I've timed it on a modern e-bike in turbo: about 45 seconds to the first stage, then about another minute to the top.

There's about 110 m of drop. A perfect day for me is about 12 runs: back to the start, have lunch, charge up, and do it all again. I've written more on booking and first runs in my downhill and uplift guide.

Bike hire and coaching

Pedalabikeaway does the hire on site. They bring in a new Whyte fleet every season, with everything from kids' seats to full-suspension e-MTBs, and they have adaptive bikes too. Check their site for prices and to book.

Every Thursday the Cycle Centre stays open until 9pm for Late Night Thursdays with Pedalabikeaway (checked September 2026).

If you're new, or you want to get beyond the Cycle Centre, book a guided session or a coaching session. WyeMTB is based in Monmouth and does coaching and guiding, including British Cycling coaching for riders of all abilities.

When to go, and when it's busy

The car park can fill on a sunny weekend. Forestry England says it's usually quieter on weekdays outside the school holidays, earlier in the morning and later in the afternoon. The site opens at 8am, so an early start is the easy win.

If the car park is full, Forestry England asks you to park at Beechenhurst or Cannop Ponds, not on the verges.

In the wet, the Cycle Centre always runs pretty well: the stone, man-made trails give grip.

Check the trail status before you go. Trails close for repairs, forestry work and events, and the Dean Trail Volunteers work on alternating Wednesdays and alternating Saturdays, so some trails may be shut while they dig. Forestry England keeps a live trail status page. Please don't ride closed trails.

Download your maps. Phone signal in the Forest is patchy and usually non-existent in the deeper woods.

Coffee, pints and meeting people

The Cycle Centre serves coffee and pints, and both are great. It's also one of the places I meet people to ride. If in doubt, meet at the Cycle Centre.

If you want to ride on and stop somewhere else, Mallards Pike does good coffee for a mid-ride stop (my Mallards Pike guide has the cafe's hours), and The Fountain in Parkend is an amazing local pub for the end of the day.

If you're coming on your own and want company on the trails, Plus1 is the free app I built for exactly that: post a ride or join one near you. It's new, and it only works when riders are on it. Don't count on it deep in the woods, though, where the signal drops out.

Don't just stay at the Cycle Centre

This is the big mistake I see. For beginners, the Cycle Centre is perfect. If you're an intermediate rider or above, staying in the Cycle Centre is a mistake.

Get out and explore. There's Mallards Pike, all the way over to the Staunton woods, down into Monmouth and the Wye Valley, which has amazing off-piste trails, and the Forestry England woods along the Parkend to Lydney road. My Mallards Pike guide is a good place to start, and my guide to mountain biking in the Forest of Dean puts it all together in one day.

At the Cycle Centre itself, Forestry England asks you to ride only the waymarked trails or the hard-stone forest roads. Over the border in Wales, Natural Resources Wales lets you cycle on any forest road in the woodlands it manages, and its own trails are waymarked from start to finish. If you're organising an event on its land, you may need permission first.

However you do it, the Forest is easier to learn with people who already know it.