Clayton Vale MTB Trails

Frank :

Clayton Vale is a brilliant facility if you're local come and visit on a Saturday morning or have a post work blast!

I have been riding these trails a couple of times a week now for about eighteen months. Living in Levenshulme means I can ride almost entirely off road through a busy city and have a traffic free blast on my bike - it's perfect if you live nearby. The trails are really well designed. You have to go fast to really get the best out of them, but they're still enjoyable/challenging for less speedy riders. The descents on the Blue are really flowy if you can corner well. If you can ride drop offs and pump well, the descents on the reds are just as good too! A lap of the dark blue followed by a lap of the red with the orange decent thrown in is nice work out and test of skill on a Saturday morning.

Chard:

Great facility

I think this is an outstanding facility for an inner city area. I use it a lot when I've only got a couple of hours free and it has been a great help to me in rebuilding confidence after a bad crash and in improving my MTB skills. I haven't been doing this long and I've found both Clayton Vale graded trails and the Skills Park to be great places to build confidence on several different types of trail features, especially drop offs, berms and tight switchbacks. Plenty of flights of steps to mess about on too, although I'm sure that's not really what they're for... I started on the Skills Park and the Blue trails, quickly progressed to the Reds and then the Orange and Black. I'll continue going, even though there's nothing new, because it's the kind of place where you can then start working on improving your flow and speed. The Velodrome facilities are great, good cafe with friendly staff, great to watch BMX events going on inside and Evans run a decent bike shop on site with helpful staff.

Mike Stanton:

Good place to get into trail riding. Some fun sections but nothing compared to places within an hour or so drive away. Would be good for getting your kids into MTB riding. If you did the whole thing (including looping back so you can do the short black and orange section it would only be 7 miles and would take less than an hour for the whole thing. People of Manchester, drive half an hour to Lee and Cragg quarry near Bacup which is 10 time better than here but not as highly recommended on this site???

Great for getting city people into trail riding.

Dan:

Free carpark at velodrome or arches. Very good for killing an hour after work. Great for beginners.

Chubbs-mtb:

Good for beginners

John:

Can't speak highly enough of the day me and the man-child have had today. Been promising him a trip to Manchester and to ride the "new" mtb trail they have running from the velodrome/BMX. Not a promising start to the day as very wet and windy with the promise of more to come! Plus he was still tired from yesterday and Saturdays exertions and a bit croaky from a dodgy throat and chest! Anyway after a dodgy start trying to find the entrance to the trail, we were off via a BMX pump track which he thoroughly enjoyed. I believe that the trail has been funded/prepared by British Cycling on existing routes through Clayton Vale that have been used by cyclists & dog walkers & runners et al for generations. What they seem to have done is to put down a hard surface but incorporated lots of berms and rollers. Guess it sounds a bit similar to Hicks Lodge but this is very different. The trail winds it's way through, down, around and up the mature trees with barely a flat stretch. And many of these were not gentle ups and downs but had considerable gradients with tight bends. There are 5 different grades of trail to ride from easy to what they term as being only for 'proper' mtb and experienced skilled riders. Despite his protestations about not being able to do the black route, I think we covered every inch of the park including the difficult red sections. Once we were committed to the trail there was very little opportunity, if any, to take a chicken route. His poise, confidence and skill were several notches above mine. I had to ask him to sit on many of the descents to provide him with more traction, however he usually ignored me and negotiated the trails with plenty of aplomb. The climbs probably were a bit trickier because of their steepness, tightness and just plain old slippy but if he couldn't ride, he pushed and didn't moan! Impressed was I. There was barely a soft spot but the track was coated with fine wet mud throughout which left us covered. On return to the start point, we were able to hose the bikes down before hitting the hot showers and getting ourselves warm and dry. Is it a family day out? Only just. Not as easy as Hicks Lodge to both ride and to walk around though that is possible. You do need a level of confidence and skill to attempt some of the descents especially because as I said, in some places once you are committed, there was only one way out and that wasn't an easy walk. An amount of fitness helps too because of the climbing required but also the control needed on the descents. Having said that, it would be possible to remain on the easier tracks for those that didn't feel able to attempt the harder sections and meet up at different points. Izaak thoroughly enjoyed the trip especially the more challenging and technical it became. We rode about 12km in total plus another 4 or so because of faffing around. Are we going again? Definitely. You coming along as well?

Fun factor, facilities at the end to get clean, warm and dry, both bike and self