Hopton Wood Mountain Biking

FullFloater:

Great place to ride if you're sick of Llandegla and the likes and its hardpack surface. It's rough, technical and super slippy when it gets wet. Red route is demanding on skill and fitness with steep descents and steep climbs. I'd recommend a lap of the warm up loop before setting off into the first descent. There's also 3 downhill tracks with 2 of them being on the "easier" side and main line being the more technical. You can ride main line on a trail bike no problem but be prepared for a trip to the dentist.

Warm up loop. Red route starts on an awesome descent. Serious Roots! LOAM!

steve :

Superb cross country trail with some amazing climbs lots of roots which make it interesting

Good variety of trail terrain roots good long climbs not commercialised or over busy sun was out all day perfect

stumpy_dan:

Hopton Woods Pierce XC Red is a rare trail as it starts on a flowing descent that still gives you a fun end to the trail. It's a decent red for England with many short descents full of berms, roots and little drops. Could do with a few more jumps and some of the many ups are very steep and could be trailed up a bit. Great for endurance and loads of short fun technical sections but just seems to lack that big long descent given the amount of climbing it asks you to do. Prone to mud which is when I rode but I like that as raises the technical nature.

Rooty descents Starts on a descent

L8Rees:

Take all you need to repair your bike, fun but make sure you are fit enough, if ita rained for a week I'd be vary careful lol but a great few hours out :-)

The trails are well hidden so they are not over used like the Dog at Cannock Chase they are flowey and a bit techy but this puts a smile on your face, if you like hills this is the place for you! And free parking is always a bonus

beardedbiggs:

after driving down some very windy country roads we found the car park and made our way onto the red route at daves start which is a cracking 1st descent that gets you right into the mood, we managed to ride after 3 days of torrential rain so were expecting mud..... we got it. the trails rode generally quite well even though they were saturated but some areas were just like a bog! some of the descents were slippy in places which slowed us down a bit which was a shame as i imagine at full pelt they would have been fantastic. after the 1st couple of sections you start climbing and it just seems to go on forever. the descent at the top of the hill is cracking and well worth the grueling climb. one section shares briefly with the downhill trails so you can imagine what thats like. you do get the idea that some of the descents here were built with downhill riders in mind as a lot of very fun sections. will definitely be coming back when hopefully a bit dryer.

proper red route, keeps you on your toes physically demanding

Bigmick:

Pearce Cycles have done a great job on the trails here at Hopton. There is a 1Km warm up loop which gives you an idea of what you are about to face and has a little bit of everything for you to test your skills. The main red trail is a fairly short but quite technical blast through the forest. Several sections are strewn with roots and rocks making it a tricky route (especially in the wet). I linked it up with other riding in the area (Eastridge etc) as I think there is probably not enough at Hopton to keep you occupied for a full day ,unless you spent time on the dedicated DH tracks.

Great variety of trails within a fairly compact area. Nice and quiet