Live in Notts and wondered what Bestwood Country Park was like for a quick blast in the evenings or when don't have time to get to the Peaks at the weekend. Have tried looking on line and can't really find any maps related to mountain biking. Is it a case of just go and bike anywhere (like Sherwood Pines before the red route was developed) or is there dedicated bridleways/bike routes?

Ride anywhere, its just footpaths and bridleways. theres a big crater hole 200m into the park from the building with the big red scaffold structure old mill/mine or something. word on the street is that bestwood somehow links up with sherwood proper but haven't looked into it myself

There are trails all over the place there. The guys at Freewheel occasionally go there for their Wednesday night rides so it's worth tagging along to find out the good loops. The 'Badger Run' is a (very) short but exciting bit of single track if you can find it.

Don't go on your own at night though! The locals can be less than friendly.

…not far past Bestwood in the Burnstump area there are some nice little singletrack riding areas – good for day and night riding!

A few of us head out on a Tuesday night so feel free to pop along.

Certainly worthwhile during the week/evenings as opposed to the 1hr peaks drive!

Blidworth Bottoms also has some trails too (and all the other woods round there).

Joe

There's also a thriving dirtjump area at Bestwood in some woods outside the Country Park (near the caravan park). Building jumps seems to be tolerated these days out there.

And if you live in the City, don't miss the fabulous twisting singletrack alongside the A611 between City Hospital and Bestwood. I ride it most weeks to get up that way 🙂

Sigma – is it your lot I always run into on Tuesdays? 12(ish) miserable blokes with superb sets of lights?

We're the 3 or 4 you always seem to ride past whilst we're having a whiskey stop!

Annesley Plantation, Blidworth, Burntstump, Sansom wood, Thieves Wood, Harlow Wood, lots of places around

Simon, that's probably our miserable lot on a tueday night, although there haven't been as many in that group recently.
There's several groups round here that seem to go out, ourselves from TSW Cycles, a group from NATS we sometimes see & a few other locals who just meet up & ride

I'm with the NATS posse, the big group I mentioned never stop to chat!

We tend to start from home these days, meeting up in Sherwood before doing Watchwood, Blidworth Woods, Samsom Wood, Burntstump & Bestwood. We also do Bramcote / Strelley / Kimberley / Hucknall area quite a lot as well as south of Nottingham.

PS. The OP should check http://www.natsmtb.com out 🙂

Not us then, as we're usually a bit more sociable than that!