Sherwood Pines

Where: Sherwood Pines Forest Park, Nottinghamshire.
Distance: Whatever you want! You can easily clock up many miles of good singletrack.
Maps: Ordnance Survey Explorer 270 covers the forest but that's not much use for navigating within it.
Parking: Great big car park at SK611638. £3 charge. Also free (though probably less secure) parking on the fire road at SK620616 .
Overview: A rough guide to this popular area with a sample GPS / Tracklogs route.

Details:

The Kitchener Trail now offers a waymarked red graded route around this very popular forest but there are plenty of other trails in the forest. The map below gives an idea of some (but not all) of the trails available. If you have the technology you can also download and follow a sample GPS route below. However don't be afraid to explore - the forest is not as big as it first seems and it is fairly easy to get your bearings once you pop out on to a fire road. Trails also come and go with forestry operations. Everything is suitable for all year round riding but some sections of the forest (especially the most popular ones!) do get boggy when it is wet. The sandy soil and trees mean the trails usually dry out fast though.

There is also a growing "bike park" area which contains jumps, drops and some North Shore. Additional facilities near the main car park also include a bike shop and cafe. Trail development is still ongoing.

Download a pdf version of the overview map

13 mile singletrack taster route (includes parts of the Kitchener Trail and other singletrack):

Download the Tracklogs file for this route

Download the GPS file (.gpx format) for this route

Forest Overview Map:

Overview map kindly supplied by Jonathan Tricklebank

Key:
solid white line with blue centre = Kitchener trail
solid white lines = most popular singletrack
solid red lines = original (pre Kitchener) doubletrack
dashed red lines = original singletrack
smaller dash red lines = original singletrack + more technical /overgrown/ muddy etc
brown lines = fireroads and doubletrack

Possible extensions: Plenty in the woods both north and south of the forest park. Sustrans route 6 goes right through the forest and the Southwell trail to the east provides one of several possible links to the bridleways of that part of Nottinghamshire.

More information is also available on this site dedicated to riding information for the forest.