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FRJ Cannock Trip

Monday, 02 February 2009

The FRJ crew got together over the weekend for a trip to one of our favourite spots - Cannock.  A 7 strong crew met up in 'doggers car park' at 10.30am on Saturday morning and after the usual obligatory banter we hit the trails.

First up was the red run which is always good for warming up.  We hit the trail blind knowing full well that there had probably been a few changes since our last visit but what the neck.  First change was the second drop which had now been built up as more of a kicker than a drop.  The two drops after this were unchanged but the jump after this had been turned into a table top with an interesting kick to it.  Finally the last step down jump had been built up with a very short techie landing transition...tricky one to nail as the landing trannie was shorter than a bike length.  Most of us were getting our front wheel down the trannie but clanging our back wheel on top of it...

 

 

Next up we checked out the new ladder drop (above).  The run onto the ladder was a bit hit and miss so we added a skinnie to get us on there which made for a pretty smooth entry.  The rest of the ladder was a decent width so all you had to think about was the drop off the end - which had a cheeky little kick to it.  The kick though was perfect for getting you onto the steep landing trannie - which we had to smooth out before we ran it as there were some serious holes in it from heavy landings.  Here's some footage of Stu making the drop (but not the exit berm!).

 

 

 

 

The flagship feature of Cannock - the large sleeper drop into the berm - was closed as the new table after it still isn't finished.  And by the looks of things it will be a while before it's open...So we hit a couple of the tree lines on the other side of the fire road - Wonderland and New Line.  The new line was a bit wet so we hit the two drops on this and then moved onto Wonderland for our last run before lunch.

 

 

After lunch we decided to stay on the car park side of the hill and check out some road gaps that we had heard about.  We found them fairly easily as they were just above a cool table top that we sometimes session. The smaller of the two drops looked pretty straight forward.  It was about 7ft with a 14ft gap to clear.  Me and Paul hit this one a couple of times and had no real problems. 

 

Next up though was the bigger of the two road gaps (see pic above).  This one was more like 8ft by 16 ft with a dodgy take off.  After a lot of weighing up Paul hit this one first... 

He made it but after 'collapsing from the fear' when he got off his bike it kind of put me off a bit.  Anyway, I had a couple of run ins but in the end I wasn't feeling the vibe so had to walk away from this one.  So big props to Paul for nailing it!  Thanks to Sickboy for providing the video below.

 

 

After the road gaps we sessioned the table for a little while and then called it a day...after all, that road gap will still be there next time!




Pictures were taken by Sickboy and Corrie...see more at the links below

 

Sickboy Flickr - Cannock 31/1/09

Corrie Flickr - Cannock Jan 09