[TobyD]

Venue advice for stag do needed. Idea: trail centre, hire bikes available, suitable for enthusiastic but incompetant riders, reasonably near a suitable venue for a decent night out. Any suggestions, knobbly tyre obsessives?

[SA Chris]

There's a fantastic vg guidebook to the trail centres  !

Depends what you call a decent night out but glentress is good combined with peebles which has loads of accommodation restaurants and pubs. Or it's not far from Edinburgh.

[mikomon]

Assuming everyone's located near-ish, Whinlatter forest nr Keswick has a chilled but fun easier loop along with a harder trail option, and there's a good bike hire spot there along with a cafe. Also within easy drive radius there's a paintball spot, which I once went to on a stag, and go-karting. If you're all further north, or like your biking then the Edinburgh trails are DEFO better.

[tom_greenwich]

Had my brothers stag a couple of weeks back here:

http://ballyhouramtb.com/

They are all Irish, but I flew to Shannon and drove down in less than an hour. The biking is amazing and the bike hire is good too. We went to a local pub for night out, but you could easily travel to a local city in the evening.

[IanP]

I think Coed y Brenin has some attractions - it's style of mainly fire road climbs and single track descents could work well with a group - work out your differing paces on the downhill sections then get back to chat on the way up.   It does haves some tougher rocky sections but you can put together a route which avoids those.  At the weekend it also has the cafe in the forest (assuming its still open) half way round which is great place for a mid ride stop and does excellant cakes.  Dollgellau is the nearest significant town just a few miles down the road, slightly touristy town, pleasent enough in a Welsh type way though I've never drunk in the pub.

If your group is all relatively fit and enthusiusm does't extend to recklessness then most of the trails are pretty rideable with a just a few rock sections and drop that might require pushing.

[rich d]

Went out drinking quite a few years back in Dollgellau and it wasn't the friendliest place to English tourists. May well have changed nowadays but it was a bit of a badgers arse.

[underground]

Aberystwyth isn't too far away and has a shed load of pubs and may still be buzzing with students

[mikester]

I guess the problem with most trail centres is that they're mainly in remote forestry locations.
+1 for Whinlatter suggestion.

Other options that spring to mind which are user-friendly and near-ish fun places:
LLandegla - 40 mins to Chester
Glentress - 40 mins to Edinburgh
Dalby - 40 mins to York / 30 mins to Scarborough (and 1 min to Bridestones    )

[Bubba]

There's the Follow The Dog/Monkey Trail at Cannock (about a 15 mile loop).  Ok, it's not as burly as the bigger trail centres mentioned above but it should be quite enough for "enthusiastic but incompetent riders" and has some pretty sweet sections on it.

Bike hire is available and it's close to Lichfield/Stafford/Birmingham/etc so might be a better fit for the social side of things.