We have been awarded a prestigious Silver Award for Best Café/Tea Room at the 2024 South West Tourism Awards of Excellence.
The award recognises our commitment to providing high-quality food and drink, exceptional customer service, and a warm, welcoming atmosphere for local walkers, riders and any other hungry folk passing through.
The team have worked (and continue to work) very hard to offer a range of delicious dishes, including signature burgers made with locally sourced ingredients, lighter bites and plenty of vegan and gluten-free options. As you know we are open late every Thursday night until 9pm too with a weekly cafe special to refuel locals enjoying what the Forest of Dean has to offer after school or work.
In addition to our culinary offerings, the judges also recognised our dedication to sustainability and community engagement. Our team all regularly volunteer for the Dean Trail Volunteers to maintain and improve mountain bike trails accessible from the Cycle Centre.
We are so chuffed to receive this award and it’s just spurred us on to be even more committed to providing great food year round for our customers and supporting our local community. We’re loving seeing more and more non riders joining us for our late night Thursday specials too – word is definitely getting out! Who knows, maybe this time next year we’ll be celebrating the Gold Award!
Thank you all for your support and please continue to feedback to the kitchen team your thoughts or ideas for new menus!
June is one of our favourite times of year, as it is the start of the Pedalabikeaway FOD Thursday series! FOD Thursday is when the team tape out an enduro style track and bring in timing equipment, so you can measure how quickly you ride the trail!
How It Works
You collect your timing chip from the café, and each time you complete a full run your times pop up on the café TV, so you can track your runs as you go through the evening. The timings go live from 4.30pm for 12-18 years old to do some laps, straight from school, with adults’ timing going live from 6pm-dark. It is a great opportunity to have some fun with your mates and session a trail!
Why Session A Trail?
Sessioning a trail is a great way to improve your skills. You get repeated practice over the same course, and can learn from your mistakes and put them right on the next run. It’s something a lot of adult mountain bikers don’t do enough of, and why kids get so fast so quick! Repeatability is also great for getting your bike set up perfectly, making small tweaks to suspension, tyre pressure, bar roll or even brake lever position. Just don’t go changing them all at once if you want to feel the difference!
Who is it for?
All mountain bikes are welcome, electric or analog, hardtail or full suspension….So why not come and join us for 2024 Series of FOD Thursdays. You can grab your place here – limited to just 100 people each week.
The café is open until 9pm too, so after getting as many runs in as you can manage, you can relax with an amazing burrito, beer or cider, while comparing your times with your friends!
One of the advantages of being a newsletter subscriber is that you’ll hear about (and get to book on) upcoming events first (if you’re not a subscriber you can sign up here!) And here’s the next one – our first big E-Bike Demo event – a partnership between Pedalabikeaway and Pedal Syndicate.
If you haven’t tried an e-bike yet (where have you been hiding?) or want to know which one to choose next, this is the event for you.
There is such a wide range of bikes, motors, weights… lightweight, midweight, full fat…it’s difficult to know which is best!
Whyte Bikes will be showcasing their new E-Lyte 150. It’s one of the first opportunities to demo it in the UK and you can directly compare it with the Transition Relay, Pivot Shuttle SL and hopefully the Specialized Levo and Kenevo SL (TBC) – the only other lightweight e-bikes worth riding in our opinion.
Yeti will have their amazing 160 E and you’ll be able to compare it with the Pivot Shuttle LT and AM, Whyte E-160 S, and the Transition Repeater.
That’s a lot of riding!
Book your place here
It’s £20 per person per day and you can demo as many bikes as you like for up to one hour each.
ps. Just don’t forget to bring your drivers licence or passport as proof of ID.
See you there!
Gareth and Ian
There’s a new rental bike on the block, and it’s pretty damn badass. The full-suspension Whyte T-160 S boasts 29er wheels, 150mm of frame travel, powerful brakes and an all-mountain geometry that means it’s ready to handle whatever you throw at it. If you want to really experience mountain biking at the Forest of Dean, this is the bike to go for.
Take your skills to the next level
The Forest of Dean is famous for its wealth of purpose-built off-road trails that make the thrills of mountain biking accessible to all. Graded trails allow you to progress from beginner to expert, developing skills along the way, and the Whyte T-160 S is ideal for that progression.
This bike is perfect for anyone who loves to ride the more technical trails in the Forest of Dean Cycle Centre; the red-graded Freeminers Trail or some of the downhill tracks in the Sallow Valets area.
It’s capable and confidence inspiring, so it’s perfect if you’re looking to progress your skills and try more technical or challenging riding, since the bike geometry and suspension travel are designed to work particularly well on steeper, gnarlier tracks (and also make intermediate technical features a whole lot easier).
Or, if you’ve only ridden a hard-tail and are considering upgrading to a full-suspension bike but want to get a feel for what they’re like and the benefits they can bring to your riding, without committing to buying one outright, then renting one is a much more accessible method.
A premium full-suspension dream machine
The Whyte T-160 S is available to hire as a Premium Mountain Bike from Pedalabikeaway.
It’s a full-suspension all-mountain bike with a 160mm RockShox Lyric fork and a RockShox Deluxe Select shock at the rear controlling 150mm frame travel. A Shimano SLX 1X12 groupset provides plenty of gears for spinning up those Forest climbs, and also getting those sprints on along the flats.
Shimano hydraulic disc brakes provide powerful, reliable stopping power, and of course good quality Shimano wheels with Maxxis High Roller (front) and Dissector (rear) tyres provide the ideal blend of reliable traction, grip and speed.
How to hire this bike
If you want to take the newly arrived Whyte T-160 S out for an adventure, all you need to do is book it via the website.
Pop over to the Bike Hire page, choose the MTB hire section, then select Premium Mountain Bike and you’ll see the Whyte T-160 S as an option. Then just choose which size you need (full size range coming soon) and the date you’d like to hire it for, and we’ll do the rest.
On the day, you’ll need to bring a photo ID such as a driving license, as well as proof of address, then you can head off and ride all day long to your hearts content.
Redbull recently highlighted the Forest of Dean as one of the best places in the UK to spend a ‘dirty’ weekend, and it’s not hard to see why!
The FOD, as it’s known locally, is a bit of a mecca for off road cycling.
Starting with the Family Cycle Trail, a 10 mile circular route that starts and finishes here at Pedalabikeaway, it’s perfect for all levels! The gradients are gentle, and it’s a very scenic amble around some historic parts of the forest.
The Family Cycle Trail in the Forest of Dean
If you don’t fancy the whole loop or have young children cycling, you can do the shorter length Hicksters loop, which is under half the distance and fully way-marked too.
To extend it, then why not take the short diversion down to the beautiful Mallards Pike Lake? It’s the perfect place for a picnic, and there is even an amazing cafe on site as well! The below shot was from the mini freeze we had this time last winter!
You also have the option of accessing the Family Cycle Trail via the Lydbrook, Coleford and Parkend links so you can ride to and from your accommodation!
Talking of accommodation, there is a massive amount of choice in the Forest for your stay. The Wye Dean tourism site is a great place to start, but a personal favourite is the Fountain Inn run by Alan, who helps dig and maintain the trails here in the FOD, while Broadstone Farm is a fantastic little campsite with great homemade cider and superb access to the Forest!
Group enjoying the Verderers Trail
If you are a little more adventurous, then the mountain biking on offer is almost limitless. All the way-marked trails start and finish here from the centre, including the blue-graded Verderers trail, the red-graded Freeminers trail and several downhill tracks. There is also a pump track and advanced skills area with jumps and drops, and a huge amount of off-piste tracks to explore!
You can get an idea of what some of them are like, by checking out our You tube site
To maximise your riding time, you could hire an e-bike (check out our previous blog on the Whyte Bikes E-150 ) or book on to one of Wye MTB’s uplift assisted trips to explore the beautiful Wye Valley. They also offer trips further afield into the beautiful Welsh Black Mountains and Brecon Beacons, which are less than 45 minutes away.
You’ll have loads to do for the little ones as well. There is a Go-Ape Mini’s site just a 10 minute walk from the centre, Puzzlewood – the enchanted forest (where some of Star Wars was filmed), Canoeing on the River Wye, Clearwell Caves or why not try Battlesports?
Fun for all the family
When you are all done, then don’t forget to call back into the cafe! We pride ourselves on serving the best coffee and cake in the forest. Perfect for that caffeine hit to keep you awake on the drive home!
