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Which would you recommend?
I'll have about 3 hours to ride. Prefer red grade routes with some nice technical bits. Prefer technical climbs over fire road.
Will have my hardtail with me on this occasion.
Newcastleton seems to have the greater mileage, but what's the actual route like?
I'm sure you can do both. Newcastleton is a short loop then you can cross the wood, i think it's signposted, to join one loop in Kielder Forest. I did that a long time ago, possibly in 3h.
Neither will likely set your world on fire, but if it was me I would do Newcastleton as its got a nice old school vibe. You can do the borders trail that takes in both but I think 3h would be a fair lick!
Thanks chaps. Newcastleton it is then.
Personally i love the border route combined with Newcastleton.
Used to stay at the Grapes.
There are no technical bits at Newcastleton, but it's pleasant enough. Keilder has a little bit of technical, including one nice technical climb. You could do both Keilder reds in 3 hrs.
Hmm, maybe Kielder then....
Newcastleton is a blue/purple fundulating rtail.
Kielder has much mroe choice of red trails. The classic red at Kielder is nearly entirely single track too, with technical climbs instead of forest road.
Except for the torture garden that is the fire road climb up Deadwater Fell, of course .....
Except for the torture garden that is the fire road climb up Deadwater Fell, of course …..
And then the torture garden that is the rubble road descent down Deadwater Fell. 😁
Never done Newcastleton but I've always been amazed at the amount of climbing for so little reward on the trails around Kielder despite the terrain having the potential to rival most British trail centres. Personal opinion and I know lads who love the place, but even though it's only around an hour from home I haven't bothered for a few years now, last visit some sections were overgrown to the point you could barely see the trail although I'm told it has had a fair bit of maintenance since then. It does have a few technical climbs though if that's what you're looking for
I'd do Kielder. Do the Deadwater route first (missing the climb up to the top as per above unless it's a clear sunny day with no wind as the view is cracking), hang a left and climb up fireroad to do the bottom 2/3s of the black bit then climb up the fire road towards the observatory to come down skydive. Quite a bit of fireroad climbing though. 2 laps of the deadwater?
Similar to this only I missed the technical climbing bit out. Can't remember why and tagged on a bit of the blue between the black and skydive. https://strava.app.link/gr5rFSj5v0
Newcastleton it's fun if you get the hammer down .nothing technical but it certainly has some flow .
Kielder has some very short fun sections but really it's limited and the climbs are not worth the decents.
Both have some facilities and newcastleton has showers etc in the town carpark .you won't see a sole either
Well, I ended up going for Kielder. Was going to try the Lonesome Pine trail, but signs in the car park said it was shut due to some work going on.
So, if only I'd read the the most recent comments above BEFORE I embarked on the Deadwater trail!
It was 6.3 miles long. The first 4.2 were uphill. Properly uphill. Some of that was technical and interesting, about 90% of it horrific fire road climbing (my favourite)!
Despite visibility being about 100 yards, it being in single figures temperature-wise and doing it's best to get me very wet, I thought I may as well have a look at the black loop at the top of Deadwater Fell. I really wish I hadn't bothered. The climb up was awful. I think I averaged about 4mph up that never-ending stretch. Then the descent that should have made up for that purgatory was just as dreadful! Not a technical feature in sight: just a few hundred yards of half brick sized rubble that did it's best to loosen every filling in my head!
It was a real shame because if I hadn't been so knackered by all that, I'd have really enjoyed the rest of the red descent a lot. It seemed pretty good, with a nice variety of berms, little rock jumps and some really quite tricky sets of rock steps.
Wish I'd taken my FS bike really - would have made the descents better to the extent the climbing would have been worth it!
Overall, I think I enjoyed it, so thanks for the tips. Definitely need to be feeling energetic from the start if I do it again!
Yeah Kielder is a mystery. If ever there was a location you could make England's definitive trail centre its there.... or not it would seem. Have they improved the surface on the red descent? Last time I was there they'd spread anti-grip cat litter everywhere!
"Anti grip cat litter" 🤣🤣
Yeah, there was a fair bit of black grit in places, but because it'd all had a good soaking it was actually quite grippy.
There's some nice little jumps on the way down that red too.
Glad you enjoyed it-ish.
I was there a few weeks back. It's a beautiful place but man, that boardwalk in torrential rain is kin scary!
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48656968273_0577d55f99_k.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48656968273_0577d55f99_k.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/2h8DFu6 ]Kielder Forest[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/79912681@N06/ ]blackteaonesugar[/url], on Flickr
Kielder 100m and 100km were just fantastic experiences.
I have a soft spot for the area.
We often head up to kielder and stay at the campsite there for 2 nights. We usually go up and do deadwater first, altho dont go up the fireroad all the way to the top as its pointless, also wouldnt bother with the black route from the rock garden type climb.
Once we do that we have a coffee at the castle, then bike along the fire road to do lonesome pine route. If its wet we miss the boardwalks out and just do the cut straight ahead and that descent is great. We dont bother anymore with the bloodybush bit as not really worth it and takes you out onto a long fireroad then you have to climb all the way back up to get back on the lonesome pine.
We spent a weekend at keilder the other weekend and had amazing weather and decided to do newcastleton for a change. Was alright, some nice fast descents but nothing to technical. Altho seemed quite short and we were finished it in 2 hours.
Jon Taylor
fundulating
I have no idea if the above was a typo or not, but I intend to steal it and use it for trail descriptions from now on!
I forgot to mention in my post above not to discount the blue osprey route to anyone that goes to Kielder. Yes, it's got some loooong stretches on fireroad/the lakeside way but the actual trails are fantastic, flowy, grin inducing fun.
I spite of my comments above, I went to Newcastleton on Saturday! It's only 30 mins or so from home and I didn't have much time. Did 1 1/2 loops of the red. There are some new swoopy jumpy sections and the skills area has a tricky rocky bit. Quite enjoyed myself.