On 12th November 2011 a group of us will be heading up to the Lakes to ride Whinlatter, Honister, Wrynose, Hardknott and Kirkstone Passes in a single day.
Gisburn Forest is one of the best mountain biking spots in the North-West and has had loads of money thrown at it recently to improve the trails.
Looking on an OS map; whilst hardly mountainous, it looked like the forest had some promise for some downhill sections and I just hoped that the best trails would be rideable on a board.
Unfortunately, the best trails are all situated on a the “Red Route” which runs throughout the forest – with the “Black Route” which has the killer berms (named Hully Gully) at the very top (see Gisburn Forest Trail guide). I say unfortunately because the car park is right at the bottom of the forest (marked on the Freeride NW map) and the “Red Route” is approx 20km long…so you aren’t going to be exploring on foot.
View Freeride NW in a larger map
I took my bike out and had a bit of an explore. Most of the forest is made up of your typical firetrack and there are trails running off into the forest. Down those trails are a mixture of all sorts of singletrack; super-tight downhills, northshore style courses, elevated platforms above streams, rocky ascents etc. It’s a whole mixed bag.
The firetracks however were very rideable – they varied from solid rock, to mini boulders, to gravel and everything in between. Most were relatively short however and the longest downhill stretch I found was only approx 0.5 miles (there was no phone signal out there so no 3G for the GPS).
I didn’t manage to get all the way up to the “Black Route” because it turns out I am incredibly unfit when it comes to riding 20km of singletrack – so my current summary is:
Its an awesome place for mountain biking but for boarding it is a bit out of the way and what is rideable isn’t that exciting. It took over an hour for me to get there from Preston – in which time I could have been in the south Lakes, which offers much more.
I’ll post an update when I’ve explored the forest more – but I’m not holding my breath.
Its not an awesome site for mountainboarding as the forest roads are relatively short (0.5-1.0 miles) and the forest itself has a bad tendency for being waterlogged if its rained anytime in the past 6 months… BUT its only 30 mins from my house, making it the closest spot I’ve found so far that has some reliable trails. Oh and there is parking at the bottom of both sides of the Fell – so it isn’t too much of a trek up.
There are 3 main trails I have found that I stick to:
West Trail
This is a short half mile section of forest road with a couple of corners. It’s good for a beginner to try out downhill riding as the conditions are very similar to the lakes (but smaller). A run will last less than a minute, but it only takes 5 mins to walk back up…
Watch out for walkers and dogs on the 90 degree right-hander...its a blind corner and there always seems to be someone in the track that you don’t see until the last minute – even when its quiet.
It is possible to get the road to run all the way from the top of the Fell which add maybe another quarter mile, but its pretty flat and you need the wind going the right way to get any momentum. Its easier to start from the tree stump (you’ll know it when you see it).
East Trail
Another short trail – but this is FUN! It is about half a mile of forest road, but this starts with a little roll in, into 7 very quick, very tight, technical corners (some real dog-legs) and then straight down to the car park. It’s kind of like Dave, but there aren’t any straights between corners.
This is another good trail to use for practicing corners – which I really need to do…my heel sides aren’t that great :(
Middle Trail
There are tons of little trails on the Fell that a lot of mountainbikers use. Unfortunately it is pine forest, so the trees tend to be very close together and the ground very soft from pine needles. This means that a lot of the biking trails aren’t great for boards.
One of the ones that isn’t too bad is the trail going straight from the trig point at the top of the Fell down to the farm in the middle. It is a pretty wide break in the trees with loads of roots and stumps to dodge and jump.
