There used to be route guides on the website, I can’t find ’em. Do they still exist?

looks like they’ve disappeared. They weren’t very good anyway and were long out of date.

Shame. They don’t really go out of date though, do they? Or is it the style of riding that they are suited for is now seen as out of date?

No I speak from personal experience I followed a couple in Ticknall, staffs they had put up and could not follow it at all, dunno if the route had changed over time but I remember at one point the thing said go left and there was no left turn possible.
and no that kind of riding has not gone out of date, XC bridleway bimbling is very popular. What do you think people do in the lakes all the time? 🙂

What do you think people do in the lakes all the time?

I assumed everyone was shredding the enduro gnaaar these days 🙂

Any where in particular IHN? Got some old mbr maps off red thunder to add to my collection. Got a load now so could have a look and e-mail some across if you want

Nah, was just going to browse through them for inspiration for a weekend trip somewhere. Cheers though.

If you have access to the mag’ data base then you can browse the routes in those……

I have found a lot of route guides on the Viewranger website/app which is quite handy as i can just add to the route to the app on my phone.

No I speak from personal experience I followed a couple in Ticknall, staffs

Ticknall is in Derbyshire, no wonder you got lost.

I grew up there and TBH I suspect they never rode the loop in the mag, it makes no sense as a loop. If they really did ride there, and Cy/Cotic bothered to bring Hemlock prototype down, then they more likely spent a lot of time on cheeky DH* tracks in the woods.

*not very gnarr

lol, you may well be right.

Shame. They don’t really go out of date though, do they? Or is it the style of riding that they are suited for is now seen as out of date?

Going back almost 10 years, I co-wrote / photographed a fair few of the guides on there, many made it into the mag as well.

They do go out of date – maybe the trails have changed but even if the route is still identical, the photos look horribly out of date with old/obsolete kit, clothing, brands etc.

Part of the feature is often a way of killing two birds with one stone and using the ride as an opportunity to test some of the kit you’ve been sent for review so photos from a decade ago aren’t really going to cut it with readers.

There were also no .gpx files available; most were written and ridden in the pre-Strava/GPS days. The idea on each one was to come up with an easy/medium/hard route option but time constraints meant it was impossible to fully ride every option – in fact I remember a couple of times where we didn’t even ride one full route usually because we knew it already (and therefore knew it was legal, rideable etc) or factors such as weather making it impractical to ride the whole thing at that time.

Trails do change over time. Unofficial ones more so as they get trashed, blocked, modified, re-routed, wrecked by weather etc.

Didn’t Merlin Man do the ticknall route?

Try using the Trailforks app.

This lad has a good collection of trail guides on his site, covers Wales and N Eng, a lot of detail in the routes:

Home Page

Think there’s still a place for this sort of info amongst the plethora of gps sites, strava etc, if it’s done well. Can be good to just get a classic route for the area without it turning into a research project [although I know that’s part of the fun for some folk].

Brainflex – Member
Try using the Trailforks app.

Both interesting and a curse Trailforks. That and Strava is causing so many problems with unofficial trails and landowners. But then I do like seeing where those trails are… 😈

Ride With GPS does more route oriented stuff.

Both interesting and a curse Trailforks. That and Strava is causing so many problems with unofficial trails and landowners. But then I do like seeing where those trails are..

Trailforks actually puts the power back with the landowner who can have trails removed and their land added as an exclusion zone I believe, just requires some proactive management. Main problem is it’s trails not loops as such

Yeah, it’s been managed in some areas, but often only after things have come to a head due to so many people seeing the trails on there (and digging new ones), and the landowner finds out about Trailforks and then does something about it, after shutting down all the trails.

It’s the right idea though and I like the ability to update trail status, conditions and supposedly tie it in with a local trail group. In the UK though we don’t have many trail groups outside of trail centres that aren’t anonymous trail pixies as most the trails are illegal.