if you were to take a bike up blencathra, very early one morning, which way would you ride back down.

there are no bridelways ton….

Scale Fell or Horsfell ridge I reckon

Any damn way I please rules are fools 😛

Sharp Edge in a Danny Mac styleee 8)

wombat, thats the way up

Did the trail down to Scales Tarn then continued down Scales Beck about a couple of years ago and it was lovely. Very steep to start with but gets more mellow and flowing the further you go.

I suspect that this

there are no bridelways

is the reason for this

very early one morning

??

There’s some vids on youtube of a guy riding it and in the comments getting lambasted for riding fps. I’ve walked it a few times, if I was riding it my route choice would be up blease fell on the left then over teh summit and down to scales tarn and then follow the path that leads away from the tarn down to mousthwaite. It follows the valley and is a nice gentle ride. The bit down to the tarn is very steep rock steps, that would be the only struggleish bit I reckon.

Exactly @edlong – now droolling over OS map of Blencathra

I will be going up from mousthwaite combe and down blease fell.

I used to be the person who would not dare ride a footpath. I now ride anything, but choose my time carefully.
the trails and hills will still be there in millennia.

on the OS there’s an fp up from the blencathra centre but google earth suggests it’s a proper “path may become indistinct” job

The path from the centre is fairly well defined low down where the ground is steeper but when you get higher on to Blease Fell the ground is pretty uniform so it’s a case of go anywhere. I don’t think that it’s a popular way with walkers hence the lack of obvious path on the ground. Here’s the square in Geograph – http://www.geograph.org.uk/browse.php?p=473764

No idea what it or any of the paths on Blencathra are like on a bike, I’ve only ever run up there.

Blease fell is probably the easiest descent, rough singletrack and grass. Halls Fell and Doddick are the trickiest; rocky, technical with tight turns and drops. Down to the tarn and round the valley is a fun, inbetween option.

Mungrisdale – Mungrisdale common – round the back up to the top.
[url=https://flic.kr/p/8Jrbyf]P1060418[/url] by freeride nick, on Flickr

trail down to the Tarn
[url=https://flic.kr/p/8Jo97T]P1060436[/url] by freeride nick, on Flickr
then follow the FP all the way to Scales and a nice pint at the Pub at bottom.
[url=https://flic.kr/p/8JrdWG]P1060484[/url] by freeride nick, on Flickr

Great day out.

Leave it in peace.

It was you that ripped out the headtube down there parkedtiger 😉

Tick!

Halls Fell and Doddick are the trickiest;

hmm fun tricky or pushing your bike “this is awful” tricky I wonder…

Down to the tarn and round the valley is a fun, inbetween option.

so sharp edge down to scales beck the around the base of scales fell.
Is the zig zags up scales fell a reasonable route up? (for a short loop)

this Friday early if anyone fancies.

hmm fun tricky or pushing your bike “this is awful” tricky I wonder…

Well, Halls Fell has a couple of spots going up where you use your hands, so rather you than me in descent.

The top 100 – 150 metres of Halls fell would be WTF tricky. It’s bad enough on foot 🙄

Doddick would be a lot easier – the path traverses out on to the ridge to begin with and is quite exposed here but once on the ridge it’s reasonably straightforward with the occasional rocky step/slab. Again I’ve only run this not biked it.

I wont be going down halls fell. I will be going down blease fell, as stated above.

Ahem.

It is *fun* on rigid, canti wearing Dawes hire bike as a first time up a mountain on a bike experience in 1990 as a school boy. Natch.

Ahem.

@freeride, nice pics, is there anywhere you haven’t been 😉

Lofoten. Going next week though 8)