Now then,

Im in the yorkshire dales for a few days this weekend with the bird, she has just started riding and I would like to take her for a day out where we can get some easy going and way-marked trails.

So I was thinking about hitting the red route at Gisburn. 25min from where we are staying and it looks fairly simple

any one got any advice about the place??
Is there an alternative??

Gisburn is in Lancashire, not Yorkshire, and as far as I’m aware the trails are not yet open? Dalby forest is in North Yorks and is worth visiting, although it’s on a toll road so it £7 per car entrance fee. Where are you staying?

Yeah the trails at Gisburn are not open for another couple of weeks at least according to an email I got – and they are imploring people not to ride them yet to give them a chance to settle.

The blue at Whinlatter is good fun would probably be good for her, but might be a bit of a trek depending on where you are staying.

yeah depending on where you are whinlatter is a nice place to ride, we did it for first time a few weeks back, some really good descents.. only drawback was we didnt feel there was enough descending for the amount of climbing. Couldn’t vouch for the blue route for your misses tho as we did the red.

The existing trails at Gisburn are open and are ‘easy going and waymarked trails’. The new stuff isn’t finished yet but it doesn’t sound like that’s what you’re looking for anyway . It’s a really nice area with a pub just down the road .If the weather is nice you could do worse.

Isn’t the existing stuff pretty much all fire-road? Not that that is necessarily a bad thing for the OP.

Im staying just outside of Hawes which as far as I know is in the yorkshire dales, so a 30min trip to gisburn was the closest trail center. 3 hrs to dalby is not an option + its too long

So are the trails open or closed at Gisburn??

Not looking for loads of single track just a small amount to increase the confidence + test her new bike

AIUI There’s a waymarked fireroad trail round gisburn, but the singletrack is still being built and isn’t open yet

There’s plenty of good riding around Hawes itself that will be far better than the current stuff @ Gisburn.

The VG Guide to N Yorkshire has a few routes round there, including a couple they give a ‘blue’ rating, and a couple of short ones from Hawes/Hardraw. Not tried them but most of the VG routes elsewhere I have done are really good.

Or try the Bogtrotters site (but don’t believe their ratings of difficulty!)

What nbt said – the waymarked fireroads around Gisburn are there but the singletrack is still under construction.

I started mountain biking in the Dales and there are loads of easy-ish routes you can do. Why don’t you pop into the Dales Cycle Centre at Reeth, I am sure they can offer some advice? The Settle loop is not overly technical but there is some climbing involved. Its also easy to navigate, what about giving that a try?

Get yourself to gisburn mate, it sounds exactly what your looking for.

If your missus is anything like mine and only been out on the bike a handful of times, then gisburn is plenty hard enough.

Park up at Cocklet Hill car park and follow the red route from there, it can be ridden in both directions, i would recommend anti-clockwise.

Don`t expect to be challenged too much yourself, but at least you will get to stretch your legs.

It’s a heck of a lot longer to Gisburn forest than 30 mins from Hawes!

thanks all, appreciate there is a lot of riding around that area without hitting a trail center. However the weather is meant to be farily bad and with trying to keep her upright as well, I dont want the hassle of playing with maps and getting lost.

failed engineer – staying in ingleton

As evel says!! This will be perfect. Did the same as you on the way from Manc to stay near Ingleton 🙂 Took GF to get used to her new bike, also new to MTBing.

Ride the existing Red anti-clockwise some hills to get exercised and flat and gentle downhill singletrack to develop some skills.

Get there via a great road from Clapham village.
Paul

evel + clark

cheers for the info, thats whatI will do.