So I went to the lakes today to ride. The plan was to pick a route from a Lakes route book I have; however a massive tidy up as I’m selling my house meant I couldn’t find said book at 2200 last night. I decided to go and try TNF trail at Grizedale instead. I’ve read generally unfavourable reviews of the trail, but decided to go and make my own mind up. I packed an OS map, just in case it was awful.
There’s a bit of fireroad climb at the start, but then it picks up a singletrack, rocky climb. This was superb, all rideable but just techy enough to make you think. I began to wonder what people were moaning about. Then I found some fireroad, lots of it! There was one section of singletrack closed, so this meant more fireroad, but there really was a lot of fireroad. The singletrack sections in between the fireroad were great, quite natural feeling (where there weren’t Boardwalk sections), and it looks like work has been done as there are a number of freshly placed rock slab sections.
If, like at Gisburn, the fireroad sections are gradually phased out with new “proper” trail sections being cut I’d imagine TNF would be amazing. As it was it was 6km of great trails, and 12km of fireroad with nice views. I’ll go again, but I’ll get the OS map out and miss some fireroad sections out.