Does any body know of a good GPS download for Hamsterley forest. I like Hamsterley and usually do 3 laps of the black to avoid all of the fire road on the red but know that there’s a lot of good track off the usual way marked route. I was wondering if anybody with local knowledge has done a gps route including all the best bits of Hamsterley that people like me don’t know about and avoiding as much fire road as possible, an extended black route if you like.
I have a Garmin Edge 800.
Cheers

I haven’t got a GPS route but here’s a good place to start;

http://mtbnortheast.ning.com/forum/topics/hamsterley-mammoth

Obviously you don’t have to include all of that, but there’s plenty of extra little loops you can add in to make an ‘extended black’.

I’ll be there on Sunday with some mates if you’d like pointing in the right direction.

Going off the map I could probably put this route into my GPS but it’s difficult to know which way the route goes without knowing all of the place names that the guy uses. Any idea how far this route is?
Thanks BTW

I took me a while to work out which bits were where but that’s always going to be the case with unofficial trails!!

I think its about 30 miles or so in total. Tbh you could leave out the big loop to the west without missing too much interesting stuff.

If you zoom right in on the map you can just about make out some arrows so you can tell which direction to go. If in doubt, most of the fireroads should be a climb or flatish.

i’ve sent you an email

Oi, that’s my map! If you drop me an email I’ll send you the GPX, pretty sure I’ve also got a wordy description of a decent route around the forest that I’ve typed out for someone a while back, I’ll have a look and see if I can find it.

Sorry Crispy but it was up on a public forum 😉

Thanks BTW, the Hamsterley Common and Dangerous Descent are both brilliant trails i’ve only just found in the last couple of weeks thanks to your map!

Hamsterley Common is a great trail, although V cheeky. I’ve not ridden it in ages.

DD is probably one of my favourite trails in the forest, it’s just a shame it’s such a long way there & back without much else for entertainment.

Oh and Moose, the full route is just over 31 miles and just under 5000ft of climbing. Never attempted it myself, a bit much for me!

Just so everyone is aware:

Rope Trap on Hamsterley downhill

Yeah i’m going to try to restrict myself to only riding the Common at night in dry or frozen conditions. Don’t want to be acused of ruining a good footpath!

Really enjoyed DD but it felt like a loooonnnng way back up to the top of Transmission when my camelbak had frozen solid and the fireroad was covered in a nice mixture of sheet ice and snow!!!

I was thinking about doing this next time I go. Any comments about how to improve the route would be welcome.

Map

Lot’s, drop me a mail, unless you are one of the ones that already has!

Hamsterley Common is a great trail, although V cheeky

I talked to a RoW officer who will remain anonymous and pointed out it should be a bridleway (it is Bridleway all through the forest until it meets the Parish boundary at thre forest edge). I said I wanted to make a claim to get it reclassified.
The RoW officer said, “Don’t bother, just ride it anyway.”

The RoW officer said, “Don’t bother, just ride it anyway.”

Where’s the like button? 😀

Would be great to get it reclassified though, if only so they have to take down those signs.

Would be great to get it reclassified though

There are some BOAT applications going through at the moment, mostly on Hamsterley Common. So far it’s taken 15 years and it’s still grinding through the courts. Since these roads were actually created by Act of Parliament sometime in the early 19th Century, you could argue it’s taken about two centuries to get this far. I hope you live long enough to see the day that footpath is reclassified.

😆 I won’t hold my breath then!

Anything else in Weardale / Teesdale that’s disputed / should be a bridleway? There seems to be a distinct lack of bridleways compared with other areas with a strong mining heritage.

Hi Crispy, some maps of the proposed Byway upgrades are in this document:
BOAT application
Some might be quite useful; others rubbish.
Don’t know of any other outstanding reclassification applications in the county at the mo.