i plan on heading up to hamsterly on saturday. i need some advise on which trail to do. the black looks good,what is the red like now as i’m told it used to be a lot of fire road. ideally i would like to do both.

Do the black,red is very dull in places a lot of effort with very little reward.the black is great though make sure you do transmission/accelerator/nitrous section 3fast flowing fun bits of trail straight after each other worth going just for this bit.

are those 3 sections on the black or red?

They’re on the red.

Do the Black from the visitor centre. You’ll eventually cross a ford which comes out behind a range of buildings called Grove House.

To get to the new sections starting with Transmission, turn right and pass a barrier after about 100m, beyond this the fire road goes left up a bank or straight on. You want to go up the hill.

It will track round to the right and then go straight up the hill to a crossroads after 300m or so. You have 2 choices here to get to the start of the trail.

– straight ahead up the fireroad up the hill through a few turns until you get to a turn off right after about 1.5km. Take this turn and this fire road will take you straight up to the start of Transmission.

– alternatively you can go right at the crossroads. This will take you past the start to accelerator to where Transmission exits the forest. Go past where it exits and you’ll reach the edge of the trees and you’ll see a big cut going left up the hillside. If you ride up here you’ll get to the fire road that takes you to the start. Look right where this fire-break crosses Transmission after 100m or so.

If you ride all 3 sections they’ll eventually bring you back to a large open area near to Grove House. You ride back towards the ford and turn right to get back on to the black which will take you up to Section 13 which up near the 4x track and the downhill hut.

Hamsterley isn’t the best for signage but there’ll be people around to ask if you’re not sure which way to go.

There’s is a lot of fire road on the red but I don’t mind too much and usually do a figure of 8
Start on black until the DH hut then pick the red up back to the hut – top of the hill and finish the black from there

The red is very, very dull with the exception of a couple of newish sections. You can link in the good bits (transmission/section 13 etc) with rest of the black with a bit of imagination.

I’ve combined the red and the black and found it entertaining enough.

The fire road climbs on the red are easy if you’re used to biking.
I can’t believe how many people i see pushing on moderate climbs in Hamsterley.
Have a look at the Hamsterley Trailblazers website as there is more info on the routes.

Why doesnt somebody just GPS it like they do for secret stuff @ Thrunton, then put it on the internet…or is it because its public???

Might be wrong but I thought some of the Trailblazers club rides cover some of the less well known stuff?

I don’t go on Trailblazers rides but there are loads of unofficial trails in Hamsterley. Some are easier to find than others.

These give an idea of where some of them are. Both could do with updating but have most stuff on them –
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?t=h&om=1&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=100876586980271444310.0000011328e49b166dbb7

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?t=h&om=1&ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=110903447243019790336.000444bb71010500bdd28&ll=54.667081,-1.905441&spn=0.070486,0.150375&z=13

I’d heard that Section 13 has just been re-dressed as the surface was suffering after the Winter so be aware it could be very loose.

It never occured to me that there was a Hamsterley loop other than the reddishblack.

Having looked the 2nd of the 2 links I posted has actually been updated with the newer sections apart from the latest one after accelerator but you can’t miss it.