Apologies if I’m dissing someones hard work here but…

I rode the Lonesome Pine and Bloody Bush trails at Kielder the other week and was left wondering why they bothered building them. Very little technical interest, not much flow to it and very poorly surfaced.

Is this a work in progress or has it just not been very well planned? It seems a shame that trails get built in this way when trail centres can be such fun if they’re well thought out.

Your not alone thinking that – i live in Northumberland and never go nowadays.

Yep waste of money 🙁

Haven’t done those ones, reason being, the Deadwater trails are pretty damn good so we always just go and do that instead. Lovely.

The word at the time was that the Lonesome Pine was to have more features added over time, but that doesn’t seem to have happened.

Then again they also say it was designed as an easy red- presumably because their blues missed the mark so badly (“Visitors using a mobility scooter should ensure batteries are fully charged before setting off.”)

Is that the side of kielder with the 1.2km raised wooden bit (thats plenty wide enough to ride side-by-side (and had quad bike tyre tracks along it when I went). A fair few sections were really quite rough, and there was a far too long fireroad descent early on?
I’d echo your comments

The east hillside (up/over, deadwater? trails) I like very much though. The end (after the turnoff for the black) didn’t leave me amazed, but I really liked the black section. I found the trek up onto deadwater dell interesting, but probably only because it was covered in snow when I went, so the descent down again had some speedy suprise lumps and bumps in it

I know its not popular but I quite liked the XC trail at newcastleton (20mins (by car) around the other side of the west hill). The black north shore stuff there was very wet and I wasn’t feeling upto falling off that day, though I’d very much like to go back now I’m a bit better with raised wooden stuff

Snap ! I was told on several occasions not to bother but I went last week on the way to Kelso. I don’t want to slight the work done but it is not good and before I get flamed I ride both trail centres and cross country stuff. Its a pity as its a beautifull area.

my two cents

having gone a few times i now quite like the from the zig zag climb and the wooden bit home again. The wooden bit makes for a change. BUT it takes far far too long of iritatingly surfaced trail and fireroad to get there.

deadwater trail is better but getting a bit heavily used at the bottom.