what’s the longest, truly singletrack, unbroken trail in Britain?

Descents or continual bits ?

Doethie valley innit.

Probably nowhere near the longest, but the final descent on the MachX goes on a fair bit. 🙂

I was gonna mention that – claims to be the longest in Wales anyway.

behind the Nationwide building…?

😉

Doethie valley 2ndededn 😉

Any number in Scotland I should think.

I think Golspie claims to be the longest unbroken singletrack descent. But offroad you could travel an incredibly long way without leaving singletrack up here (some of it would be climbs, lots of it would be boring)

The Sliglachan singletrack on Skye doesnt really descend but its pretty long. What about through the Lairgh Gruh?

Not very suitable as a winter route, mind:

Promise of Doethie Valley by LadyAlex mtb, on Flickr

Marred by a few gates and a bit of a bog at one point when we lost the trail 😉

‘The Wife’ at Swinley, well it feels like it 🙂

Which one is the wife? I know many trails and I thought their names too until this.
The labyrinth at swinley feels like it gets longer every time.

Doethie valley is long but doesn’t feel like St all the way and is broken by gates and getting lost in the bog. Still good though.

Minton Batch off the long mynd in shropshire is reputed to be the longest single track descent in the UK I read somewhere the day before I went & did it, can’t verify it though.

The Ridgeway across the Wiltshire downs towards Streatley is long

Doethie valley is long but doesn’t feel like St all the way and is broken by gates and getting lost in the bog. Still good though.

Glad it wasn’t just me! Also, for me at least the Dothie Valley wasn’t continuously rideable (is that a criteria?), partly due to the bog section and also a few little features nearer the start that would’ve needed a bit more oomph/skills than I’ve got.

FWIW, not a clue where ‘The Wife’ is either. Maybe they’ll put name tags on all the new bits to stop this sort of shenanigins.

From the Golspie website:

The longest singletrack descent in the UK at around 7000m of superb trail including natural slab rock and sandstone aggregate.

Sligachan to Camusanary must be 12km. Though one would hardly call it a descent, that’s not what the OP asked for.

Bynack Stable to Derry Lodge through the Lairig an Laoigh must be 20km.

Minton batch isn’t massively long. Ridegeway is wide track along that part.

Dothie Valley

Memories of watching a friend cartwheeling his way down the valley towards the river and thankfully missing all the protruding rocks. Very scary.
That happened in a dip where the path’s slipping away just before the rise up to the rocky step with the sheer drop.

Is cheeky allowed? I suspect the longest ones are all footpaths.

‘The Wife’ at Swinley, well it feels like it

Never heard of it? Where’s that?

The descent north off The Calf (Howgills) is about 6 miles long. It’s not what you’d call continuous descent though, there’s a couple of short ups in it, little punchy climbs where the trail dips into the hillside to cross a stream.

map link

Mostly pretty flowing though.

Minton Batch off the long mynd in shropshire is reputed to be the longest single track descent in the UK I read somewhere the day before I went & did it, can’t verify it though.

Not the longest but supposed to be the best natural singletrack descent in the UK.

Er? There must be more singletrack off the Mynd alone which is longer than Minton Batch. I think it was voted best singletrack in England or something in one of the mags.

but the final descent on the MachX goes on a fair bit

ClimachX is the longest trail-centre descent in wales I think.

Doethie Valley, Bowderdale, Kentdale from Nan Bield, have got to be up there for non-Scottish trails. WildBoar Scar from Cross Fell is apparently the longest non-gated descent around, and the Great Sca Fell to Longlands off the Back O’ Skiddaw is a long one too.

Climachx is barely 10 mins though so its far from the longest when it comes to time.

7k? Golspie needs to preface that with “purpose built” 😉

There are singletrack descents off Braeriach, Macdui and Beinn a Bhuird which are all nearly double that. Dozens more I could name.

Bynack stable to Derry is probably sub 20. Picadilly to White Bridge must be cracking on for 25. Edit, last few kliks are double track iirc but certainly > 20. Alas, not all rideable…

Knocked in quite a few in Wester Ross / Sutherland which must be pushing the 30 mark. Portage in there too though.

from Ryvoan bothy, through the valleys past Pools of Avon and on to Derry Lodge, like Druidh say’s…….it is a hell of a long way.

I’ve just plotted it at 19.7km from the old stable. Further from the bothy, but it’s “double-track” for a bit.

Or Stable>Derry>Lairig Ghru> Picadilly = c. 40k