If one were possibly moving to Newcastle area and one wanted to go up at the weekend and check out some local biking to help decide the issue, where would one go?

Cheers for any useful info…

MTB i presume?

Chopwell
Hexhamshire common
edmundbyers
alwinton – cheviots

All under an hour from newcastle
further afield – Kielder and Hamsterley

When at uni there we relyed on this alot:

http://www.beyond-hamsterley.co.uk/

In terms of actually cycleable distance from the city centre there is only really chopwell woods, which is alright, but the majority need a car and are a few miles outside to the south. Also plenty in Northumberland too but we didnt tend to go that was as much.

Warton – yes MTB, ideally technical descents or DH tracks for example, but good XC would also suffice…

Chopwell would be perfect for you then.

I’m more of an XC and road person but I can offer advice. If you want to ask qestions then drop me an email at bayley dot jon at gmail dot com. I’m not around this weekend as I’m racing the Glentress seven

Chopwell is a good laugh. You can ride from the centre it takes about 45 minutes if you are fit.

Route guide here including GPX file I think.

http://www.nemountainbikeroutes.co.uk/mtb/Chopwell_Roller_Coaster.html

It isn’t that obvious but you could spend a good few hours there if you have a local guide to show you all the trails.

Hamsterley has proper DH trails etc. as well as XC stuff

Thrunton has XC and DH but it mostly “hidden” there’s loads there but it is all locals building.

Kielder is mostly XC.

There is plenty of other local stuff on Hexham Common, up towards Rothbury and the border. The likes of Glentress and Innerleithen are a 2 hour drive so doable in a day trip.

There are loads of local clubs if you want to ask them or look at the riding they do.

The ones that spring to mind are NMBC (www.midaircrisis.co.uk) which has some ride reports. It’s the club I ride with. We do night rides which take in local singletrack and features. Nothing amazing but good banter and a nice midweek run. We do weekend trips further a field. There are also the Beamish oddsox and the muddy bums. Some of the more official more road orientated clubs do mtbing, Barnesbury spring to mind as they organise the Monday night race series. Then there are the ones at Hamsterley and Kielder. Uni clubs also offer a lot if you are a student.

Loads of roadie stuff too. Races Tuesday and Thursday then BC stuff at the weekends. Cross during winter both CXNE and NECCL leagues. There aer timetrials on Wednesdays.

My personal opinion is that I would not be too quick to judge. I was massively disappointed when I moved up here. I had come from Somerset so had warmer weather to ride in and the Quantocks on my doorstep. There wasn’t the quality of riding that you get there. It took me a while to really get into it. What you do get in Newcastle is a big biking scene with lots of very active clubs involved in all aspects of the sport. As you can gather from the list above you can do lots if you ride more than one type of bike. You’ll need to drive to get to the really good stuff but it is there. Now that I know the place I never feel lacking in the riding on offer.

There must be some good DH around here if we can produce the likes of Danny Hart.

Oh, and generally the northeast is a really nice place to live and Newcastle a great city with lots going on while still being small enough to escape from at the weekend.

Depends how local you’re talking, but there’s LOADS of stuff in the general area if you’re willing to travel. Some of it can be had within riding distance from the city center…depending on your definition of ‘riding distance’.

Jonba, thanks loads – that is really helpful.

East Northumberland are

XC – Rothubry, Alnwiton, Ingram, Wooler, Thrunton

DH – Wooler get in touch with http://www.team-chr.co.uk/contact.html chaps there’s some travel from Newcastle there’s a Facebook page too

Loads of good trails around Beamish, we ride every wednesday night and Sunday check out http://www.beamishoddsox.co.uk