Morning all,

I’m driving a van up to somewhere called Bandrake Head in the Lakes, a couple of miles South of Conniston on Friday week. I’ve then got Saturday free to ride before heading back South on Sunday, so I’m looking for suggestions on where to ride?

In terms of riding ability, I’m perfectly happy with red routes at the likes of Swinley, Cannock Chase or Coed y Brenin, with the reds at Bike Park Wales being pretty much my upper limit.

I’m also not averse to navigating around for myself on Bridleways with an OS map, but given that there’s no way of knowing whether a descent is going to be fun singletrack or dull fire trail type stuff, I tend to avoid that unless someone can send me a decent GPX route.

Grizedale looks to be very much the closest of the trail centres, but I’m not really convinced by some of the reviews I’ve read that there’s much fun to be had there?

Whinlatter sounds altogether more like what I’m looking for, but looks like it’s going to be a 90 minute round trip each way, so was just wondering if there’s anywhere else closer that I should consider?

follow the brideways in grizedale, use the trail centre to link them up, look on strava for Breasty Haw, father, grandfather and the dentisit (or satterthwaite 1,2 & 3), loambada, stone fox, middleman, blind lane 1 & 2……

and follow your nose a bit

Direct from bandrake head head up a steep road to Abbot Park and over to bletherbarrow lane and do the ickenthwaite/roman road descent to ickenthwaite down on the road to force forge, go into the forest via blind lane and the world’s your lobster from there

Going to the lakes and riding a trail centre is like going into a brothel for a kiss

Grisedale for tech fun on the BW not the actual route – never done the black to be clear

Walna scar loop for something natural/not to techy – ou can do a loop of Coniston as well

Nan bield at Staveley for some thing hike a bike and technical

More like going to a brothel for a cup of tea 😀

Tour of Coniston: http://www.pedalnorth.com/content/tour-de-coniston
Kentmere Loop: http://pedalnorth.com/content/kentmere-loop

If you go for Grizedale, don’t miss out parkamoor, it’s a belter! Other than that junkyard has it summed up nicely.

Yes,I do get the brothel analogy, although I think of it more like going to a restaurant…

Going to a trail centre in the Lakes is like going to Pizza Express. Nothing stunning, but enjoyable enough and perfectly inoffensive.

Going off piste somewhere I don’t know is more like going for some dodgy looking backstreet joint. I might get something worthy of a Michelin star, but I might also get something with all the appeal of regurgitated KFC! 🙂

I’ll take a look at those loops when I’m back on a laptop, thanks. I reckon 23 miles in the Lakes might be pushing my fitness a bit, but that site looks good in general!

Seriously, the North Face loop is an about an hours to an hour and a half riding tops and really shows its age but it is useful as a conduit between the good bits. You’ll be mugging yourself if you just do that.

If you’re on for the full day do the wlana scar loop am, lunch in Coniston (cafe at Brantwood’s nice also low bankground and monk coniston) then into the forest.

Oh and get in the Manor in Oxen Park (next village along to Bandrake Head, about half a mile walk/stagger) for your tea!

See this thread for natural rides around Grizedale and some Coniston loops. I haven’t done any of these (trip 6 weeks ago was walking only) but have these on a to-do list. Enjoy

Thread Link

Edit: also the drive up East side of Coniston is great for view of Old Man and the lake and we stayed at Drunken Duck outside Ambleside – has good food and home brewed beers, a few benches outside with a view

quote]the North Face loop is an about an hours to an hour and a half riding tops[/quote]
I rode it once with folk who did not ride bikes and borrowed mine
3/4 round we met a girl in jeans on a shopping bike complete with shopping basket on the bars

I can see no reason, given the lakes and the riding locally, why anyone would choose to do this

Whinlatter at least has the odd good view

A couple of ideas for you … we did these a couple of weekends ago from Coniston:

Grizedale loop: http://www.gpsies.com/map.do?fileId=finoqisbhucnsgrv

Dunnerdale and Walna: http://www.gpsies.com/map.do?fileId=ecnccsqlzqxbkwlu

Made a change to the Dunnerdale route and rather than heading up out of Coniston we went along the lake-side trail to Torver then climbed up to join the Ickle Valley singletrack from there.

Thanks for the link to that other thread, Jambalaya, and all the other contributions from everyone else. 🙂

At the moment, I’m thinking of taking this circuit of Coniston from that other thread, but starting from High Nibthwaite rather than Torver, as that’s close enough to where I’m spending the night that I can ride over rather than drive round the side of Coniston. If I’ve worked that out correctly, it should give me a nice descent to finish?

Assuming there’s nothing glaringly wrong with that as a start point, I guess Coniston itself looks like the logical place to stop for lunch. Any recommendations there? Ideally somewhere where either I won’t need to lock my bike up, or which has bike locks available to avoid me having to lug a D-Lock round with me!! 😀

Any recommendations there?

the cafe by the lake is standard. best outlook.

COuple of additions, while you’re there you may as well slog up to the top of walna scar and bomb backdown, the best bit is the switchbacks near the top.

For lunch the cafe at the jetty in conistion (down past John Ruskin School) where you can sit and see youre bike and it’s reet nice.

When you’re done head up bletherbarrow lane (you’re legs’ll be singing at this point) do the ickenthwaite descent, when you get to the gate turn right and straight into the next gate along follow the track to a water splash and follow the bway along the beck back to bandrake head.

I was looking at that climb back up to get over to Bandrake Head (or to be more precise, Abbot Park) and thinking “singing” probably isn’t the words for what my fat old knacker legs will be doing by that point!!! 😆

Yep, Bletherbarrow is a bit of a struggle, and the Ickenthwaite descent is a bit rubbish now (sanitised + lots of road descending). Personally, if you do the Parkamoor to Nibthwaite descent, which you should, it’s not that bad to just climb back up it with only a tiny bit of pushing, then stay on the track past where you joined it, going rightwards, this drops you out at the very start of Grandad, Dad and Dentist, a long straight BW descent which is really, really good.

You wouldn’t descend on the road heading back to bandrake head, if he drops back into the forest he’d have climb back up to oxen park on the road

it’d make more sense to do gdad,dad and dentist first then climb back up the north face to get to parkamoor

PostieRich set a cracking route for the Jennride. It takes in most of the best riding in that part of the world, choose a section and crack on

http://www.gpsies.com/map.do?fileId=ohqofiyeadhkfvtg

Ah yes, I’ve worked out where he is now. Bletherbarrow looks unavoidable!

But it looks perfectly placed for the tour of Coniston ride.

While we are in this area – has anyone done the bridleway from the top of Bletherbarrow southwards past Hill Park Farm and Sayles Farm?

Over Bessy Bank, nice warm up follow my route from Saturday if the weather is kind plenty of nice views , saw sod all saturday apart from rain. Finish across Water Yeat as per my start then Down the East side of Coniston and a nice climb back up Bessy Bank to finish!!Brew at Hollands in Coniston,nice Lavazza coffee. 4 hrs or so with a brew stop.MTB Coniston Loop

Aye, its a couple of fields basically you can either follow it all the way to sayles or hop off into Bessy bank woods, I use it occasionally the other way round to get to bletherbarrow but it’s purely a linking section.

You could jump onto the fireroad in bessy bank, then do the footpath through sales park wood

😆

You lot all clearly know where you’re going, but I don’t!!

I reckon at the moment my safest bet is to just change the start point of that GPX I linked to, then take the most direct route I can to/from it. I may well miss out on a couple of cracking trails, but given I’ve never ridden any of it before, I’m guessing I’ve still got lots of nice stuff to look forward to!

The Parkmoor descent begins here http://www.streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?X=331619&Y=492252&A=Y&Z=120&ax=330694&ay=492472 and heads SSW to Nibthwaite http://streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?X=329438&Y=489697&A=Y&Z=120. To get to the Grandad, Dad & Dentist take the bridleway heading east and each time you come to a forest road go straight across to end up here http://streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?X=333596&Y=492012&A=Y&Z=120

The problem generally being implicitly talked about is that getting these BWs in to a loop that doesn’t involve either a lot of road or some serious climbing on road isn’t easy.

Edit: I grew up in the area so …

I reckon at the moment my safest bet is to just change the start point of that GPX I linked to

You’ll have a good day, and you might be able to work out a funner way of dropping down towards Blawith at the start of the day.

I very rarely have a bad day in that part of the Lakes.

One other thing, if you’re hungry, the pub at Oxen Park does food in colossal servings 😯 five of us went in there after a day’s riding a couple of weeks ago and I don’t think anybody cleared their plates…