What’s Gisburn like? We’re thinking about heading over this weekend for a change, how does it stand up to the rain? How is it at the moment?

It’s ok, if you like that kind of thing.

Only been once in early Aug. found it a bit Marmite in that I wanted to like it found some sections with silly tight bits, a few washed out bits with the attendant side creep/erosion. Rode with a guy I met in the car park and we both had the same opinion. All depends how far you are travelling? Reckon it will ride ok in the wet, mostly surfaced excepting for the odd bit as already stated. Found the signage not to be as good as the Stanes stuff.

I think they’ve made good use of not particularly inspiring terrain. Some sections are great but overall it feels quite bitty and takes a beating over winter. The hully gully bit is ace but sketchy in the wet. New Hope line is fun for jumpy stuff.

I would agree it depends how far you travel. It’s a bit under an hour from me and I don’t think I’d be happy going much further.

It’s a couple of hours, we were thinking about giving it a try as a change from the Peak… Might stick to the original plan of Ladybower / Hope Valley!

How does it compare to, say, Cannock?

I quite like it, theres some quite fun bits, Hully gully, home baked & the new hope line is worth sessioning a few times. It stands up well in the rain as well as it’s pretty hard packed for most of it. I think they’ve done well with what they had, and it’s deff worth an hour or so’s drive.

I’ve only ridden FTD @ Cannock once but that is seriously lame in comparison to Gisburn, no idea about the monkey trail.

I’m thinking of doing Gisburn Saturday. I reckon it’ll be one of the few places well drained and hardpacked enough not to dissolve into gloop, given the continual torrential rain we’ve had round here this week.

If you’re driving a couple of hours you could easily combine Gisburn and a play at Lee Quarry. The distance between them isn’t much (Google maps says bang on 20 mile). Or maybe forget Gisburn and do a Cragg and Lee Quarry ride. They’re well drained and hard-packed too. Just a thought.

Stands up well to rain, has no choice, its like machno, its always wet. IMO poor trail edging lets it down and it speeding erosino, through repairs to the big climb up to the crag in recent years make a hell of a difference. It is niggley XC rather than descendy thrills for the most part, hope line, and the lines up to the cragg worth sessioning, home baked remains a favourite of mine. It WILL be wet though, we just had torrential downpoors all through the morning… 😕

Aye we’ve never made it across to Cragg Quarry, played at Lee a few times though. We shall see…

Been once, rode it twice. It’s OK for a reasonably close trail centre (I’m an hour away) although I’m more a fan of riding natural stuff.

The best bits for me were hully gully and the riding after that with the erroded rooty descent, short bitch climb into the woods with the balance beams. Not sure what that was called. The tight (I mean tight, my 711mm bars were agonisingly close to the trees on occassions), rooty, rocky wooded sections were good too (which is not long after the car park I believe). The one with the rock garden drop.

All in all OK. Mainly hardpack so will be reasonably weather proof although some areas still held onto water and obviously the rooty, wooded sections will be wet, muddy and very slippy. Which should make things interesting.

We rode early one Saturday morning after a usual British summer wet week and it seemed fine. The next lap after lunch and after significantly more traffic was worse.

Worth it if you’re reasonbably close.

Rides fine in the wet, not masses of climbing either. make sure you play on the black sections at welpstone cragg (Drangons Teeth and the slab) session hully gully a few times. go past the right hand turn to bottoms and look for the opening in the woods and there is a freeride trail in there with big doubles and gap jumps. session the hopeline if you fancy or go past the quarry to the leap of faith and the old downhill course.

loads to do in Gisburn Forest.

I’ll be there on Saturday as its the closest thing to the in-laws

I enjoyed it thought it was better than FTD at Cannock, Lee quarry is goood but theres plenty of good riding in the peak district.

Watch out for the northshore, when it’s wet it’s slicker than greased weasel shit. It turns a corner halfway down and the the ground below is a graveyard of bits of brake levers, reflectors, bodies etc. I once cut short a ride to wait for the air ambulance with a bloke who’d broken his leg on an off there and gone into shock.