Starting to plan a week’s riding from Keswick in December, weather permitting. I’m interested in what locals think are the top descents in the area, say 30 mins drive from Keswick. I’m sure Skiddaw is fun, but having walked it I would guess it is fast but pretty smooth. I’m after more techie, “alpine” type stuff if it exists up that way.

I know Nam Bield has a good reputation, but probably further away than is ideal when the days are short. I’ve also heard about a nice descent in Grizedale, running down to somewhere near the trail centre (but not part of TNF route).

Helvellyn is an option otherwise, depending on snow etc. Are there other options around Whinlatter, Buttermere group, Skiddaw, Dodds etc

thanks

The descent from Waterndlath to Rossthwaite, on the Borrowdale Bash is pretty technical, you set off and finish in Keswick too.

Back ‘o Skiddaw, its not too technical, but Lonscale Craggs should keep your attention for a while.

check google for images

A lot of locals ride footpaths – but mainly at discrete times to avoid conflict with other users. I don’t want to highlight the possibilities publicly here, but will mail you (or if you mail me if your address isn’t in your profile). Bring your walking shoes and pushing gloves though. 😉

Come off Skiddaw down either Carl Side or Ullock Pike. Causey Pike is **** ace too. Barrow is really good for an hour blast and the run off Grisedale Pike down Hobcarton End is brilliant too.

A great ride would be from Whinlatter, do the South Loop climb, turn right at the top and get onto Grisedale Pike, then head down to your left to Coledale Hause, then left and down into Coledale. This is all mega-tech and some great switch backs. Then head up the road towards Newlands Pass, left up the track between Barrow and Causey Pike, onto Causey and back down to the road. Back up that track, but right onto Barrow and back into Braithwaite.

At this point, hopefully you’ve brought a mate and they’ve left their car in Braithwaite to get you back up the hill to Whinlatter, if not, you might as well head up grisedale Pike again and do Hobcarton End.

You can thank me later!

borrow an hour?

Keswick – Legburthwaite – Sticks Pass – Grisedale – Helvellyn – Matterdal Common – Old Coach Road figure of 8 for a legal classic or back up Keppel cove switchbacks after the Sticks Pass descent for a shorter route. All weather dependent of course.

Seatoller – Honister – Scarth Gap – Black Sail – Sty Pass packs a lot of technical descending into one days ride IIRC especially if you head over the top of Fleetwith from the top of Honister.

Scarth Gap Pass – Ennerdale – Buttermere – Gatescarth is a slightly lower level option should the weather gods be against you.

watendlath to rossthwaite(sp) is awesome, but pick a quiet time to ride it….

Seatoller – Honister – Scarth Gap – Black Sail – Sty Pass packs a lot of technical descending into one days ride IIRC especially if you head over the top of Fleetwith from the top of Honister

Oh yes. Also a lot of carrying….

Awesome route though. Loved the Fleetwith descent. There’s always Rossett Gill too.

There’s always Rossett Gill too.

Add Rossett Pike/Rossett Gill and Stake Pass into the mix for an epic summers ride. A bit too much for me on a short winters day however.

I’ve got loads of nice Lancaster Uni memories swimming around my head now.

thanks guys, some good ideas. I’ve done more walking / scrambling and climbing in the Lakes than riding, so good to get some decent ideas. Especially lke the Grisedale and Causey Pike ideas.

I need to remember that the days are short this time of the year…

We ride out every Tuesday at 6:30 from the Lakeland pedlar – youare more than welcome to join us for some great riding. Bring good lights for about 3-4 hours up and down the best local trails. Oh and bring beer money, we always finish in the pub ;-D

Come join the Keswick Tuesday night ride 630pm outside the Paddler cafe.

Grisdale Pike via hobcarton can get very boggy on the way back into the forest and very dark for a bit too!

Waterndlath to Rossthwaite anyone go through the gate on the right half way down- into the woods? instead of going straight down

That’s Frith Wood – nice alternative…usually pretty slippy. Just to add to the above, Stonethwaite – Langstrath – Stake Pass – Angle Tarn – Esk Hause – Styhead Tarn – Seathwaite. It’s a long hikeabike from Stakes to Esk Hause but it’s a nice techie descent.

Thanks for the guiding offers. I need to get some lights, not really tried night riding so far.

never gone straight down,whats it like after the gate?

There’s also loads of good techie ish stuff in Grizedale forest – pretty much any bridleway in the forest is good fun to ride on. I think the one you were referring to might be ‘riverbed’ – there is a bridleway that goes all the way from Parkamoor down to the VC, crossing over the forest roads several times. It’s all good fun, and the last section of this is very rocky and wet (presumably a former riverbed).

Not that near to Keswick but could well be worth a trip.

The descent into Rosthwaite as mentioned is excellent btw – one of the techier descents in the Lakes, legal ones anyway. Dollywagon Pike/Grisedale on Hellvellyn is good if you like techy stuff too, though the steps/drainage ditches on the upper part are a pain imo.

agentdagnamit

The Keswick ride will supply you with Lights,Just let us now your coming and we will have em charged up,Oh and don’t forget some money to buy a drink later on,There’s about 20 of us btw! 😉

Mountainbiking Nirvana Guaranteed!

thanks GaVagAs – staying in Kewsick from about 30th Dec for a week so will drop in. I never forget my beer money!

BTW – whats a good route up onto Hobarton / Grisedale Pike from Whinlatter?

Blower – Member

never gone straight down,whats it like after the gate?

Straight down to Rosthwaite is a speedy descent (walkers permitting) – Frith Wood is a bit slower and a bit rockier.

BTW – whats a good route up onto Hobarton / Grisedale Pike from Whinlatter?

Ride to the high point of the south loop. As you come onto the summit rocks, carry your bike right, directly up hill through small trees to a fence, hop over and you’re on the ridge up to the summit of Grisedale Pike. Ride some, carry some, if windy take care on the awkward rocky steps as you get buffetted about a bit with a bike. Have fun!

Stonethwaite – Langstrath – Stake Pass – Angle Tarn – Esk Hause – Styhead Tarn – Seathwaite. It’s a long hikeabike from Stakes to Esk Hause but it’s a nice techie descent.

I went on a Gt Langdale – Brorrowdale loop Sat, weather was appalling with sideways hail and rain at times and the cumbria way was, well, more like a cumbria river.

Got to say the Stake pass descent was rubbish, can’t see how that would be any fun whatsoever in the dry, and unrideable in the wet, the rocks we might as well have been made of ice, it was a tough walk down, with almost nothing rideable except the road section from Seathwaite, 10 miles (and over 3 hours) with a heavy walking stick and crap handbag! We baled at Mickledon and took the road back to Seathwaite via Kewsick (29mls) thats how disillusioned we were.

I should’ve asked for some advice of the forum rather than getting a route off t’internet.

Anyway, enough moaning, if the weather is crap and theres been a week of rain beforehand, don’t try and ride that one unlessyou like alot of wading/pushing/carrying and not much riding!

Cue lots of ‘gayer’ accusations 😆

Red Pike and haystacks…

Theres quite a good tech sort of descent from the trig point in Grizedale (near some wooden sort of sculpture) that runs down to pretty much where the 2nd section of singletrack of NFT starts. Is this what your on about?

You can then turn right, go down the fireroad for 25 yds and turn left onto a faster rockier descent. Cross a fire road and down another fast rocky descent (past the wall with all those logos painted on it) and it comes out at the farm near the visitors centre.

Did Stake Pass into Langdale a while ago and really enjoyed it, it’s a little different in that it’s all pitched stone, but it was good. I did think it was going to be rubbish, but it turned out to be really good. What bike were you on? I wouldn’t want to do it on any sort of xc weapon!

Has anyone actually ridden from the top of Fleetwith Pike down to Buttermere? How much is rideable??

We had a look in the Summer Nick but headed over to Gable in the end. A really tight twisty path- there’s a path off the end of Whiteside down to the bottom of Gasgill(over by Crummock) that we found unridable and it looked like being potentially the same. Probably worth a crack though just to tick it off the list 🙂

yes, i had a vague look a few weeks ago, i think the lower part would be OK. not sure about the top 😯

also the footpath on the otherside of the warnscale beck to the tech bridleway looked like it could be fun down to warnscale bottom?

@paulrockliffe A Nicolai Helius AM!! I think the weather really did not help, the rocks were slick, zero grip, to the point as I say walking was quite treacherous, I had MT91’s on with Vibram soles so not disco slippers either!! we were tired and beaten, but whilst doable, not sure I can imagine it actually being fun!
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DSCF5125 by philip.pryor, on Flickr[/img]

the otherside of the warnscale beck

Not tried that one nick. It does look good from the other side though !

Whiteless Pick, Ullcok Pike, Blencathra – all very good indeed. Just look for footpaths on the map. 😀

Fleetwith Pike – there is a definite line which we saw from Whiteless a couple of weeks ago but I’ve never ridden it. Up for exploring it if you are? 😉 It could be rideable or a scarily exposed carry down. Hard to say until we give it a go. Bottom section looks fine but the top looked awfully close to a big drop at times. I suspect it may be a bit like the trail from Pierre Avoir heading back towards Verbier.

What’s the obvious line off Grizedale Pike back towards Keswick like?

Not alpine but the singletrack trail parallel with Newlands Pass is mint.

Cheers

Sanny

You can’t ride the top section of that line off Grisedale Pike, the bottom section all the way to Braithwaite is good, but it’s very fast and not massively challenging, so while you will enjoy yourself, you’ll spend the climb back up to Whinlatter wondering if perhaps you should have come off a different way that would take longer and tax you a bit more.

That line on Grisedale has two very distinct sections in either direction, you can ride up and down it to a point then you’re straight into carrying your bike.

If you mean the obvious line down to Whinlatter, straight down the wall, again it’s good, but steep and fast and not enough of a challenge. Will get your brakes nice and toasty though!

You saw a line off Fleetwith from Whiteless? Are you sure you just didn’t see a spectacular way to kill yourself? It’s pretty much steep as **** all the way down from that angle isn’t it?

I’ve got two weeks off at Christmas and will be back in the Lakes; if you could arrange for there to be no snow/ice/rain I’ll be up for doing some riding with you chaps please.

@Chainline – Ok, I asked about your bike because if you were on some daft skinny tired xc hardtail it would be fairly taxing in any conditions. You should be able to smash down it on that bike in the dry though. I didn’t in the dry, so not sure how different it would be in the wet. You don’t have a lot of line choice so you’d struggle to correct any slides without falling off perhaps. There were a few tight corners that required an endo turn, overall it was fun, but probably not really worth the purgatory that was Langstrath and up to the top of Stakes Pass.

I quite like heading off Grisedale via Sleet How 🙂 I can’t clear that top section but there’s a few that can get down with just a few dabs. There’s two / three step-downs that I just don’t have the balls to try 😥

I’m not a Lakes regular, but descent off Helvellyn from Dollywagon Pike down to Grizedale Tarn is pretty technical, plenty of relatively rideable ways of getting up to Helvellyn as well. Also a bridleway (I think), so fair game.

@paulrockliffe, purgatory, thats the word to describe it 😆

Thanks again guys. Grizedale Pike seems pretty popular, though never seen a biker up there personally. As has been said, what’s the best way down? Towards Keswick is too fast and smooth for me. I’m liking the idea of dropping to Cauldale Hause.

some of those routes above look excellent, but probably more for the summer at my pace (and with Ms AD’s Reynaulds issues….)

Sanny,
Was it you I chatted to as you ate pies where that trail you mention above (Rigg Beck) meets the Newlands road? I was passing on my road bike and I’d passed your van in Buttermere?

Has anyone actually ridden from the top of Fleetwith Pike down to Buttermere? How much is rideable??

Tried it a few years’ back and walked 80% of it! Weather was pants and was on an 05 5-Spot, so good weather and a bigger bike would make more of it rideable, but still would be v difficult.

A year or so ago there were some awesome photos on Pinkbike (one of them made POD) where the guy maintained they’d ridden the whole lot, but think from memory they were semi-pro downhillers on full-on DH bikes! Nuff said!

I think you will find that they weren’t pies but Brysons finest comestibles! No ride in the Lakes is truly complete unless there is a trip to brysons for pre ride sustenance!

How was your road ride? Our trip up onto Whiteless Pike was ace. There has been some trail building on the climb with the long straight Landy track replaced with a zig zagging trail which was nose of the saddle rideable. Brilliant day out.