Hi!

Heading down to Dumfies with the kids (9 and 12) for a few days and looking to take the bikes. They have been down the blue route and spooky wood etc at Glentress, which the kids loved, but its SOOOO long since I’ve been to any of the others I was wondering about how well these places might cater for the kids in this regard.

Any advice/ experience you’d like to share?

Cheers!!

Either Mabie or Dalbeattie would be fine, may be handy to have the map and do a bit of ducking-diving to miss out odd bits/length.

Hotel at Mabie does good meals and there is a café just to the right of the carpark at Dalbeattie.

Don’t do the Dalbeattie Blue, its really dull, my son shut his thumb in the car door the night before we were meant to be riding the Red, he was struggling to hold the bars and couldn’t change gear, so opted for the blue route.
I will second the Hotel at Mabie, food is great and very reasonable.

Depends on their experience etc of course, but we took my 12 yr old granddaughter and 9th old disabled grandson (on a trailer bike) around Dalbeattie,Kirroughtree and Marie a few years ago and they had fun on them all. Dalbeattie blue flat and easy,Mabie a bit more swoopy and Kirroughtree a bit more techy. None as good as Glentress but they do have short skills areas which are quite good for testing/pushing themselves (and you!)

As with all these things, depends on the skill/expereince level. Can only comment re Kirroughtree (tho0ugh I have ridden Glentress). I took my 8 yr old there, on his rigid Islabike with not-particularly-great tyres. I was surprised by how technical and rocky it was. I’ve ridden trail centre reds that weren’t far off it. That said the boy loved it and apart from a couple of nervous moments for his dad (when he was ahead of me and belting into a couple of sketchy corners) everything was fine. I absolutely loved the Blue at Kirroughtree, my only regret being that I wasn’t able to ride the red and black. If yours have ridden Spooky Hollow then they’ll be fine and it is well worth the extra journey from Dumfries imho

If you don’t mind the slog up to it, the blue at Glentrool has something like 2.5k of downhill bermy awesomeness at the end. Limited facilities out of peak times I think though.

I enjoyed the blue at Kirroughtree, 12 year old managed it on his bargain basement Decathlon hard tail and enjoyed it in the sense of riding at a level he’d not achieved before, but declined the chance to do it again a couple of days later. Loved the taster and skills loops though.

8 year old took one look at the opening zigzag climb and headed off for the green with her Mum.

the blue at Kirroughtree is good, it’s almost ‘red’ in places, a good trail to get a feel for slightly sketchy worn-in singletrack.

The blue at Dalbeatie is good, it’s a true blue. it’s more mellow than K-tree, but still plenty of worthwhile singletrack.

the blue at Mabie is a total waste of time. after a few hundred metres of lovely singletrack, it turns into a gravel-road slog.

the blue at Ae is a total waste of time, it’s more or less the same as Mabie – ie. pants.

none of them match the awesomeness of Glentress though.