I’m staying in the Youth Hostel at Coniston Coppermines with some mates towards the end of November. Planning to do a biggish ride while we’re there. Original plan was to do something which finished on Walna Scar but have seen the pictures of the ‘improvements’ made over the summer and need a new plan…

Any suggestions for a 4-6 hour ride from Coniston with lots of techy bits would be much appreciated.

http://gpsed.com/track/133256258697759486

6 hours 10 mins, 64k. Takes in the Copper mines around Oxen Fell; the excellent Parkamoor descent; the drop into Force Forge (after the bitch of a climb up Nibthawaite); lots of natural single track through Grizedale; a good length of cheekiness at Claife; the Beatrix Pottery Museum in Hawkshead and; finishes with a nice drop into Coniston.

Word of warning though… Google Earth the whole route to get familiar with the land marks etc to change direction along the route (it’s easy to get lost) and take a marked up OS (unless you are using a nav’ machine), and if it’s wet (as it was when I went) then the lower parts of the Parkamoor can get knee deep (on the bike) in water and the cheeky Claife path is a quagmire (you could carry on to the BW along Windermere & avoid it, I would given the rain we’ve had since I went)! It’s definitely one I intend to do again when it’s dry(er). There are plenty of bail outs to cut the route short if you need to.

PS Not sure was going on with Gpsed when I was climbing out of Hawkshead… nobody can ride that erraticly !

Enjoy

Thanks Excitable.

64k might be a bit much for a couple of lads in the group, but there’s definitely some bits we could use.

I’ll be using a mixture of OS map and ‘The Force’ so i’ll make sure i spend some time on Google Earth before we get there.

Plenty of routes on the bogtrotters site. Climbing up from High Nibthwaite takes you up to Parkamoor and there are dozens of options for rides on that side.

You could start at High Cross missing out the Oxen Fell loop but you would also miss out on the drop back into Coniston or,

you could still start in Coniston and climb the final drop at the start and carry on the fire road to Parkamoor again missing out the Oxen Fell loop but keeping in the final drop or,

you could road climb from the youth hostel to High Cross (again missing out Oxen Fell) but use the final drop to Coniston as your route back to the hostel.

The Oxen Fell route is a good warm up but it doesn’t really do that much. It’s fun trying to climb to the slate workings when it’s wet but other than that I would drop that section to make it shorter.

There are other shorter, easier and ‘legal’ (don’t get me started) ways to go over Claife that would cut down the route a bit more.

When you’re on the forest road from High Cross keep an eye out for the wooden sign directing you to Parkamoor, it’s a wooden effort on the left directing you to leave the forest road on the right through the trees. It’s easy to miss but the trail goes straight ahead cutting through the trees as the fire road bends to the left.

The route through the forest from Force Forge is along a BW and is fairly well way marked and there is some good technical ST in there. The start is PAST the forest trail carpark in a smaller layby/entrance to a forest road and the BW is to one (left) side, you’ll see it on Google Earth.

Satterthwaite is a good halfway place to stop being a small Hamlet with a pub and a cafe (you need to take the very small country lane after the church on the right to continue the route)

The route out of Hawkshead is literally between the houses and one to Google Earth so you know where it is. I cycled up and down the back streets for an age trying to find it.