It must be a proper downhill though with a constant gradient,you should be able to freewheel from top to bottom ,so far I am up to 3.5 miles,with no gates. (Great Sca Fell to Longlands Caldbeck fells)
Like most of the trails up here at the moment its dry and dusty so its ideal for checking out the lesser known routes.
The actual decent is mainly singletrack grass onto a landrover track but its a perfect gradient and the bracken is still fairly short so its great to follow,it would be sketchy in the wet though.
After memory mapping the decent,and checking out the profile I was surprised to see how far it was with no gates or even walkers to slow things down. 😛
Which way do you get up onto Sca Fell?
Might have a look up one evening whilst it's dry, Mung from Skiddaw house should be good and fast, can you get up that way.
How about Skiddaw summit to Latrigg then from Latrigg down to Keswick via Spooney Green lane. At least 3,000 ft of descent but there's 7 gates (maybe eight) to open which is a bummer but is a chance for your mates to catch up with you!
Just thought if you could tie it in with Keswick to Skiddaw House, down Mung and up onto Knott, pushing or carrying then back round by Peter House farm, then back up Dash Falls to S/house, then back along Lonscale into Keswick. What do you think?
Vim, From Mung. you can push/carry up to the shooters hut near Knott, then get across from there.
Gav – since when has that Great Sca Fell descent been bridleway?
Living at the base of High Pike, I go to the top most nights (to miss the walkers) and ride back down, pretty damn fast and very tech at the moment with all the floods from last year cutting them up. Don't time it but its a good 5-6 minute decent I'd say, depending on the route you take.
Dunno about longest, but the best one I've found was in Grizedale heading towards the Coniston. Maybe a mile and a bit long, but the first half was just cut up rooty tree lined singletrack nirvana. On the hardtail it was hard enough just to keep momentum up, I imagine a full susser would struggle keeping it out of the trees! Second half was footpath/jeep track with lots of mid sized stones so felt like there was no grip in the corners then removed all your fillings in the straights, awesome track.
IIRC it was a bridleway on the map and signpost, but maybe I took a wrong turning somewhere.
GaVgAs – Bonnie is my neighbour, his running up there days are a bit gone now, but he still goes up pretty often when he's around! (Just come back down again now infact!)
I think the point of Gav's post was the length of the (unbroken) downhill – with the challenge being that it had to be a bridleway. Most interesting is a different thread 😀 (although I understand from the reports that night that it was far from boring Gav !)
Did you go down via Calfhow Pike and Mosedale Beck or via Bruts Moss and Groove Beck?
Got a bit carried away with climbing and ended up on Clough Head :oops:, but re-traced and went down via Mosedale beck. It's a good job I enjoy the climbing as much as the descending. 😆
I did the Bruts Moss/Groove Beck BW excellent at the moment. Tomorrow I'm doing the Great Sca Fell one. I can feel another epic coming on 🙂 Report & pics on here tomorrow night hopefully.
Let's hope last night's rain hasn't wetted out the trails
I clocked it at 3.76 miles LITTLE Sca Fell summit to gate at Longlands onto road. You have to pedal up from Great Sca Fell onto Little Sca Fell to begin descent so that bit doesn't count.
Height Loss:418m
Time descending: 8 mins (includes photo stop at signpost near bottom) & I am sure aomeone will be along shortly to say they have done it in a quarter of the time blindfolded on a fully rigid unicycle
Grin factor: 100%
Effort to get there: 99.9%
Gav, I have to add I made about half a dozen pedal strokes in total near the bottomto keep speed up but could prob just have got down without
Summit of Little Sca Fell looking down to Longlands
Postscript: I would say that at least 5km of Bowderdale is pedalling Not descending