Hi,

Not been back riding for long i.e. 3 rides and decided to head to a trail centre…..Whinlatter……I have never ridden one before but didt enjoy it. Where was the mud? What were the funny rock bits on the up hill corners? Is singletrack meant to be 2 bikes wide? The downhills were like riding down a downhill canal path. Is this extreme? I know I was only on blue but where is better? I like the idea of idiot biking where I can park up and ride a trail eaily in an hour or so.

Oh dear. The blue run at whinlatter is good imo – if it’s too easy ride it faster. And you’d prefer it to be more muddy? 😕 And why didn’t you do the red runs?

Also, if you are in the Lakes there is loads of more ‘extreme’ technical riding. Buy the VG Guide and go and explore some bridleways.

If the blue was too easy do it again & again until you can rail all the berms perfectly then do the reds!! If thats not your cup of tea there are a couple of bridleways in the lakes you might want to try

Whinlatter blue is a scream. Add it on to the red routes to have a fun day out. Depends who I am with we do the whole red route, north+south and finish off with a smiley blast round the blue. Others we do south red followed by the blue.
If you want more Lakes biking pop into any bike shop with a map and they will show you where to go ie route wise. Alternatively they have small route map extracts for a few ££s.
http://www.keswickbikes.co.uk/acatalog/
http://www.cyclewise.co.uk/
http://www.biketreks.net/
http://www.wheelbase.co.uk/

had an hour and half and wanted a blast in the lakes. will try going faster and the red next time i am over there

i was up at whinlatter earlier today (yesterday? …thursday) and did the red south then the blue as i was strapped for time. it was great, bloody wet though!

If you want mud try the red north..it’s minging at the mo. Blues a hoot if you can ride it quick, the slabs are a nice feature on the climbs which makes it slightly more interesting IMO.

What Grum said. Also do it during nesting season – well scary being chased by large birds 😯

My neighbour’s 8 year old son managed the blue at Whinlatter and loved it. I think he now has the mountain bike bug. I’ll be taking my boy along soon. That’s why it’s a blue route…

I love the blue – I think it’s one of the best blue routes around, but it’s still blue. As someone pointed out, if it’s easy ride it faster. For me, that’s it’s great advantage – you can ride there with a bunch of folk of varying ability and everyone get a kick out of it. It’s a nice warm up route for me to make sure my legs and head are dialled in for the trickier stuff. Might be up there Sunday.

As for mud, Whinlatter tends not to collect too much water as the hillside is so blinking steep 😯 Tend to be pockets of mud but not vast swathes of it.

Anyhoo, each to his own etc.