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I have a wedding near Durham later this year and was considering extending my stay by a day or 2 and riding around Hamsterly and Danny Hart Descend bike park.
Any up to date information on either of those? Is it worth a half day at each?
Mate of mine regularly travels up to Hamsterly from Ripon and really rates it.
Gonna hijack this..... How does hamsterley rate for kids? I can see there's a blue trail available, but it's any of the red on the smoother flowy side of things?
I have a 9 yr old comfortable with blue trails and the it's red extension like llandgela, cyb, whinlatter, glentress etc.
He’ll be fine on the reds at hamsterley. Tansmission, Nitrous and accelerator are mint, fast and flowy
We go up once a year, Hamsterley has a new blue recently opened.
Good riding, Nice forest, food is good
Any up to date information on either of those? Is it worth a half day at each?
Descend is full face only and pretty sure they only open at weekends outside the school holidays. I ride at Hamsterley loads and the official trail centre stuff is decent enough trails but following the official red route does involve a lot of fireroads, there's also loads of really good off piste stuff around the forest, some easy to find and some you would never find withouta local guide. I haven't been on the descend tracks for a good few years now, tracks are under 2 mins for a capable rider but are all really good, top half of the hill is quite flowy/jumpy and bottom more techy/steep. Personally I'd say it's worth it and the trails are currently riding as good as I've ever seen. The new blue trail is a single trail, not a whole blue route/loop, most people these days ride the 1st half of the black route, then shortcut up to the K line and finish on the red route from there, new blue links into the black loop after the 1st (Pikes Teeth) descent
The red route as a whole is dreadful. The good bits start Poulty's last blast which is 14km in to the 21km route. Once you know it's easy enough to skip the crap though.
It's definitely worth a visit because there's some great riding there. It's also a place to pick and choose the good bits because some of it is crap.
Put the dates up and see if you can arrange a friendly tour with someone.
Thanks for the info, sounds like it is worth a look around. I will start planing and post dates a bit closer to the time.
I go up to the borders a few times a year and nearly always make sure I stop at Hamsterley. It's all really good!
Over time I have come up with a route which gets all the best official bits without the nine miles of purgatory red before Poultys.