[Closed] Kielder

Some people slag it... I really like the Deadwater trails, well, most of them. The very top bit Skelly's Riggin- the fire road drag up to the lookout point to see the mediocre view, followed by a descent down a broken up fire road- is rubbish tbh. Reasonably fun but immensely too much effort for the payback. But it's a loop and easy to avoid. The rest is good and worth looping. Black graded climbs! I really like Into The Valley, one of my favourite trailcentre sections. Good skills area too.

I haven't done the Lonesome Pine etc, but a lot of the vitriol about kielder seems to be directed there?

Also, it's just down the road from Newcastleton, which feels a bit devoid of stuff now that the northshore's gone, but makes a nice easy XC ride. And o'course it's not that far up to Glentress and Innerleithen 😉

As above.... not my favourite and the woodwork always catches me out even though I know its slippy. Surfing a 29er into a cold water filled ditch wasn't my idea of fun.

Ignore the top link on Deadwater. I climbed it because I missed it the previously year. Howling wind and rain may have added to the "WTF" response on the return down.

I quite like Kielder, but I agree that it's not quite Glentress in terms of constant flowy singletrack. There are 3 reds (lonesome pine, bloody bush and deadwater) and one blue (osprey trail). Lonesome pine and deadwater have some great bits of singletrack ("skydive" and "into the valley"), and the blue has some nice flowy singletrack amongst the trees. The bloody bush trail is poorly surfaced and has a lot of fireroad, but is good as part of the Cross border route to Newcastleton (a great XC day out of about 45 miles if you include the newcastleton trails).

GPS files [url= http://www.mtbtrails.info/Trail_Venue.aspx?VenueNumber=95 ]here[/url].

The big challenge is finding the right way out the carpark. First time I was there folk were milling about all over due to the lack of signing. It can be a bit like that further out too.