New Kielder Trails Open - Red, Black, and Double Black Diamond

I’ve been so confused by this so far, it keeps being referred to as a downhill trail but from all the photos I’ve seen it looks like a trail centre cross country trail. Great to see something new being built there though, always felt it was missing something. 

That actually looks pretty awesome, love it when they go for "packed in trails" rather than "we have opened 10 new miles with nothing to do on them". Kielder definitely needed something, will need to get down there when it's all open. Has anyone seen a map showing how (if?) it ties to the old trails?

If I understood it right it's a "downhill trail" but almost using the logic of a golfy offpiste or similar, pedal up and ride down. Haven't seen how it ties into the old trail centre, that'll be pretty important I think.

Always wanted to like kielder, it has some really good stuff and it's characterful. I like the looks of this a lot, seems intended to really pack stuff in and make the most of the altitude instead of focusing on distance. 

It's near to the Three Dogs trail, but runs down the hill rather than traversing. It will link with the DH trail that comes off the top of DeadWater fell which runs sort of parallel to the existing trail centre trail to get the full length

Not sure that referring to it as Double Black Diamond DH is strictly accurate though...

Been up 2day, new stuff is a red jump line and a 'double black' line which is the old NDH DH track from years ago and has had a lot of work done, to be honest its better than i was expecting but doesn't really link into the other trails on Deadwater hill. It's VERY dry and loose at the minute and the top bit of the NDH track is still being worked on but it's something different to the rest of the trails at Kielder, once the top part is open it's basically a mile long descent on varying terrain, bit of everything with the option of a jump line or a rocky tech line in the middle, more of a long enduro stage than a modern dh track

So, is the bit from the radar station going to be part of the downhill section? I did it on Thursday, that bit down is just a rough fireroad now. Then, the trail seems to stop at a large fire road,after ‘For peats sake' and some newish downhill sections. then take a right and its uphill to the new section. Is that the way its going to stay, or is it going to be one long DH section from the radar?

So, is the bit from the radar station going to be part of the downhill section?

There's a turn off on the right just as you get to the treeline on the fireroad from the radar statì but it's closed/fenced off for rebuilding at the minute, will link straight into the new stuff that's just opened  and was pretty hard/ techy the last time I rode it a few years ago.  Hopefully they will put a climb push up to the start , as already mentioned the long way up is horrendous 

Posted by: pothead

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Hopefully they will put a climb push up to the start , as already mentioned the long way up is horrendous

Oh yes, my first time there on Thursday, I made the mistake of going up to the radar station, following the ‘Black’ route signs. 45 minutes later , I was a little more than rather disappointed.

Adam Brayton has a vid on YouTube that shows the new stuff, I'd post a link but can't 

Posted by: alanl

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So, is the bit from the radar station going to be part of the downhill section? I did it on Thursday, that bit down is just a rough fireroad now.

Always was, wasn't it? Every time i rode that bit I went "never again", then I'd go back with a different person that'd insist on doing the whole route because that's the rules, and then we'd do it and we'd all go "never again"

The radar station descent was great in about 1994 - before they built the track up the back of the hill and before suspension worked. Will have to head up some time to check out the rest of it.

I rode it yesterday, there's still a fair bit of fire road but the new trails are good.  The red needs to bed in, and not really my kind of track but the black is probably the nicest bit of piste trail on any trail centre map.  It's been there a long time to be fair, but it's had a lot of work.  

The map isn't great though.  As you climb up out of Two Dogs Climb and turn left you get to a T junction.  The map looked to us to send you, turning right, up towards the old red.  We couldn't see the new trail as we climbed past the old red so we ended up climbing the hateful climb to the radar station looking for it, wishing I was on an ebike.  It was there, so we felt robbed as we descended down the old top firewood...

Instead, we should have just turned left at the map, and both trails are about 200m away... 

If you finish on the black, it's a bit of a slog along the tarmac back to Kielder Castle. 

Great to see investment there, I hope there's a little bit more if we all use it. 

Edit: You could make a decent lap by doing the old red, then climbing up to do Two Dogs again and the new red, followed by Two Dogs and the new Mile Down Black.  We didn't find the Double Black, unless tat's what Mile Down is?

the new Mile Down trail at Kielder is a firm reminder that it's not all gravel…

I mean, that looks a lot like gravel in the pic 😉

Rode it on the Saturday before the official opening. Just happened to be riding there for the first time since 1993!
There was a group ride heading up there with the trail manager and they invited me to join. Was great fun!
The mapping at Kielder is absolutely awful. There is just no 'route' to it. Just a section of tracks that you have to make work yourself.

There was this one bit of old red climb which I thought had a black section on it - looked fun, so I followed it and it turned out to be a completely different trail that ended up in a completely different section of the forest!

Anyway - the new sections were great. More bike-parky than traditional 7-stanes fare.
I don't think any of it should be graded double-black, but then I'm not sure the signs mention that anywhere - just Black and Red.

There was this one rocky sharksfin that nobody wanted to test and they were going to chop the top off it before Adam and Manon arrived. It was soooo blind. Anyway - sent it and didn't die, but they definitely needed to do something to stop people hurting themselves on it.

My fave bit was the black parallel to the red. Nice and raw and sandy with techie rocks thrown in. Mostly wheels on the ground and it was perfect.

Posted by: iamtheresurrection

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We didn't find the Double Black, unless tat's what Mile Down is?

The article says it's black and double black options. TBH I'd bet against them being very double black. Not Kielder's fault, trail centre grading's a mess and if you build an actual full on double black on a trailcentre you might as well park the helicopter beside it.

This is the jump.
On first glance, you'd think it was a jump to the left!
But you actually have to go fairly strait.
You can see some lines I scratched on the top to mark where I needed to jump.

The lip was really kicky. So I think looking at Adam's video, they've chipped off that top triangle.

The article says it's black and double black options

The last section of the old NDH track is graded as black (it would probably be a red in other parts of the uk),  I think the middle section is graded as double black ( could be just a black, can't remember) but they appear to have already fenced off a large gap jump off a tree stump near the bottom,  the top section which isn't officially open yet will  be a double black. The top was definitely a lot harder than the lower sections I rode on Saturday last time i did it,  very rocky/techy and is probably longer than the 2 lower sections combined. It is,  as already mentioned, basically a handful of trails on a large hillside,  doesn't really work as a traditional trail centre 'route'