I’ve not been for over 5 years now, off with a mate tomorrow, is the red route worth riding, or would we be better off doing a few laps of the WC course?

The WC cours includes significant sections of the red route. Make sure you have a pop at worry gill and medusa’s drop. Theyre both excellent. The red itself isnt overly technical although there are options en route to liven it up a bit. It’s main draw (for me anyway) is it’s length. It’s about 20 odd miles I think. I really like it although last time I rode it the brake bumps in places seemed worse than ever.

The red is about 25miles and frankly its 5miles too long and there are several sections of boredom.

I’m too tall to ride up there 🙂

I rode it a few weeks back for the 2nd time (was up visiting a mate) and really enjoyed it. First time was on a hardtail and the hard trails and braking bumps shook me to pieces, last time i used the full suss and found it much more enjoyable.

The length is great (beats those 7-10 mile trial centres) and i found pretty much all of it quite involving with very little fireroad.

The World cup sections are hard going but worth a go but i avoided that black section with the nasty drop as i just didn’t want to risk stacking my bike for the sake of one ‘little’ drop. Did the rest of the black, just not the initial drop.

We also did Gisburn the next day which is very good also but of the 2 i’d choose Dalby.

I must admit that the length worries me slightly as I’m rather out of shape right now, not done more than 13-14 miles for a while.

Ah well, I’ll just allow plenty of time for riding tomorrow.

If I was you I’d get a trail map from the shop before you head out.
Then you can miss bits out to make it shorter.
Don’t miss the bit between Dixons and the visitors centre though as IMO that has some of the more fun sections.

Cheers, will do that.

I wasn’t in the best of shape the other week when I did the red and really struggled, maybe the two gallon of ale the night before was to blame but it didn’t have the same effect at Dalbeattie the week after 😀

As in the above comment, it does get a bit ‘samey’ but I reckon it would be worth doing the full route.

Go to Dalby often. The Red is 23 miles round. Like most cycling the distance is not the most important thing. If you thrash yourself round it’s a long way. Take it steady, maybe push up the fire roads , have a good break at Dixons Hollow. With the map from the bike hire shop and the really good waymarking you can bail easily.
Workmate of mine flattens it in 2 and a bit hours, me more like five!
It is suppost to be fun!!

Its like the forest of dean, only for little people or as wok boy would say “pixies”. Now where did that large camera end up 😯