Cornwall – MTB, any good?

Off to St Ives for a week and I’m debating to take a bike, normally it’d be a no brainer, but I’m struggling to find decent local riding. Most of what I can find is by-ways and roads – I don’t mind gravel bashing if that’s all there is, but I’m not sharing narrow Cornwall roads with the touristica for any money.

Are there obvious local riding spots/ trails that I’m missing? Is it all a bit of an off-road desert?

I wouldn’t say it’s brilliant for MTB, the vertical drop tends to be a bit small.

The Camel Trail is a beautiful multi use trail, but in Summer I’m told it’s pretty much nose to tail traffic.

Rode the Portreath cost to cost with the family this summer, it’s not off road but we did pass a lot of trails coming off it, I think there’s a bit there  if you know where to look and further north bodmin has a trail centre

Have you tried Trailforks?

Have you tried Trailforks?

No, but the Strava heatmap is pretty empty.

Not much in the way of meaningful off-road IME, but I had a really nice day’s riding from St. Ives on quiet roads and gravel. Just hired a gravel bike (acoustic) from St. Ives E-Bikes and cobbled something together from their recommended routes.

https://www.stivesbikes.co.uk/our-bikes

A few years back we stayed at an AirBNB in the Poldice area.  We went for a wander from the house and came across the Poldice area…. seemed to be lots of riding in there. We were down there for a funeral and never had my bike but it looked quite good.  The downside is that it’s on the site old old mine stuff including arsenic, tin and copper.

This link to the local mtb group videos might be useful.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsMaXjzKx9GUFcqM-xZVyYc_D0GmAFnKc

bodmin has a trail centre

Lanhydrock also has some trails. Neither of them are places that I’d go out of my way to ride.

I ride with a few people from Cornwall & they only really mention three places

Bodmin area trail centre    

6 mile blue trail but good fun if you do multiple laps

Poldice valley coast to coast – not done it yet but it looks fairly tame.

Gawton

The total opposite to Poldice & over the border in Devon.

The research notes for my retirement book on offroad bike riding and curry has Cornwall bottom of the table in both!

Top Tip: Everything’s better in the winter in Cornwall. Not that they really have a winter.

Poldice for DH and getting ‘sendy’, also Woody’s Bike Park.

Lanhydrock for beginner and easy flow trails. Cardinham for an average trail centre lap.

Also other smaller bike parks like Old Hill and Chasewood for jumps or Bikepark Kernow for short, rooty trails.

As for the Penwith area, You can do a nice XC loop up onto the moors, look up the West Kernow Way for a route idea. There some fun chunky descents of the hills in that area also but some are lost to bracken this time of the year.

Cornwall really needs to sort something out. So much space so little riding.
Here in “overcrowded” Epsom I’ve got trails from my doorstep that go on forever.

Cornwall really needs to sort something out. So much space so little riding.

There’s plenty of trails, it’s you just need to know where to look – there is also 5 proper bike parks.