Hi folks, we are coming up from Calderdale this weekend and its been raining hard here for weeks. Are there any trails that are best avoided after bad weather or has it been dry as a bone as usual up there?

And if you were a Thornielee virgin which lower trails to try and which ones to stay clear of?

Cheers Jason

Check trailforks for recent condition reports. I havent ridden Thornielee but have ridden Golfie a few and you should have no problem on the usual suspects like Flat White and maybe Repear Offender.

Thornielee for starters I’d ride a few of the top halves. General rule is the further from the car park the steeper it is. Once you’ve got your eye in glory hole is a good introduction to the bottom half.

Sound advice, thank you.

TVTA have finished refreshing New York New York (Golfie), i havnt been to check it out myself but im looking forward to seeing what they’ve done

The bottom trails of Thornilee are steeper than the top halfs and most of them have steep exits onto the fire roads. Rides good whatever the weather and the trails seem to hold up well, as being so steep the numbers that ride them are lower.

On the Golfie, IMO the wolf side trails dont drain so well, so only ride them when its been a dryer spell.
Steeper stuff drains well as expected, will always be a few puddles.

Glentress is worth a trip, tracks tend to hold up better again in the wet, less mud and more rock/shale in the dirt.

A lot of it will be wet and sloppy, wetter than I like to ride- as Sir HC says, a lot of it doesn’t drain well. The trails at Innerleithen are much more enjoyable to ride when it has been wet, same for the off-piste at Glentress.

Innerleithen pedal up isn’t pleasant, uplift is well worth the £32!

Hmm, much prefer to pedal up Innerleithen than the Golfie

Rode 3g , New york New york and Flat white on saturday , All totally fine and only the start of NY NY was wet . They have done some significant work with new wee lines. was at GT today and Hush Hush , Zoom or Bust , New corners beside Dave Trails and Daves Trail were all running excellent. Hush Hush is always better a wee bit damp. Couldnt help with thornielee advice sadly.

Thanks again folks, all advice digested and logged for the weekend 🙂

Thornielee will be in better condition as it doesnt get ridden as much as inners/golfie etc.. Its worth riding all the trails there.. they are awesome.

At the golfie avoid waterworld (tree down), Repeat Offender (lots of puddles at the start), all the Wolf’s (tend to hold water) everything else should be fine.

Damn now I’ve a hankering to take the rc529 to thornielee. Well that’s Sunday morning sorted.

Might see you there then, I’m on a battered orange Airdrop Edit 🙂

Yep there’ll be 4 of us arriving about 10am.

Personally I’d avoid turbo ferret. I did it first time there. Nearly rode back to the van it almost put me off.

What’s wrong with Turbo Ferret? It has more smiles per a metre than should realistically be possible. Whoever built that trail are smart cookies.

I just didn’t enjoy it. Mind you I don’t like angry sheep (inners) either. Everything else at thornielee is great fun. Just didn’t click.

Never made it to Thornielee but had a great weekend being guided by a lovely, talented group of 16/17 year old Dirt School kids, restored my faith in yoof. Even the weather wasn’t as grim on Saturday as forecasted and it was beautiful on Sunday.

They took it easy on us trailwise and the only one we struggled with was Hammertime at GT, I just don’t have steep/twisty/rooty mud bath in my locker…

In fact I’ve decided I’m more than willing to do it there and back in a day in the future, you really are lucky lucky people.

Currently, Hammertime is probably more challenging than most stuff at Thornielee. I rode it a few weeks back and it was an unrideable slopfest..

The kids we were riding with didn’t seem to have much trouble getting down Hammertime, I think us old men should have turned back as soon as we hit the slop and done Mast of Zorro instead!

Great weekend though and we will be back to try Thornielee soon.

And after dragging our sorry/muddy arses back to the top, the kids were up for Mast of Zorro next but we couldn’t face that drag back up twice on the bounce. The enthusiasm of youth 🙂