Afternoon. I’m going to be in the Lakes in a few weeks and will be based in Coniston but will most likely get out and around Grizedale, Breasty Haw etc a couple of times. Just wondering what the best descents are from Grizedale down towards the north end of Coniston so I can have a quick spin along the road back to the house…

Cheers
Dave

the descent from lawson park down to bank ground is always a good finish to a ride.

Theres the Lawson park one to low bank ground which is alrite. There’s another to low bank ground which is alrite. If you go left then right at lawson park, there’s another that’ll bring you out in a carpark about quarter of a mile before brantwood. Guess you could do parkamoor aswell, but you’ll have to ride on the raod by the lake for about 8 miles to get to coniston. Not that bad though!

Cheers guys.
Is the BW to/from Bank Ground the best way to climb up into Grizedale too?

No other options of getting down? Any better descents running down towards the Coniston > Ambleside main road? Had a look at the Parkamoor descent but that looks like a serious slog on the road back to Coniston!

Any better descents running down towards the Coniston > Ambleside main road?

IIRC Grizedale Forest only runs as far North as Hawkshead Bank on the B5285 which runs roughly West-East from Coniston to Hawkshead Courthouse.

Assuming by the “Coniston to Ambleside” road you mean the A593 between Coniston and Skelwith Bridge then no, there aren’t. Not legit ones anyway.

Off the top of my head if you eneter the woods from the south on a kind of 4x4track/bridleway at the top of the hill then there’s 2 bridleway options on the left about half a mile in. Can’t remember which is which, but one is a brilliant rooty track. Then it all opens up to more normal bridleway stuff.

In case you haven’t already found out, the BW which goes directly down to Bank Ground is currently completely trashed and invisible under forestry work from the top gate upwards. A bit of a pain if you ride up the bottom bit without realising. 😳

The lawson park descent isn’t really that good if your wanting an ‘alpine’ feel, I’ve done a lot of riding around grizedale and I would recommend parkamoor, it is worth the slog!!

Another vote for Parkamoor, well worth the detour and the road back isn’t hard work.

Parkamoor/Nibthwaite is my favourite descent in the UK.

]Parkamoor/Nibthwaite is my favourite descent in the UK.

That’s quite a claim. Do you mean this route:

http://www.theedgecycleworks.com/mtbroutes/grizedale-parkamoor/

I have been planning to ride this route for a while but was sick as a dog for the whole time I was in the lakes at Easter!

Breasty Haw (sniggering from back of class)

That route looks like it climbs, not descends. All I know is we tend to use the North face Trail for ascending and traversing. When you get to the ridge overlooking Coniston, ride it towards the south end of the lake and then you get to the steep rocky thing that might be an old track, might be a stream, and ride it all the way down to the road at the bottom.

goyawave – yes, that route includes the Parkamoor – Nibthwaite descent.

That Parkamoor descent has been on my list to have a crack at for an age… tried over winter but the ice put me off!

Perhaps this weekend if my lungs recover enough!

Davey cannot go wrong with this route most of the climbs are all ss able!
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/294777981

Another vote for Parkamoor/Nibthwaite, although I was told it has suffered badly in the last 6 months

Cheers all but back now!

Didn’t do as much riding as I’d hoped but got a quick lap of the NFT in and then a longer ride doing the best bits of the NFT, the ace BW which starts above Coniston and ends above the visitor centre (near the end of the new DH run) and then over Satterthwaite, Breasty Haw etc before coming back and aiming for the Fox, missing and coming down through the Grizedale sculpture walk thing. Lucky it was late and there was nobody around!