OH fancies a trip to Hamsterly on sunday. Firstly, will it be rammed with folks on sunday? She doesn’t cope well with lots of others around especially if it means dodging walkers on the trail etc.

We will be doing the blue route together but I fancy tackling a bit of red. Looking at the trail map I thought we could park at The Grove and do the blue then while she waits at the car I could head back up the fire road to the start of Poulty’s Last Blast and do the red back to the Grove. Does that sound like a good plan? and how long is she likely to have to wait for me? Cheers!

Sunday will be busy, but the blue route is very open, and mostly fire road from the Grove.

Going to the top of Poulty’s, and back via K-line and Transmission to the Grove is at least 30-45 mins.

Also, if the OH is up for the climb:
Go from the Grove together, toward Poultys.
OH waits at the radio mast.
You go on to Poultys and K-line.
Meet up again at the radio mast, head back to car.
OH will be waiting on her 10-15 mins.

I’ll start by saying I’ve never actually done the ‘blue route’ as a loop but apart from around 1 mile of singletrack at the start/finish (the same bit in opposite directions which is shared use with walkers etc)the whole thing is fireroad/gravelroad and has nothing challenging for an experienced mtber. Sunday will probably be the busier day of the weekend but most people seem to stay on the red/black loop these days. The climb up to do poltys/k line/transmission isn’t bad and shouldn’t take long as an add on to the blue

Cheers for the advice folks, all good to know. Starting to have second thoughts now, not too enthuiastic about the thought of driving for an hour just to ride fire roads, she even thinks that sounds a bit dull.

Yeah, the blue is just fire roads mainly.

The main car park can get busy, but it’s mainly people walking. Once out on the trails it never feels cramped or busy.

The Dalby forest blue is a bit more interesting, but does have some fireroad.

There are some great bits at Hamsterley (both official and unofficial trails), unfortunately the blue route isn’t one of them. It is mainly boring fireroads.

Its one thing the place is seriously lacking, there is no technical progression from fireroads to red route.

I keep seeing this thread title and thinking it is seeking advice on behaving like a better hamster. Nibble etiquette, wheel technique, etc.

Just me? Ok.

@stwhannah Don’t be silly! You know fine well I would have posted in the chat forum for that 🙂

I must admit, it sometimes makes my eyes water when I hear people talking about having a hamstring injury.

Depending on where you’re headed from Jordan the blue at Dalby is much better and possibly no further away

@dangeourbrain nearly twice as far from Wensleydale unfortunately. Just gonna ride locally today we have plenty of decent trails at home, she had just been fancying something different and thought Hamsterly might have more on offer than it does at that level. I go to Gisburn quite a bit as it is just an hour or so from here and I love the reds/blacks there. I took her there once and she liked the trails but we had to cut it short as it was totally rammed with people and walkers on the bike trails, dunno if it still as bad on a weekend. I usually go mid week.

Hamsterley is pretty bleak if you follow the marked routes. You really need to know where the fun stuff is and how to travel between them.

Even then it feels like short sections of good trails separated by mile after mile of fire road.

There’s loads of well hidden unofficial stuff but that’s not really relevant to the thread.

I’m no regular at hamsterley but I’ve never seen it rammed, and never seen walkers on the bike trails (apart from the shared blue).

Definitely wouldn’t travel an hour for the blue, it’s a bit of a pointless classification really. Most of the reds are rideable by a relative novice if you take it easy though. Any tricky sections usually have an escape route, making it little more difficult than some of the blues I’ve ridden elsewhere.