Hardest trail in the UK?

As a relative newcomer I recently had my first taste of UK trail centres riding W2 at Afan. This has got me wondering what are the UK’s hardest trails. What do folks reckon?

if it’s a ‘trailcentre’ answer you’re looking for, then ‘the darkside’ at mabie is worth a mention.

if it’s a natural trail, then i reckon you’d have to be pretty good to ride up ‘win hill direct’ (next to ladybower) with no dabs…

That’s a question that’s relative to ability, there’s stuff that I would keek my drawers at, that some people would fly down without a thought.

also depends what you mean by hardest…

longest?
most uphill?
most technical downhill?
most nastiest combination of all above?
etc…

Toughest supposedly manageable natural climb has to be Jacobs ladder
Toughest ride has to be Consiton – Wasdale loop this nearly broke me last time. Four monster climbs Hardknott and Wrynose being two of them. 36 miles and 8000ft of climbing.
Trail centre route in Wales probably The Raven at Brechfa but it is also the most fun IMO.

Wherever Hora is.

Not the start of Blue Pig.

Anywhere bar Surface to air in the wet at Aston 🙂

‘win hill direct’

Parkin Clough – UP! 😆

Boulder Trail at Stainburn has to one of the hardest manmade trail centre type trails in the UK.

rossett gill is supposed to be pretty damn tech, not tried it tho, dunno what the hardest I’ve attempted is.
Managed to ride most of stainburn but I swear I suffered post traumatic stress for a week or so after 🙂
Dollywagon steps are pretty scary
Not cleaned all of ullswater trail but that’s not very scary just hard work.
Both of the cheeky trails that drop onto nan bield are bloody hard.

Toughest ride has to be Consiton – Wasdale loop

what’s the route please?

with afan you are talking trail centre, which most people will associate with cross country. (roll-up everyone who thinks that is different to XXXC, AM, Trail, Enduro, mincy-jeycore-lite)

by that extension, you will find proper Downhill(DH) tracks much ‘harder’ (the ‘black’ sections on Whites bear no resemblance btw)

to answer the question you need to pick your pigeon hole first – good luck with that.

Ecky-Thump – Member

Parkin Clough – UP!

that’s the badger, i’ll buy a whole pint of beer for any man or woman who can ride up that.

Never been to Stainburn.
Think I might have to go and investigate this weekend.
Does it warrant full facer and big bike?

XC? THen Laggan WOlftrax Black. Don’t usually look at the obstacle to find eth best line, but almost every one needed looking at. Of course there were locals and those who ridden it before flying down it.

if it’s a natural trail, then i reckon you’d have to be pretty good to ride up ‘win hill direct’ (next to ladybower) with no dabs…

Confused 😕 Where do you mean
Cavedale is tough as a downhill 😮

Does it warrant full facer and big bike?

dunno about the big bike, I’d guess not, but armour may be a good idea, I don’t fall off a lot (probably coz I don’t push my limits very much/enough) but that place put the fear of god into me. The rocks looked slippy as hell and there seems to be lots of spiky logs/rocks/trees at the potential crash points. Fortunatley I only clipped a tree with my shoulder, the mental scarring was worse. Oh yeah and junkyard (very) narrowly missed a high speed tree/face interface, jammy begger! A stainburn local may be along to laugh at me shortly, dunno, maybe I was just having a bad day.

Cavedale is tough as a downhill

forgot about that one, that scares me too, done it a few times now but never seems to get any less scary, think I have wetrockphobia.

ahwiles – UP!
I haven’t even managed it down since about 6 years ago.

Up The Beast is one that feels do-able, but I don’t think I’ve ever strung it all together.

For trail centres:
Black Isle – black in the wet was the only one I’ve found intimidating.

Trail down a glen near Kinlochewe, down from Lochan Fada to Loch Maree, OTB and almost went over a cliff into the gorge 😯

Link to the Coniston-Wasdale loop

http://www.pedalnorth.com/content/coniston-wasdale

It does involve some/ fair bit of carrying and the descents are monsters the last one back to Coniston is an absolute peach but by the time I got to it I was just hanging on for dear life with nothing left in the tank.

Cheers DONK

Hardest “offical” Bike trails I’ve ridden are

Mynydd Du DH (sadly now abandoned)
Dunkeld DH
Both are the kind of trail that you are just happy to be at the bottom in one piece. Make any of the XC trails look like fire-road.

Non-offical bike trails…well its just impossible to say.

nashwaymule, ouch! I may suggest this as a route and I suspect my fellow riders will give me a 2 word answer.

Oh its a bruiser but as the OP asked whats the toughest trail this to me wins it. I like to think I can ride but this nearly made me cry and there is very few places you can say “ripcord” home please.

If your criteria for judging “hardest” is the most helicopters attending bike races, then it’s Glencoe by a country mile.

Stainburn is fine is fine on a normal trail bike, I used to ride it on a 100mm HT before I got the Five, but I wouldn’t want to ride the black stuff on a HT. there are bits that would be good on a DH bike but for most of it it’d be overkill.

The hard (black stuff) is in the woods to the left of the car park if you’re looking up the hill, the red (still very fun) bits are obvious off the car park, and there is loads of stuff across the road but that might still be wet.

Stainburn is fun, but don’t go there expecting 10 minute DH runs, they are short and fast.

Cannock

A DH bike at Stainburn would be daft, 50% of the Boulder Trail is steep up hill. A “normal” bike and XC lid is fine, pads are a goodidea though.

Well I cacked myself recently by having rubbish tyres on a normally simple trail.

Oh, and anything in the dark is way harder (and more fun), so try night riding normall trails to up the thrill level. The poorer the lights the more fun.

If your criteria for judging “hardest” is the most helicopters attending bike races, then it’s Glencoe by a country mile.

I’ve heard Glencoe is absolutely brutal, makes the Fort Bill track look like a towpath or something.

It all relative though OP and depends on what you mean by tough.

I rode the Glen Finglas circuit at the weekend technically its a piece of piss but I’d need to be a lot fitter to ride it all without stopping so to me that was a tougher ride than say Glentress Black which I can get round no problem but less experienced riders (no one on here obviously :D) might struggle with.

Neither of these trails are particularly “tough” I’m just trying to point out that “toughness” is hard to measure

also depends what you mean by hardest…

and

to answer the question you need to pick your pigeon hole first

I deliberately left it vague as I’m interested in various factors: most physical, hardest uphill, hardest downhill, most technical, etc.

Not that I’ll likely attempt many of them! Just curious.

Fowlmead in Kent – Black run 😉

LoCo – Member
Trail down a glen near Kinlochewe, down from Lochan Fada to Loch Maree, OTB and almost went over a cliff into the gorge

yip, brutal, lucky if I cycled down 30% of that! The river crossing to get to it if in spate is mental as well. I nearly died! About half way down I was really wishing I had just cycled back down the way I came up!

I’ve heard Glencoe is absolutely brutal.

This. Times a number that looks a lot like a sideways 8.

Don’t take a DH bike to stainburn, a lightweight 120mm fs bike will be fine as will a LTHT if maybe a little sketchy through the rocks, you’ll thank me on the short but steep and quite techy climbs.

XC lid and pads will give you the confidence you’ll be needing.

there you go, from xc trail centre to comparison with a world cup downhill track, in under forty posts.

If your criteria for judging “hardest” is the most helicopters attending bike races, then it’s Glencoe by a country mile.

The Aberfeldy SDA had to stop mid-practice for a while as they’d run out of ambulances. I asked a marshal “what, none left on site?” … “no, we’ve used up all the ambulances in the area!”

That track was pretty brutal!

That track was pretty brutal!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cA0IdZtKyGc

1:49 😯 Ouch!

Hardest thing I’ve ridden was Revolution Bike Park. That Aberfeldy course looks hideous though – imagine if it was wet!

Hardest thing I have ever ridden was on Box Hill believe it or not. Almost vertical track that runs down to the river. (don’t think its ever a footpath and certainly no bridleway)

The climb up to Leith Hill tower ,Holmbury side ,has to be in the top 5 surely?
😉