Kielder Forest gravel options?

I’ll be near Kielder on Saturday and would like to squeeze in a cheeky gravel ride if at all possible (say 50 or so miles).

Would welcome suggestions on a route that I could follow, or even better a ready to use GPX.

As an idea, I was thinking of picking off one of the loops from the Dirty Reiver route, but I know these events sometimes access normally restricted areas.

Appreciate any suggestions or feedback on trying the DR route, such as which loop would be the most fun.

I like it technical if that helps (I’m an MTB graveller, not roadie graveller)

Over to newcastleton and back on the cross border route then round the water. That’ll be just over 50km (possibly nearer 60) and all signposted.

Probably all the same forestry and looking in the OS there are bridleways and footpaths covering the whole area of that Reiver route so I expect its open. The only signed (mostly!) gravel route is the one doing a lap of the resovoir which is 25 miles or so. Fireroads everywhere so could just make it up as you go or split it as you say

You could try and head West to Newcastleton via fireroads etc, think it gets rougher later on so might be bit too much for a gravel bike

Newcastleton isn’t a bad shout, there’s an NCN route over there (possibly the Reivers) and you can loop back, up towards Newcastleton trail centre and towards Kielder trails. All doable on a gravel bike.

The lakeside way is a nice ride but quite different.

Dirty Reiver route. Some of it will be cheeky… For the most part you’re unlikely to see anybody in those parts of the forest unless you come across a logging operation. There are some legitimate routes through the forest which aren’t displayed on all maps.

I’d probably do Newcastleton.

Lap of the lake is nice, but shorter than you want.

I’ve done this

https://www.strava.com/activities/1877629032

You could shorten it by riding round the south side of the lake to the Dam and Falstone taking the back road to lanehead (it’s practically gravel now!). Well worth doing the forest drive, it’s a nice track.

This is a loop I did over to Newcastleton

https://www.strava.com/activities/381931511

naturally you could make it considerably shorter if you don’t start in Newcastle but I liked the word play. Bits of it were brutal on a CX bike though. Rough, chunky stones on the forest roads over the border.

12hrs, jesus! My sit bones just screamed at the thought of that lol. Well done

Lap of the lake is dull as dishwater.

All the MTB trails are fair game for a gravel bike, nowt particularly challenging for an MTB but should be interesting on GRVL.

All the MTB trails are fair game for a gravel bike

I was going to say most of the mtb trails, the Lonesome Pine red and the blue, think its called the Osprey trail, would definitely be fun to a competent gravel rider, parts of them probably more so than on an mtb to be honest although I’ve never owned or ridden a gravel bike. Pretty sure Kielder forest is over 600km sq so definitely take a map if you don’t know the place, there are many many miles of fireroads to explore and as its one of the most remote villages in England the some of the actual roads in the area aren’t much smoother. The lakeside lap is a scenic ride on a sunny day but is, as already stated, as dull as it gets and turns to a sort of peanut butter grinding paste when its wet, soul destroying on an mtb with 2.5″ tyres

Thanks for all the responses, looks like I have a few options! 🙂

I like the idea of heading over to Newcastleton, or trying out some of the MTB trails. I’ve driven past Kielder on a number of occasions, but never stopped off as we’re normally on our way to Innerleithen etc.

I’ll be back in the area later next week (picking up my mum after dropping her off tomorrow), so my current thinking is to drive up early to ride that first route of yours jonba – thanks for the links.

The border trail over to Newcastleton is interesting, although at the border itself it peters out from a fire road, to a quad track, to a sheep track to just long grass so the top mile or so is a bit of a slog before reversing on the other side.

Ignoring the kudos of doing a ride that involves two countries. I’d head south instead. RAF Spadeadam is gloriously remote and a much nicer ride than just 600sq km of pine trees.

I’d park at Gilsland, ride up through Spadeadam and keilder to Newcastleton via the border trail, then IIRC there’s a loop back into the Forrest slightly north of there, then follow the fire roads through the forrest east of Spadeadam back to Gilsland.