I have a day in the Lakes coming up and strangely for me it wont involve a road bike, as I’m well out the MTB loop I’m looking for recommendations for must do Lakes rides.

I’m catching up with a mate and his American wife so would like to show them the best of the Lakes, no criteria other than not a trail center.

Hit me up with you collective knowledge

Where would you like to start from and how long have you got or how many miles are you after?
Are you looking to gain some serious altitude or more content with lower level stuff?
How experienced is your group? red/black proficient?

My intial thought would be Helvellyn, which is an actual mountain, the ride would also involve a great deal of pushing a bike though. It is not an experience easily forgotten though and is worth the climb.

Helvellyn is a good memorable ride. Up Keppel Cove and an easy ride back down Sticks Pass with a handful of mildly technical sections. If you’re fit, it’s not a massively long ride. I think I did a lap of Ullswater afterwards (which is another recommended ride, although I didn’t find it all that).

Borrowdale Bash is a good mixed ride.

there is such variance in the type of riding in the Lakes that to advise whats best for you guys we need to know a lot more. As per Jekkyl’s questions.

This website covers most of the classics https://lakesmtb.co.uk/lake-district-routes/

One not on there that is worth considering if you’re up for a full dayer and don’t mind a hike a bike (or 4) is the 4 passes. http://my.viewranger.com/route/details/OTIxOTE=

If they’re very fit and like moderately technical riding and hike-a-biking, Four Passes. It’s an epic.

Four passes is very much on my radar, tempted to give it a crack next time I’m up (in May) but I’ll be on my own, and I fear the combination of remote + tech may be a little much for me to enjoy it.

Helvellyn and Ullswater though, there’s a thought…

Helvellyn still has snow on the top. Keep an eye on conditions here: http://www.lakedistrictweatherline.co.uk

The Lakes is a broad area and it is not easy to nip to the West side. What advice is given would really depend on where you can easily get to. It is pointless suggesting Ennerdale if you are in the South East Lakes.

I’d do a good loop from Ambleisde round Rydal and Grasmere, over to Coniston and up over Grizedale and Claife and either straight back to Ambleside or get the Windermere ferry. Plenty of options and some great varied vistas to share with your friends. Oh and much better options for a pub lunch part way round.

Pooley bridge, Ullswater Lakeside path. Ferry back to Pooley or Boredale Hause.
Ferry has chatting socialising / beer opportunities
That or Parkamoor / Coniston, beer / lakes cuteness in Hawkshead Food at the Drunken Duck…

Four passes has great scenery, but it’s at least 50% steep hike-a-bike and the descents may involve a lot of hike at points also. Though as I discovered, following the paths down can be the mistake. The drainage gaps get a bit serious at times and are a pain to ride, but watched locals or those in the know just head off piste on the grass. Even then though, watch out for big holes underneath.

A great day in nice weather, but I wouldn’t call it riding. Most the walkers we greeted cheerily said we were idiots and may as well just have hiked without the bike. That said some of the end parts of descents when it got rideable were fun, and potential pub at the bottom.

Thanks guys, keep it coming.

We are all fairly fit, they live in canada and have 6 bikes each (so do a fair bit of riding) and I’ve plenty of road miles in teh legs so we should be good, not scared of the technical stuff.

I dont think they’ve booked accommodation yet and I’ll be driving up (from Manc) for the day so we can go pretty much anywhere.  a loop would be best, 20 miles maybe?

Grizedale off piste look around the Trail Centre is good to do from the south as a poor weather alternative, good riding but never too high or exposed and options to cut back whenever

20 mile loop: I’d look at the Ambleside – Loughrigg – Elterwater – Little Langdale – Iron Keld area. If you have time then either head in to Grizedale Forest or over to Claife Heights. Lots of variations on the theme around there.

The other alternative would be the trails around Staveley/Kentmere: a figure of eight loop, Staveley, over Green Quarter to Longsleddale back over from Sadgill to Kentmere, up the track from Kentmere Hall and round by Dubs Tarn then back over Garburn, up from Kentmere Hall and finish on the Three Rivers descent.

All good suggestions above, Borrowdale bash but added cheekiness with Walla crag added in.

Would they love you or hate you for shouldering the bike (for 20-40 mins at a time, gaining 150-300m of ascent), as that opens up or rules out a lot of proper Lakes routes. Of course heading up the tops assumes the weather’s OK – if not you should stay down low as it’s no fun when you can’t stand up or see owt.

+1 for 4 passes. Such an epic day out. Although a lot of hiking up, the descents are brilliant!

Circuit of Windemere is a nice varied ride, setting out from Ambleside through Low Wray. Lunch on the veranda at the hotel in Lakeside, back via Staveley with Jenkins Cragg as the final descent into Ambleside (although I gather parts have been sanitised since I was last there). Its set out on one of the Lakes MTB guides.

Did it with my wife for her 40th b’day, lovely sunny day, and it was ace.

If you’ve got game riders and the weather’s decent, there’s little to beat 4 passes. Possibly the hardest 16(?)miles you’ll ever do. 3 descents are excellent, 1 is merely “quite good”. 1 climb is fully rideable (albeit painful) the others are carries.

Helvellyn is good – plenty of bridleways so you can do it a couple of times using different routes. Or add on Ullswater/Boredale.

Rossett Ghyll/Esk hause/Sty Head/Seatoller/Langstrath/Stake Pass is another good “big day out” with lots of carrying.

Personally I find a lot of the low level routes a bit ‘meh’ from a riding POV, albeit VERY scenic. Great as bad weather alternative options though.

If you are coming from Manchester then I would aim for south east Lakes to cut down on travel. How about some Staveley high mountain action with Garburn and Nan Bield and a few bits in-between over Ill Bell? Finish at Hawkshead Brewery and they could stay at the Eagle and Child.

Duddon Valley. Near Seathwaite… 

Catbells on a busy day, oh the joy of parting the throng, pinning a techy descent.

I don’t often raise scorn on here but I would regard riding down catbells on a busy day as irresponsible and only likely to increase animosity towards mtbers.

Some people will do this in a oner!!! some will prefer to carry a sleeping bag on the front of the bike and sleep where they stop either way its a cracking ride you could easily miss loops if it gets messy at the beer stops 🙂

#jennride South Lakes 2018

https://www.facebook.com/events/185467692029682/

[url=https://flic.kr/p/UNe2qQ]Untitled[/url] by Richard Munro, on Flickr

Loving this thread. Further suggestion – sack of the rest of their trip and spend a month doing all of the above!

Tour de Coniston is a fair old epic  Inc Walna Scar rd and Park a moor , start and finish in Torvor means a cheeky pint ending

http://outdoorsgps.com/route/show/313022_tour-de-coniston-gpx

And still to be said  Whiteless pike and rig beck  http://my.viewranger.com/route/details/NzIzODY=

Both belters but the Bash and Walla is still one of the faves

A fantastic but tough day out is to start at Hartsop and shoulder bikes up past Brotherswater onto High Street. Ride south to Kidsty Pike to the big cairn then retrace your route over Loadpot Hill then pick up the BW that runs north past Arthur’s PIke. Then double back along Ullswater via Martindale, Sandwick and back to Hartsop. It’s hard work but the riding along High Street is fantastic and the descent from Loadpot Hill superb single track. You’d do best to use a lightweight XC bike for the carry up onto the mountain. It’s 26 miles with 5940 feet of climb. PM me if you want a route card.

It is a great ride ..one that I’ve done ×3 times and haven’t had a decent view from High Street yet !😁

High st   more like WET st !  always bloody wet

I love lakes riding with that certain special sort of panic you get when you’re at some altitude, the garmin says straight on, the bit of paper in your pocket with route guide and map says straight on but the path at your feet turns very dinstinctly to the right, there is no straight on. Have you taken a wrong turn? dare you go back and lose altitude to check, if you do do you leave the bike and have a look on foot or do you carry on to the right? it’s 5pm, you didn’t bring lights, you have a cut on your knee where you fell off earlier and it’s bleeding. You check your phone and there’s no signal, it’s starting to rain and there’s no other people around, you are alone on a mountain. A wrong turn could take you down the wrong side of the mountain facing a long road slog back to the car.
What do you do?

Depends a lot on how much you want an epic adventure versus a nice ride with good views. I tend to the former and whitestone’s route above is a good choice. Or Garburn pass from Staveley.

We were lucky and did High St at a fairly dry time of year. Not that great IMO and if wetter would have been nasty.

I thought high street was lame (other than the view). Ulswater bridleway on the way back was way more fun.

High Street is terrible. 5 miles of boring, peat-ridden, dull, featureless, grassy decent.

I’d rather ride second on a tandem with Dawn French.

Think I’m actually being a bit unfair. The southern rocky end was fun. The northern end towards pooly bridge was hateful (though it’s entirely possible I was not on the best track).

Edit: yeah seems I went wrong after Loadpot Hill and went via Arthur’s Pike. Didn’t make it to the Cockpit. Guess I’ll be revisiting that route then!

High street is for the views  not the tech,. Still a great ride IMHO allbeit a scenic one.

Nan Bield Pass from Staveley.

Enough said

If you put in “best mtb rides uk” in Google guess what it comes up with straight away

The better version of the route: Up to Gatesgarth & up to Harter Fell, Nan Bield descent down to Kentmere. Then back to Staveley via 3 Rivers.

VERY techy (Nan Bield) but only moderate fitness required it’s only a modest 35k with 1000m of ascent, even though some of that ascent is a very difficult hike-a-bike so it feels like more, but it’s not as difficult fitness wise as a lot of the bigger rides. I’d say this one is more about skill than fitness.

A Lakes ride that I always love doing simply because most of your time is spent riding (rather than carrying) your bike  starts in Threlkeld from the small car park on the road up to Blencathra Centre…giving a rude awakening from the off with a steep road climb up as far as the upper car park just beyond the centre itself where it turns into a good off road double track skirting the side of Blease Fell.

Follow this bridleway all the way to Skiddaw House as it changes from double to singletrack on what is still a good rocky surface .

Turn right at Skiddaw House on a bridleway/ track which can best be described as muddy / lumpy as it follows the course of the river Caldew eventually turning into a well surfaced road down to Mosedale ( cafe stop ? )

Turn left at the junction and climb up on a singletrack road to Calebreck and turn left onto the mining track bridleway to Fellside .

Turn left to follow the road through Branthwaite and turn left at the junction at Greenhead to go up to Holborn following the permissive track to Longlands .

Turn left on the road and follow it ( approx 5km)to a track on the left just beyond Peter House Farm to climb steadily then very steeply up to Whitewater Dash waterfall following this track all the way back to Skiddaw House where you partly retrace your tracks from this morning back towards Blencathra Centre ( as a descent!)..but carrying straight on to skirt around Lonscale Fell which is the only part of the ride where (real) care is needed due to the severity of the drop to the left .

Follow the track to the Lattrig car park where a permissive track to the left will take you onto a grassy descent to Brundholme / Wescoe & then back to Thelkeld .

Unfortunately this does omit a great drop down from the car park towards Keswick but with the old railway track between Keswick & Threlkeld still washed out ..its the best alternative at the moment.

Horse & Farrier for refreshments upon your return !

A couple of pics from a very icy ride in December ..

This on Lonscale Fell ..the track on the other side of the valley is the initial off road from Blencathra Centre towards Skiddaw House

20171209_121239 by Neil Hodgson – Flickr2BBcode LITE

20171209_121515 by Neil Hodgson – Flickr2BBcode LITE.

I’m sure the conditions will be almost tropical by now ..😁

Some great  routes suggested on here, as a visitor I have done the High Street route from Hartsop, The ‘Bash and the Skiddaw route.

Now we have moved up to Cumbria there are loads of “must do” rides .

Edit: yeah seems I went wrong after Loadpot Hill and went via Arthur’s Pike. Didn’t make it to the Cockpit. Guess I’ll be revisiting that route then!

No, you went the right way. Straight on from Loadpot Hill to The Cockpit is boring and boggy. Bear left on the BW that passes to the west of Arthur’s Pike and you’ll find yourself on a smashing bit of fast, twisty singletrack ending with an absolute blast down sheep-cropped grass to meet the BW that takes you back along the lake side.

On top of Kidsty Pike you MUST NOT miss the left turn where the trail turns northwards; it’s indistinct and many people carry on east and end up dropping down to Haweswater, a costly mistake. I wrote an account of that called The Incident Pit, which was published in STW some years ago.