Any good?

New action-packed mountain bike trail opens in Harrogate

1.2k

Probably not.

1.2k

Probably not.

Better than nothing?

Plus it’s a start.

PS, yes I know Stainburn’s just up the road from Fewston & Swinsty.

It’s the first mountain bike trail the company has created at one of its reservoir sites and the company is not ruling out creating more in the future.

Stainburn is not worth driving to unless you are local for the distance of trail. More is better imho.

Maybe the area long term will become a weekend destination. 🙂

Better than nothing maybe but I can patch together 40+miles around Harrogate already with no more than the odd mile on roads so don’t see the attraction of heading that way. Probably better if heading from Otley side though.

I would love to see a trail created down the Nidd from Bilton to Knaresborough. Doubt it would happen though.

I’ve asked about it – I don’t think it will happen, no.

New free bike trail opens. People on STW are negative without having tried it.

This is a massive surprise.

Stainburn is not worth driving to unless you are local for the distance of trail.

Disagree. We drove an hour to get there an would go again. It’s more of a sessioning/skills developing kind of place than somewhere to munch the miles.

Disagree. We drove an hour to get there an would go again. It’s more of a sessioning/skills developing kind of place than somewhere to munch the miles.

I rode it all in around 40 mins. Nice place for sure, but doesn’t fit with the destination drive to place as is.

I rode it all in around 40 mins.

You did all of the features on the black route? Fair play if so.

If not you should have spent a bit longer trying them again. 🙂

Myself and Kesty were in the original discussions with Yorkshire Water on this a good ten years ago, and the guys from YW came up for a site visit with us and saw the potential – great to see it finally come together.

The thing to really remember with this, along with the permissive bridleway they created there back then is that it fills a missing link in the network – So you can park at Swinsty and can ride out without any tarmac onto the bridleways up through Timble Ings and Back Allotment and onto the network UCR’s on the moor (that have improved massively since the TRO’s were imposed) and right up to the top of Round hill – you can even stretch it over to Ilkley – bloody fantastic route, I miss living in the ‘Gate!

Edit – once some years ago when I was a lot fitter I linked up from the train via Leeds and rode from Crossflatts right to the centre of Harrogate having barely touched Tarmac – over Ilkley moor, Timble ings and some cheekiness down past Beaver Dyke and then on past the Arms and the pinewoods to valley gardens – I reckon that would link up a lot better with this new stuff there 🙂

Perhaps we need an STW day out to sample it before bitching?

I rode it all in around 40 mins

Ha ha, clearly not, there is a lot more to Stainburn than the marked trails, but that’s good the tourists can keep to the paths 😉

I’ve heard good things about what YW are doing in the Swinsty area. must try it out as part of a bigger Washburn Valley route

Yep everything on the black and another little loop. And my wife has just confirmed I was well under the hour as we needed to be elsewhere for a wedding.

Though there may be new things since I last visited.

I think you can link from stainburn by bridleway quite easily. One of the carparks has had signage for a red bike/horse route for ages, has this just been developed further?
Richpips, Sancho is right, I have been riding there twice a week locally and finding more all the time. The natural stuff is good fun for choosing the right lines etc.
Johndoh – any good route suggestions? Looking at os map, bridleways seem to be few and far between around here and I could do with getting some miles in (sorry to change the topic).

This is going to be lovely to add to our nighttime rides from over Ilkley way.
If we can just find a map of where the trail goes…

Rode the new bit today – Hilarious! Absolutely great fun 🙂 Just puts a smile on your face.

Rode out from Harrogate, across Birk Crag, Beckwithshaw, up to Icy Corner, then took the wooded route to Stainburn, down the Red route, road section to Swinsty, eventually found the new bit by riding up to Timble.

Is it possible to ride from Stainburn on a bridle path?

There’s a path through the fields beside the Washburn. It comes out near Swinsty dam.

Rode the new bit today – Hilarious! Absolutely great fun Just puts a smile on your face.

Worth a look then, I presume it’s the stuff near the fewston/Swinsty main car park, that SingletrAction were sort of involved in up until a year ago or so??

Not too far from there – I found it when coming down from Timble via the road. There’s a big gate on the left marked as foot path. The new section is off there on the left.

I work at the local outdoor centre as quoted in the harrogate news article (Dave will be amused that his appearance in the news has ended up here!). We are now taking groups there and its great for teaching.

It is what it is. Short but very good considering the circumstance. Yorkshire water are very clear on their policy for building more – if they perceive the demand they will allocate the funds. So ride it, tell them you like it and the good folks at Yorkshire water will put their hands deeper into their pockets and build more.

Sit here and slag it off and then see how much free trail building takes place. I know which tack I will be taking.

I genuinely have to say, they’ve used the space really really well. There’s so much more space to play with as well in that bit of woodland 🙂 If you can link Stainburn up to it with a few more sections like that, then there’s the makings of a really really good big day out.

There is serious scope in this area to build an amazing mountain bike trail centre. Yorkshire Water could potentially facilitate an awesome set of all-weather mountain bike trails circumnavigating Thruscross reservoir, tumble down the woods to the foot of Thruscross dam and along the Washburn valley to the head of Fewston reservior, track into the north west woods above Fewston reservior, cross Fewston dam to link up with trails at Beecroft Plantation and Timble Plantation. If only the local authorities would partner up to make this sort of thing happen. The local dream – “YORKSHIRE is aiming to become the European capital of cycling with a 10-year plan to capitalise on the hosting of the start of the Tour de France next year.” – link

Leeds deserves it’s own “Mountain Bike Park”… How do we make this happen?

If Cannock and sherwood pines can do it then Shirley its a breeze up that way…

There is serious scope in this area to build an amazing mountain bike trail centre

Link it up with Stainburn and Norwood and it’d be awesome.

The forests running along Thruscross, down the washburn to Fewston, and even along Lindley have great potential for a meandering rise and fall line of trails. If only the local authorities could visualise the tourist attraction potential and the value to local people for such facilities. It could all be done with minimal impact upon the countryside too. There’s plenty of money out there to employ professional trail builders

Can you give me directions to it please… From say the end of Penny pot lane ?

Rode everything at Stainburn in 40 mins? If you did then you clearly didn’t get it 🙁

Think one of the Singletraction guys did a feasability study on this for YW a couple of years ago. Surely even STW can’t turn this into a negative..