Managed to ride the helvellyn route today from Glennridding and back down dollywagon. Tried and failed about twenty years ago on a fully rigid p7 with rim brakes and I’ve wanted to crack it ever since. Got up to the lakes to heavy rain and after half an hour in a cafe debating if we should bother we decided to just have a plod up and see if the weather improves. It didn’t but we carried on anyway. It was a miserable ride weather wise but dollywagon was exciting 😯 . Makes a nice change from trail centres. Snowdon next methinks.
Graham.

Good stuff. I had problems with Dollywaggon & didn’t really enjoy . Which route up did you take?

up past the youth hostel, greenside road at Glenridding I think its called towards keppel cove, lower man then helvellyn. This is the route http://www.theedgecycleworks.com/mtbroutes/helvellyn/

How long did it take ?

I think I saw you at the top? Two of you on boardmans? I went right too soon (at the youth hostel) so I took a slightly longer route, and a lot of the climb was unrideable. Took three hours.

Anyone ridden from the top of helvelyn down to grassmere rather than down to Glenridding?

There’s a bridleway descent down to Wyburn church at the southern end of Thirlmere which is excellent, or you could head up Fairfield from Grisdale tarn and take a cheeky descent down to Grasmere. Very popular with walkers though, so best to tackle that one after 4pm.

Yep, that was us Bevelled. Took us unfit codgers about 4 1/2 hours. Want to do it again in fairer weather. You on spd’s ? madness 😆

grim – did you ride the whole of dollywagon without skipping any bits? You did good if you did 🙂

I think me and a mate did it in 3 and a bit with a cup of tea on the top but that was a fair lick (non stop from the tarn out really)

Didn’t manage it all. Some of those water bars were a pain. Needed a bit of speed to clear but too steep to let the bike get away from me. Probably road about 70%. Mate did well on his hardtail seeing as he’s not been riding that long. A dry day would have been a bit easier.

I hiked the bike up it for the first time a few weeks ago. There’s a really steep section towards the start of the descent which would have been rideable in the dry but probably not too much fun. If Snowdon is next on your list I’d say that is a lot less challenging but really great fun.