I am in the Lakes next week, and taking the road bike. I am going to have a go at Kirkstone/Hardknott on my own, but my Brother in law and wife are bringing their bikes and not up for a really hard ride.

Can anyone recommend a nice, gentle 30ish miler on the roads?

Cheers

Right round Coniston Lake and back should be about 30 miles I’d say

Piss easy too, no proper hills. The biggest probably starts at skelwith as you go past chesters (cheshires?) cafe.

Depends what way you go round the lake, west side to east then theres almost no hills, but go east to west then there is a short, sharp climb near the head of the lake and then the hadwins land rover hill at torver.

Cheers David – sounds perfect. I am looking on the map now!

It’ll be my wife’s 2nd road ride, and BIL’s first, so want to make it interesting but not too hard!

Yeh, its an easy one and the roads arent too bad at the moment (surface quality wise) and not dead busy either. I was gonna say a lap of windermere, but the main road on the east of the lake is always dead busy and its pretty rough.

If there feeling more adventurous they could go to broughton mills via torver, then back along the seathwaite valley, up wrynose and through langdale (wrysnose aint to bad from that side) but it’ll be a bit longer and tougher.

I was just going to suggest similar route… Though I’d take Bog lane from Clappersgate up to Drunken Duck Inn TR up to top of Hawkwshead hill/ B5285 TL descend towards Conniston, but take LH fork which descends towards Brantwood House along the east side of Conniston, then just follow the lake to WaterYeat RT back towards Conniston. There’ll be a few hills but nothing major.

Andy @ Biketreks in Ambleside can offer good route advice too.

Yeh that would be a goodun too. Worth noting that the road at water yeat is “closed” (the bridge is **** but i still use it on the bike) but lowick bridge is only another mile down the road so they can turn there at the red lion pub.

Brilliant. Biketreks have always been very helpful when I have asked for mtb routes. I will get plotting on the map – thanks very much everyone. Can’t wait until next week 😀

just done something very similar this weekend – how about from ambleside up great langdale, down little langdale, through coniston, hawkshead, a nice little ferryride and back up through bowness?

its a bit hillier but less than a 1000m in 30 miles. only bad hills are probably the climb out of coniston for a newbie and the climb out of great langdale for anyone – its a bl**dy wall, but its only a short walk…

Well, just back. Did the Coniston one, then up the Kirkstone Pass via The Struggle. That was hard…

Cheers!

Which day did you ride? I was out yesterday and today and it was fairly windy

Did the Coniston ride on Monday, and the Kirkstone Pass on Thursday. Going back in May for Honister, Hardknott and Wrynose. Just bought the 100 greatest cycle climbs book, so am going to plan family holidays accordingly 😀

May? Honister, Hardknott and Wrynose?

That sounds like Fred Whitton Challenge!

I’m not that fit/mad yet!

Looking back from the Kirkstone Inn – it gave me a taste for climbing…(as well as a taste of blood in my mouth)

Nice picture. You dont even do the struggle on the FW, you just bimble up the main road on the left of your picture. All the other passes you can just walk up. Its basically just a day of mincing/walking round the best roads in the lakes. Dead Easy.