Want to try DH…

I have a kona process AM bike, lyric 160m fork and I’m looking to try some DH.
I live in the Scottish Borders but work in Carlisle in cumbria, I just wondered if anyone could recommend some DH tracks for “beginners”?
Cheers guys/girls

Innerleithen

Inners is a lot of fun, but hardly beginner territory? Isn’t there a track at Ae which is a bit more approachable? I’ve ridden a gnarli-er descent there, but it was 2004, and my memory of the occasion is not the best?

There are tracks to cover absolutely every level at Inners. Beginners included.

Inners +200

Forget what’s printed on the map, and explore. There’re tracks there for everyone.

johnny – Member
Inners is a lot of fun, but hardly beginner territory? Isn’t there a track at Ae which is a bit more approachable? I’ve ridden a gnarli-er descent there, but it was 2004, and my memory of the occasion is not the best?

Aes DH track is rougher than the ones at Inners, and the Shredder is just a trail centre ‘freeride’ thing, and not even a good one at that.

Inners is absolutely fine, just don’t trapped into thinking Make or Brake is a DH run

Descend Hamsterley hav a pretty good mix of tracks, the guys are always there to give you some advice, and if you go on a weekday, maybe show you which sections of the trail are best to progress your riding. Hamesterley is still pretty good without an uplift, which isn’t something that can be said about Innerleithen

Hammmers +1 and probably the same distance from Carlisle as Inners.

The top section is great for beginners and then gets gnarly towards the bottom.

Not tried Inners so cannot comment

Innerleithen’s waymarked trails are mostly pretty straightforward, better than most for a first step into official downhill.

I say official, because there’s absolutely no difference between downhill and just riding your bike, if you took the 4 main inners tracks and piled them on top of each other and stuck them up an alp then folks would happily ride them on holiday, but in the UK they are downhill and therefore Not For Us. But then they throw them into an enduro race and loads of folks who wouldn’t do downhill go and ride them and have a blast.

Only trouble with innerleithen is that there’s no one “easiest” dh. Not counting Make or Brake anyway 😉 Oh and also there are trails everywhere so it’s easy to start out on a main, simple line then end up doing something else entirely. Gold Run is probably best to start on but goes relatively steep at the bottom (and the bottom bit is currently all kinds of loose). So you end up recommending something elaborate like doing upper and middle gold run then switching over to matador lower, or just doing matador without the drops.

Another option that might sound silly, is fort william. Start out on the nevis red to get your head adjusted, if you’re comfortable and up to speed on that then cross over to the world cup route. It’s actually not as hard as you’d think, especially if you stop for rests! It’s not easy, but any capable rider on a decent bike should be able to have a decent stab at it. Possibly using some cheaty lines or walking short sections the first time.

If I can ride it on a hardtail on xc tyres, despite being fundamentally a knobber, then how hard can it be? 😉

Which route did they use for this years BDS @ Inners?

bigtimebones – Member

Which route did they use for this years BDS @ Inners?

gold run-road gap-tunnel-champs, then all over the shop til finally bottom of matador from the bridleway down. Looked a good track but quite hard to follow without tape.

Last SDA was just matador without the drops I think.

You could head over to setmurthy near Cockermouth. It has some great push up dh tracks which are not too tough. I want there on my 160mm bike.

I’ve ridden the WC course at Ft Bill course on a Chameleon with XC tyres and 140mm fork. It’s more accessible than you probably think

another vote for Inners, go, have fun.

Thanks for the help guys, appreciated alot. I’ve heard hamsterly is quite hard to navigate around without someone who’s been?

other than make or brake i wouldn’t say any of the official runs at inners are remotely for a beginner, and even then that would be a good ‘black’ grade run.

I’d say I was of a reasonable standard and the gold and cresta runs at inners are tricky, especially the bottom sections which are steep. Never even tried the Matador, it looks just plain dangerous!

[/quote] I’ve heard hamsterly is quite hard to navigate around without someone who’s been?

Nah, thats rubbish, just book an uplift day and have an explore, the bottom bit is pretty steep mind.

Yeah I would agree about navigation issues at Hamsterley, having a local to follow would be a benefit as there are trails crossing everywhere. Inners has this to a degree, but nowhere near as bad.

tpbiker, beginner DHer, not beginner rider. Gold Run is a piece of piss, it’s just a nice trail that flows across the hill. The bottom of it is harder/steeper, so to start with I’d recommend heading along the middle fire road (heading right) to Deer Hunter and continuing the warm-up on that.

Conversely, the bottom half of Cresta run is easier than the top half so that’s another way down to mix n match with