Kielder – worst trail centre ever riden!
john_smith
Posts: 85
I went to ride some of the trails at Kielder today. Sorry to say I don’t rate it and think they could have spent what sounds like a lot of money much better. I started at the castle and was doing the lonesome pine trail and bloody bush trail.
Probably my bad but I didn’t check the route map in advance as thought the sign posting at trail centres is generally so good would soon find my way. Anyway there was a signpost for lonesome pine trail at castle so figured that’s a good start. Set of, hit the rod and all lonesome pine trail signs stopped. Dropped into bike shop and guy told me loads of people end up asking as sign posting useless to begin with. He sent me of on Lakeside Way which would take me where wanted to go. Then hit a split where lakeside way goes south or north route but no signs for lonesome pine again. Luckily my guess paid of and eventually after a few k’s of flat family trail riding it turned off onto red.
Set of and soon got stuck into a climb on rough rocky hard core material. This seemed to be the basis of whole ride, very rocky hard core surface which in terms of mountain biking either seems like top surface has been washed out or was done on the cheap and they simply just laid a load of hard core through middle of forests with no proper trail building and finishing surface applied. Anyway got jolted around for quite a bit then had a rough little boring descent. No features, no speed, no challenge just back breaking with all jolts.
Turned left at top of a hill where trail splits and sign posts came to end 3k later so had to turn round after wasting a load of effort. Got back to the split and turned right this time and more climbing and eventually got out onto the climb which went up the wooden board stuff. These were quite nice to ride on and novel idea but no challenge and thinking from engineering view point must have cost a fortune having to dig them deep into ground just to get over a load of crap marshy land. Simple idea if nature put a crap surface down which doesn’t want you ride over then don’t bother wasting a load of money building some boring wooden stuff to get over it. Build the trail somewhere else.
Anyhow rode the bloody bush trail towards border. Thought things were picking up when headed down hill but the trail was just slow hard core surface again and the little drops, table tops all seemed washed out or just built poor in first place. At end of section near border my back felt broken from all the jarring taken. I should have brought a full suss instead of hard tail but even on that can’t imagine would be much more fun. I saw a lonesome pine red sign at the border and just assumed the trail went over the border. So after heading 5k over border and down a steep fire road descent realised that no the red trail doesn’t head that way and had to double back and get some climbing in. Annoying and don’t know why they put a red route sign facing that way.
Anyway drop back along a bit of fireroad then climbed another section back to board walks. Now heading return back towards kielder castle and thought well least I have some descent ahead of me so should be some good single track descents. All average, again no challenge, no speed as so rough and no berms, drops, doubles or anything interesting.
By time got back realised that it was a good training session as lots of climbing on crap surfaces but completely unrewarding and will stick to the 7 stanes in future. Just been looking through the kielder site and they boast about money spent on trails. To me it seems a big waste of money which could have produced much better trails. Not sure if it’s just been poor build or poor design and location choice. I’ll probably try and do deadwater trails some time and complete the cross border trail but Kielder is right down bottom of my list of places to ride. It was a lovely sunny day there today and I only saw 6 other bikes total so guessing others people also don’t rate the place. It’s not a patch on other mtb venues.
Probably my bad but I didn’t check the route map in advance as thought the sign posting at trail centres is generally so good would soon find my way. Anyway there was a signpost for lonesome pine trail at castle so figured that’s a good start. Set of, hit the rod and all lonesome pine trail signs stopped. Dropped into bike shop and guy told me loads of people end up asking as sign posting useless to begin with. He sent me of on Lakeside Way which would take me where wanted to go. Then hit a split where lakeside way goes south or north route but no signs for lonesome pine again. Luckily my guess paid of and eventually after a few k’s of flat family trail riding it turned off onto red.
Set of and soon got stuck into a climb on rough rocky hard core material. This seemed to be the basis of whole ride, very rocky hard core surface which in terms of mountain biking either seems like top surface has been washed out or was done on the cheap and they simply just laid a load of hard core through middle of forests with no proper trail building and finishing surface applied. Anyway got jolted around for quite a bit then had a rough little boring descent. No features, no speed, no challenge just back breaking with all jolts.
Turned left at top of a hill where trail splits and sign posts came to end 3k later so had to turn round after wasting a load of effort. Got back to the split and turned right this time and more climbing and eventually got out onto the climb which went up the wooden board stuff. These were quite nice to ride on and novel idea but no challenge and thinking from engineering view point must have cost a fortune having to dig them deep into ground just to get over a load of crap marshy land. Simple idea if nature put a crap surface down which doesn’t want you ride over then don’t bother wasting a load of money building some boring wooden stuff to get over it. Build the trail somewhere else.
Anyhow rode the bloody bush trail towards border. Thought things were picking up when headed down hill but the trail was just slow hard core surface again and the little drops, table tops all seemed washed out or just built poor in first place. At end of section near border my back felt broken from all the jarring taken. I should have brought a full suss instead of hard tail but even on that can’t imagine would be much more fun. I saw a lonesome pine red sign at the border and just assumed the trail went over the border. So after heading 5k over border and down a steep fire road descent realised that no the red trail doesn’t head that way and had to double back and get some climbing in. Annoying and don’t know why they put a red route sign facing that way.
Anyway drop back along a bit of fireroad then climbed another section back to board walks. Now heading return back towards kielder castle and thought well least I have some descent ahead of me so should be some good single track descents. All average, again no challenge, no speed as so rough and no berms, drops, doubles or anything interesting.
By time got back realised that it was a good training session as lots of climbing on crap surfaces but completely unrewarding and will stick to the 7 stanes in future. Just been looking through the kielder site and they boast about money spent on trails. To me it seems a big waste of money which could have produced much better trails. Not sure if it’s just been poor build or poor design and location choice. I’ll probably try and do deadwater trails some time and complete the cross border trail but Kielder is right down bottom of my list of places to ride. It was a lovely sunny day there today and I only saw 6 other bikes total so guessing others people also don’t rate the place. It’s not a patch on other mtb venues.
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Comments
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Quite a rant but must agree, other than the original Deadwater red\black the trails lack every thing an imaginative trail builder would do, i think it is scandalous how poor these trails are considering the money available, a total waste of effort.
Rode the Lonesome cursing all the way round and said never again, who ever built the trail hasn't a clue about mountain biking or what even makes a ride enjoyable, bulldozing a trail through a forrest, laying down rubble then calling it a trail is surely missing the point.0 -
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apologies rant but good to hear someone else had similar feedback. me posting these comments on a forum probably doesn't help make trails any better but hope someone has relayed something similar on those red trails back to Kielder FC0
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Fully agree with all these comments - the original Deadwater trail is good but the Lonesome Pine/Bloody Bush trails are rubbish (apart from the Lonesome Pine descent which is OK) - lots of fire road and the built sections are really rough and totally unsympathetic to the landscape.
Never seen anyone riding on the new Freeride park, so another waste of money there.....
Also heard that the Up and Over (black) descent has been ruined by a downhill event the other week.0 -
B******s, i have a week booked at kielder in one the lakeside cabins, I specificly chose this venue from the fantastic info given in the kielder guides. so basicly the routes are not signed well, are poorly maintained and are basicly not up to the levels suggested in the brochures??? I can see i am going to be most dissapointed.
Newcastleton is not far, what are the red and blues there like.0 -
You can even cycle to Newcastleton if feeling fit on the fireroad trail. Better trails over there. However it won't take much to drive upto Glentress from kielder as well. Easily driveable and rideable in a day there and back from kielder. My suggestion is do the deadwater trails as they sound best option at kielder. Do the cross border trail for some fitness. Ride newcastleton. Take a drive upto glentress for a days riding. Then at end of week do the lonesome pine and bloody bush trail just to laugh at what poor state it is in comparison.0
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Do not despair Newcastleton is good, well thought out and well worth a visit.0
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Deadwater red/black is a very nice trail indeed. We didn't do any of the other ones, I imagine I'll get Lonesome Pine ticked off next time but when we read one of the descriptions for one of the blues and it said "It is recommended that people in wheelchairs are accompanied. Visitors using a mobility scooter should ensure batteries are fully charged before setting off.", we thought perhaps we'll not do the blues.
Lonesome Pine's designed as a sort of entry level red, a step between blue and red, which frankly is a stupid idea. Red is a step between blue and black, there's no need for more than that, but their existing blue seemed to be way under grade
I'll definately be back to do Deadwater again, it's got some brilliant bits- technical horrible climbs, interesting surfaces, a wee dab of terror from time to time (Dougie's Day Off...). it does have that crap fireroad climb/broken up fireroad descent though that just goes in a loop, what a waste of time and altitude, I'd do 2 or 3 laps of the lower section but I'll not want to do the top bit again.Uncompromising extremist0 -
As a local that has a very slight connection with the trails up here, I agree with everything said above, although in Kielders defence the ground conditions up here are mainly very wet and deep peat which governs where the diggers can go to build the trails and also the stone is all locally sourced sandstone which is crap. The members of KTR [Kielder Trail Reavers ]spent weeks marking out the new lonesome pine trail but when it came to be built the FC employed someone that was found lacking in trail building know how to manage the build and they employed contractors with no previous trail building experience{ typical FC, used the cheapest] with obvious results.Quite a few volunteers lost interest at this point and decided to waste there time by doing other things at weekends like riding.
there is a very small band of dedicated people up here including the owner of the unofficial bike shop{unofficial as he was gazumped by the big money bike shop who got the all singing all dancing new hire centre, who incidently have never done any trail building] he, among with one or two others have been working on wednesday nights in their own time, usually till dark building a trail to connect a piece of built trail which cannot be used until this link is built,and as the ground was too rough for wheel barrows they have used stones out of the river, carried by hand and also carried stone in bags to make the trail.
Also they are constantly fighting the powers that be, the FC who seem to have a problem with most things that are planned, so when you next have a rant, spare a thought for those that are doing there best so you can have funBianchi Via Nirone 7 Alu/Carbon, 2011
Specialized Stumpjumper, 07
Genisis Altitude 30, 09
Giant XTC4, 040 -
so glad i read about this,ive been bugging bro about taking a 3 and half hour journey up there to ride it,glad he kept saying no,after what ive read above.......0
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Interesting arguements for and against, As we have never been to kielder before ( we are from north wales and usually use llandegla and coed brenin ) we will post our honest opinions on here once we return from our trip for what they are worth they may be of some interest.
Slarti..........0 -
timberjack wrote:As a local that has a very slight connection with the trails up here, I agree with everything said above, although in Kielders defence the ground conditions up here are mainly very wet and deep peat which governs where the diggers can go to build the trails and also the stone is all locally sourced sandstone which is crap. The members of KTR [Kielder Trail Reavers ]spent weeks marking out the new lonesome pine trail but when it came to be built the FC employed someone that was found lacking in trail building know how to manage the build and they employed contractors with no previous trail building experience{ typical FC, used the cheapest] with obvious results.Quite a few volunteers lost interest at this point and decided to waste there time by doing other things at weekends like riding.
there is a very small band of dedicated people up here including the owner of the unofficial bike shop{unofficial as he was gazumped by the big money bike shop who got the all singing all dancing new hire centre, who incidently have never done any trail building] he, among with one or two others have been working on wednesday nights in their own time, usually till dark building a trail to connect a piece of built trail which cannot be used until this link is built,and as the ground was too rough for wheel barrows they have used stones out of the river, carried by hand and also carried stone in bags to make the trail.
Also they are constantly fighting the powers that be, the FC who seem to have a problem with most things that are planned, so when you next have a rant, spare a thought for those that are doing there best so you can have fun
Wouldn't want to take anything away from local volunteer trail builders. Massive respect for any of these groups especially as the work they do is for free. If the trail had been built by KTR I would have a lot more respect for it as basically it would have been built using no money/resources. It is the FC and the muppets that mis managed the project that annoys me and wasted so much money on building a poor quality trail. I am 99% sure that had the money been given to a local trail building group they would have probably built the course a lot better and made better use of the money.0 -
We were going to go up there this week but were persuaded not to by a couple of people who'd been recently for all the same reasons as above.
Going to carry on up to Glentress instead0 -
Glentress is better, for sure... But I think Kielder's getting an unfairly bad rep because people are going and doing its worst trails. Deadwater is a wee forgotten gem.Uncompromising extremist0
