Kielder and Newcastleton – trail centres.

October 5th, 2009 • 4 comments Mountainbiking
Tags: 7 Stames, bikebus, Kielder, Newcatleton

It was the last bikebus trip for a while as Hutch is expecting his first born in a fort night or so. I hadn’t been on the bikebus for over a year so it was a good to get out and send Hutch off into Fatherhood with style. We had all heard good things about the trails at Kielder. Their web site looked good and there had been some good reviews / forum chat about them. So it seemed worth the long journey (about 2hr 30m from centre of Glasgow).

We started out in glorious sun shine and spun up a small stretch of fire road into the first bit of singletrack, it was good with some nice wee features, a rock garden and some switchbacks. Just as we got our a flow on we were spat out on to another fire road. This climb was shallow long and boring. The next section of single track was one of the highlights. Technical and full of great features this trail was well built and a good challenge with small boulder drop offs the odd rock ladder and some great steep switchbacks. A small black section at the bottom was also excellent with slow speed, steep roots sections interspersed with loose shale. However it appeared to be a bum steer as it directed us back to the start. Confused, we pushed back up to rejoin the red. The “3 dog” climb was great, full of challenging obstacles but with a good flow and rhythm. We then set out on what was to be a rather arduous and monotonous fire road climb, which was pretty steep the whole way on a draggy loose surface. It seemed to go on forever and marked the low point of the ride. I don’t mind these sections when out in the wilds but at a trail centre it seemed a bit over kill. At the summit of Deadwater fell the views are cool, apart from the ugly radar / mobile phone installations (although they provided shelter from the wind). To the south you can see the mountains flatten into England, to the north you see them rise into Scotland. At more than half a kilometre up we were convinced the reward of all this climbing would be good. However the altitude was eaten away quickly by a direct, loose shale ex access road which was only slightly knurled up by obvious water errosion. The next section “into the valley” was the highlight, with some cool jumps, well constructed berms, rock drops and rough switchbacks. It was excellent but also far to short. A shallow climb followed with some interesting rock ladders and boulder fields, this led into the final descent which was pretty mundane, a few jumps and stuff but small draggy ups sapped any flow. The jump park at the bottom was a joke, one large table(ish) top and a few rollers before two poorly built berms. Tiny boring and extremely disappointing.

We sat at the bus eating cake and moaning about the stupidly long climb and wasted altitude from the “Skelly riggins” descent. So in an effort to salvage the day we shifted over to one of the 7 stanes – Newcastleton which was not far away.

Newcastleton, is good. Full of nice well built single track which flows over sometimes loose but otherwise well drained, solid ground. Making the most of the it’s gradients, the trail gives Kielder a lesson in how to use land effectively for mountain biking. With more single track than fire road it is easy going with no major technical challenges to speak of. However the injection of well thought out trail building maintains your momentum and makes the centre as a whole far more enjoyable than Kielder. It has a cool north shore section at the bottom which is pretty challenging although choice of mixing up lines is very limited. There is not much to say about Newcastleton, it’s good but not amazing, it saved our day and I would suggest that putting the two centres together makes the journey worhwhile.

It is safe to say we will not be making the 5hour round trip to these centres again. Kielder has great potential and with a renowned trail builder on task could be amazing. As it stands it seems unfinished, a work in progress. It has certainly received plenty of hype but why remains a mystery.

Somhairle