24 Apr 2006
The North Face Trail Grizedale
Rode the new North Face trail at Grizedale on Saturday, and I am pretty impressed. man made trails of this kind are a bit new to me – I have not been riding in the last 3 or 4 years.
The trail is made up of 10 new single track sections linked by the existing fire road network, and is marked out very well. The waymarkers are pretty obvious and you cannot get lost on the sigle track sections. A nice touch is the care that has been put in on safety – its clear to walkers that they cannot use the singletrack trails and the one way system is a good idea. At several points there are footpaths crossing the single track, but these are well sign posted and have a kind of chicane for walkers to ensure they are paying attention – the way is clear for MTB’ers.
The actual singletrack has it all – rocks, roots, berms, jumps and some quite extensive board walk sections which again are new to me. These allow the trail to go across boggy ground without problems and are a nice challenge – they are narrow in places and contain some small drops and off camber sections etc etc. No problem for an experienced off roader, but I fell off a few times on the more tricky bits. Great fun though.
In the end we did 2 laps of the North Face Trail and enjoyed ourselves immensly. My camera didn’t go on this trip so no piccys 
.
Grizedale has a good MTB hire centre and plenty of less technical forest roads and bridleways to entertain. Theres also a big high ropes course called Go Ape! that is on the list of things to do soon. For the more sedate people, there is a network of waymarked walks, lots of interesting sculpture in the forest and of course the cafe. Final good thing is the forestry commision charges £2 for 4 hours and £3 for a full day parking – much better than many NT car parks.
There should be some more MTB posts here soon – I have rediscovered the sport / hobby and my bike is fixed up and happy again. The bigesst barrier to riding was my weight, but since august I have lost 60lb (2 bikes!) and I have increased my fitness in the process.
hey cool write up, yeh The North Face Trail is good, needs a little more bedding in though, you should try the offroads tracks in Satterthwaite near Parkamoor.
enjoi
northern munkie - ben
May 25th, 2006 at 8:06 ampermalink
Great report! I myself have been out of the saddle for a few years. I loved riding as a kid and then uni came and went and work came (unfortunately the went bit doesn’t apply to work!) so riding time stopped!
I got my bike together recently and a couple of workmates are mad keen now too so we decided to get up to the NorthFace. Despite a fixed 30 quid penalty for obscurring the registration plates with the bikes on the way up to the Lakes we all loved the day.
There are some fantatsic single track routes that will test the best of riders and the board walk sections have been done really well with some of the sections tempting the more ambitous riders to have a go! It does get quite technical in places so watch your speed. I came off on a fast section of singletrack and it was a big fall but the adrenaline was pumping and we carried on. Still, a couple of days later I’m sore but can’t wait to get up there again.
It would be great to hear of any other places that people think are good and if I go anywhere else I’ll post them on.
Tony
tony wray
June 3rd, 2006 at 9:06 pmpermalink