About this book

GLENTRESS. © ANDY McCANDLISH

This book is designed to be a reference volume covering all the (known!) trail centres and bike parks in the United Kingdom. Obviously, this is a constantly shifting topic to write about, so always check the place still exists, is open and isn't suffering from storm damage before you go. The book gives information about the facilities such as parking, toilets and refreshments and so on available, or not, at the trailhead, as well as a brief guide to the trails found there. Hopefully that is enough information for you to decide whether you fancy riding there. Be aware that some facilities, especially cafes, may well be seasonal.

TRAIL CENTRES

BIKE PARKS

What it covers

Purpose-built, waymarked trails. Somewhere you can turn up at without having been to the area before and find a trail to ride without needing to navigate. This does mean that a lot of places which are great to ride but aren't waymarked are omitted, most notably in Scotland.

What it doesn't cover

Unmarked and unsanctioned trails. These are liable to disappear either due to forestry operations or lack of use, plus there are potential liability and insurance issues. Where there is accepted riding near to a centre, possibly due to a local trail-management group such as the Tweed Valley Trails Association and the Golfie, it will be mentioned. However, even these trails are likely to disappear at some point, so check your information before you travel.

Also, there isn't a full list of pump tracks, just because there are so many.

What's a trail centre?

For years this was what waymarked mountain biking was all about. Usually on Forestry Commission (FC) land, you'd have trails laid out through a wood. There are still lots of these throughout the UK and usually you only pay for car parking, which in turn helps support trail maintenance. FC, under its various names, tends to play safe and is mostly pretty risk averse (there are some exceptions), so the gnarliest riding isn't usually found in their woods as waymarked trails. The quality of the riding, and amount of singletrack versus fire road, can depend on when the trails were built and what the fashion was for trails at the time, so it can depend on your favoured style of riding whether you'll find a place fun. FC trails also change very slowly, as permissions and funding are so slow to take effect. But one advantage is that they are usually always open.

And what's a bike park?

This is the phrase I've used to refer to sites where you likely need to book (best done in advance) and sign a waiver of some sort before you are allowed to ride. Most of these places are privately owned and there is usually a slant towards harder, more technical riding. I have split bike parks into two flavours: the gravity, downhill (DH), enduro side of things; and the smooth, flowy tracks with big jumps, although some places do both. Bike parks tend to cater for the gnarlier sort of riding grades, because you have acknowledged the inherent risks of mountain biking in the waiver. And because bike parks are largely built on private land, they have much more freedom to develop and change their lines - without doubt the majority of the bike parks listed here will have changed by the time the book goes to print, hence some of the listings for bike parks are more descriptive than absolute. However, most sites are pretty clued up about keeping information on their social media up to date. A warning about social media: some pro riders regularly use certain bike parks and will post videos on YouTube, etc. These people are pro for a reason - they ride much, much better and harder than the rest of us. Do not necessarily be put off by their rides. Instead, look for videos of normal riders spooning and casing the same jumps - that will give you a much better idea of what a bike park really rides like. Also remember that video flattens everything, so be prepared for stuff being steeper than you might have thought on the screen; if it looks steep on a GoPro, it's probably vertical in reality. Bike parks are likely to have restricted opening hours: some close during the week, some in the winter. Check before you travel.

Trail grading

There is a great variety of purpose-built riding in the UK, and therefore there is a means of labelling the routes so you know roughly - sometimes very roughly - what you are heading into.

First, to be included in this book, a trail has to be a purpose-built MTB trail. Many forests have blue routes that just stay on fire roads - these are not described. Nor are the green family routes, unless they are one of the very rare beasts that are purpose-built, wide singletrack perfect for beginners of any age and ideal for building confidence. Where a forest has family routes as well as MTB routes, they are listed. Also, a couple of routes on easy trails are randomly graded purple!

Blue trails

At trail centres, it is designated that on blue trails all of the features will be rollable, obstacles will be small, and, if tricky, there will usually be another, easier, way around. They will be suitable for kids (and adults) with a bit of off-road confidence, but not so tricky that it would put them off. Generally, blue trails tend to be shorter. A good blue will be suitable for those pottering round slightly nervously, but will also be a lot of fun for more confident riders; a mediocre blue will be fairly boring for all. Some older blue trails are just on fire roads, but are longer than the green trail at the same place, and so these have not been included.

A bike park blue should still have features which are all rollable, but expect it to be more demanding than something at a trail centre. In general with bike parks, it's prudent to start on a grade lower than you ride at a trail centre until you get the feel for that particular bike park. It will also give you a warm-up - always a good thing.

 Red trails

'Red' covers an extremely broad area, and in some ways it isn't that useful a grading. It can cover gentler cross-country-style routes, which may give you a longer ride but not much in the way of technical challenges, through to trails from the edge of a hillside where the only way down is steep, loose and technical. All of these can be described as 'red', and how happy you are on a trail can depend entirely on your riding style and preferences.

Red trails at bike parks take the difficulty a step further and can incorporate many more technical features that require you to be reasonably proficient and confident to ride well.

To help you further, I have therefore added a bit to the red trail descriptions. Naturally these are subjective, and you may well disagree:

XC: this doesn't have too many technical features but could be a lengthier ride, with the grading relating more to the required fitness level than technical ability. This is how many older trail centres were judged. There may be a fair amount of fire road involved. Something like Dalby Forest is a classic example of the old-school style of red trail.

Enduro: this is likely to be more technical, with possibly shorter runs designed to be sessioned rather than a long ride out. Reds at bike parks are likely to be steeper and much more technical than those at trail centres, but that is what you are paying for. Reds at jump parks will still likely be rollable, but the features will be bigger and longer. For instance, there will be tables rather than gaps, but the lengths of the tables will have increased.

 Black trails

At trail centres this is about as hard as it gets. A black trail will contain bigger trail features which may not have a way around - a chicken line - and will therefore require commitment. At bike parks, this commitment could well be a large one. On enduro/DH sites expect drop-offs and jumps that can't be rolled. At this point, protection in terms of pads and full-face helmets is not only a wise precaution but part of the conditions of riding at some places. At jump parks, black trails involve gaps that have to be jumped.

 Bike parks may also have black plus and pro lines, often graded orange. If you aren't sure about...