12/52

 Difficulty:

There are three type of biking trails - Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced, therefore in theory there is something for everyone. However you will need a bit of fitness even for the entry level as although it may sound it, this is no stroll in the park! Put it this way, we are fairly fit and after 2 hours tackling the intermediate trail we were completely knackered!

Time:

The trails are of varying lengths, and so you can be somewhat flexible with your timings. That said we would recommended leaving around half a day for this adventure as, after you’ve got there, rented the bikes, planned your route etc, the time starts to add up.

The Adventure:

Home to forest tracks, hills of all shapes and sizes, lakeside trails and much more, Kiedler Forest is perfect for mountain biking, with the variety meaning there are options for all levels of bikers. Although comfortable on bikes, we had never actually had a go at ‘proper mountain biking’ and so were excited to give it a go.

Well in fact, if we’re being honest, we were actually slightly concerned it might fall into the organised fun category and feel overly controlled… But thankfully it turned out that we were very wrong…

We rented our bikes at The Bike Place at Kielder Water, there are plenty of options for the bikes, including electric bikes for those who don’t fancy the uphills. We went for the basic £20 per head options and they were certainly good enough - that said we agreed it would be fun to try out the top spec options next time.

The next decision was which trail to take on. There are eight route options catering for all abilities and time frames. As mentioned we are pretty used to bikes and had about 3 hours and so opted for the Osprey Trail which is a Blue Trail, meaning it’s recommend for intermediate cyclists and is 19km long with an option to extend a further 4 to make 23km.

So we had our bikes, helmets and route.. It was time to set off.

First things first it’s worth mentioning that it is almost immediately hot work. This may well sound completely obvious, however as it was not a particularly warm day, we both wore long sleeves - after our first uphill ride we realised that that was a mistake! Anyway that’s boring (although potentially helpful), so lets focus on the fun bits, and there were plenty of them.

The route plunged us straight into the action as we navigated the tall trees of the forest, weaving between them on thin dirt tracks, immediately picking up a good bit of speed. Soon we found ourselves alongside a large river before encountering a climb up into the higher forests which rewarded us with stunning views back down over Kielder Water and the trees below. We’d only been riding for 45 minutes and we had seen a lot… we had forgotten how good bikes are for exploring!

We spent the next hour or so tackling sharp inclines before eventually bolting our way back down the slopes, over streams and through the forest. Our concerns about the experience potentially being a bit boring were blasted away as we zipped through the trees at a pace that genuinely scared us at points, it was adrenaline fuelled outdoor fun, and by the time we got back to the rental shop we were exhausted.

Thrill filled, affordable fun, we highly recommend it. 

Pointers:

Clothing - We did this adventure on a relatively overcast/cool day and were still baking hot after about 5 minutes. Moral of the story is wear layers!

Water and snack - As the above pointer suggest lots of water is a good idea, take a rucksack and fill it with water and snacks.. You’ll thank us for that once you’re out there. In fact if you leave yourself enough time, having a packed lunch at the top of the trail with views overlooking the forest would be a great shout.

Time - If you can afford it we would recommend taking a day over this allowing time to stop, eat and take in the views whenever you like.

Conclusion:

A really surprising adventure for us this one. We were somewhat hesitant about how much freedom we would have heading in to it but those concerns were soon corrected as we set off on the trail and hurtled our way downhill through the tracks.

This adventure has made us seriously consider taking up mountain biking more regularly, something that had you told us before, we would have laughed at.  

The Numbers:

/ 0.5 Days

/ 12 Miles

/ 1 river swim

/ £20 per bike