Mountain Biking in the Lake District by Ian Boydon £13

At a glance An easy to use guidebook to mountain biking in the south and east Lake District with 24 varied routes and OS mapping, plus plenty of pictures to inspire.

Tested by
Claire Maxted, tester for The Bike List

Value
Content 

This pocket-sized mountain bike guidebook is organised in a very clear, logical way that makes it very enjoyable to use and inspiring to flick through. The author, Ian Boydon, has drawn on his 17 years of mountain biking experience in the Lake District to hand pick 24 trails, from short, medium, long and full day loops for varying levels of technical ability.

Early on in the book, all the routes are located on one double page map of the Lake District which also includes a key with how long and hard they are. The next double page lists the routes in a table so you can cross-compare their start place, percentage off-road, difficulty, distance, ascent, time, best time of year to ride it and the page number. All this handy, organised info makes it really easy to plan a half-day, full day, weekend or even a week of riding.

All but two of the routes are located in the south and east Lake District, so perhaps the book title would reflect its contents better had it been called Mountain Biking in the Lake District, South and East; the whole of the north is untouched, with two of the 24 routes sneaking round to the western edge. Make no mistake though, the southern and eastern based routes are very well picked and provide some fine and varied riding with excellent views and fun, adrenaline-pumping technical terrain. Perhaps south-east bias simply leaves room for an equally fine sequel from the same author.

Each route comes with all the details you’d expect; distance, ascent (plus a gradient profile diagram), difficulty, parking, nearest pub; and one unexpected bit of useful info. For each route, the total distance is also divided into off-road and on-road distances. Then the author has helpfully worked out the percentage of terrain covered off-road, helping you plan your biking better - if you fancy a rugged, more remote-feeling ride, you can choose a full-day loop at 80% ruggedness; if you’ve had a heavy night or want to introduce a less experience beginner to the joys of mountain biking, you might choose a shorter loop with 50% off-road.

The photographs are plentiful, in full colour and inspiring - there are lots of great views that beckon you in, but The Bike List’s favourite is the guy riding (slowly we presume!) along a bridleway through a group of four ginger highland cows with scary looking horns near Hodge Close.

One nice touch with the route descriptions is that instead of putting the words ‘left’, ‘right’ and ‘straight on’, they use green arrows, which somehow makes sense more quickly and with less effort as you ride. The descriptions are detailed without being wordy, highlighting all the key features to look out for as well as important aspects like a change in the path surface, gradient or whether you need to look out for walkers on the path ahead.

The use of OS map excerpts with the route highlighted on, in my opinion, works much better than the old-school hand-drawn maps that sometimes make their way into routes. You can photocopy the whole map and route description and take it on your ride (full map in backpack of course) or quickly and easily transpose the route to your own OS map, or on to your computer-based mapping software and then download the route to your GPS. The only thing I would comment on here is that the use of an orange highlighter sometimes makes the pink coloured path lines hard to see underneath. Maybe a switch to yellow would less of an intrusion here, however then there is the problem of telling the difference between yellow and orange road colours. All in all, you can see where the path goes with the orange highlighter line, so this is just a very minor issue that may just be down to personal preference.

In summary this is a great little guidebook, very easy to digest and use, containing a great variety of great fun mountain biking routes in the south and east Lake District. Author Ian Boydon’s wealth of experience and enthusiasm for the sport shines through in the route descriptions and photo captions. For your £12.95 you get the latest OS mapping, 24 well researched and described routes, all compiled into a very user friendly guide. If you like mountain biking and want to discover where it can take you in the Lake District, this is well worth a read.

Cicerone says:

Mountain biking in the Lake District describes 24 routes in the Lakes, offering some of the best MTB riding in the UK. The routes are suitable for all abilities of riders, arranged by difficulty, from Kendal to Cleator Moor in the far north-west and Keswick to Winster in the Lyth Valley.

Seasons - Although it is recommended that a few of the routes should only be done during periods of good weather, most can be ridden all year round.

Centres - Threlkeld, Pooley Bridge, Cleator Moor, Muncaster, Torver, Grizedale, Hawkshead, Ambleside, Elterwater, Kendal, Staveley, High Newton, Spark Bridge, Winster

Difficulty - Routes are graded blue (medium), red (hard) and black (very hard). Novice MTBers with reasonable bike-handling skills should be able to complete the blue routes, while experts should be challenged by the red and, more so, the black routes.

Must See - The dramatic Garburn and Gatesgarth passes; views of Coniston Water, Esthwaite Water, Grasmere, Rydal Water, Elterwater, Ulswater, Derwent Water and Haweswater; circuit of Windermere.