Newcastleton Mountain Bike Trails

Daan:

Adam:

Found this place by accident while on holiday a few miles away before I'd heard of the 7 stanes. If you want a full on bike park experience you'll probably be disappointed. If you want a shortish fun quiet ride for a few hours it's spot on. There's some nice sections of single track and not overly hard also has scope to join up to kielder as well if you want a long ride. I like it here. There' no official facilities but the carpark which is free in the village has toilets lil shop a nice cafe and a couple of pubs.

Nice sections of single track Always quiet

Alibobness:

Been here quite a few times, it's the less heard of trail in the 7stanes offerings, this doesn't make it any less fun, the first time we rode here the was still all the Orange boardwalk technical stuff it was amazing fun, unfortunately I think this has now been removed! The trail head has been changed this year into the village, which makes a longer initial uphill crossing the new newcastleton bridge but provides a new downhill finish as well.

The red isn't to hard as far as reds go, makes it quite a family friendly trail

beardedbiggs:

its the lesser riden out of all the 7 stanes but that doesnt mean its one to avoid, the fact its in the middle of nowhere it was quite nice with pure peace and quiet. you start out in the town of newcastleton itself that has a pub shops etc and head out over the river and through a summer camp type place that has a skills loop in it. a little further along the fire road you get onto one of the better descents at the place, its all relatively easier red grades than most of the 7 stanes but its still a good ride and still the odd technical bit scattered around, after the first decent section there is fire road that seems to go on forever up to the stane but then there is a fair amount of singletrack before another huge amount of fireroad to the final sections which are the best there. the final descent also links into the skills area at the end. all in all its worth riding.

never busy if your fit its close to kielder

Tibbort:

We visited on a Saturday morning, surely prime time to hit the trails but were surprised to find the place deserted. We saw not a single soul during our ride. On arrival the (free) car park was completely empty. We wondered if this was because of the poor quality of the trails but this was not the case. Starting on the red route we immediately hit singletrack with some slightly technical areas with short board walk sections to cross hidden streams. some of the track is very narrow and quite deep, probably due to rain erosion. The main climb on the route is not too difficult up a fire road, punctuated by the Newcastleton Stane beyond half way. Following this there is more singletrack and a good descent to the finish, before the route is completed by taking on the 6km blue section, which also has some exciting singletrack sections that can be negotiated by less confident riders. We did not visit the skills section but it did look quite extensive. Other facilities on site were toilets and a sort of changing room, with a hosepipe available to clean bicycles. I guess the lack of visitors here is probably due to it not being near any large towns and the number of better known trail centres more conveniently located, but it is well worth a visit. *Edit- having revisited in Oct 2014 much work has been done. The old trailhead is gone, you now park in town at a carpark on the main street, with public toilet, shower and plenty of local hotels within a hundred yards for a bite to eat. There is a new bridge to cross the river before a long climb takes you up to the re-routed trails. newly built singletrack has been laid with a 1.3km switchback climb to warm up the legs. it has been eroded by recent rain but when I went there were workers repairing the trail already. The arrows are easy to follow- there is only one section where you have to make sure you take the left-hand (outward) one to get to the main trail, one section is ridden twice which sometimes confuses riders. The descent to the finish has been carefully laid with berms that allow a confident rider to keep off the brakes and maintain high speed, with a few jumps thrown in but rewards the efforts of previous climbs.

Well signposted from the road You don't have to pay for parking or bike wash (don't expect power washers though) good quality trail with some good descents uninterrupted riding due to lack of traffic skills area good percentage of singletrack