Review for Newcastleton Mountain Bike Trails

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