Because this week is Easter and we’ll all be at church on Sunday, the next chance to get out will be Sunday 7th April.  As we did a cross country route last time out – well, Paul T and I did – (least said about the other lazy sods the better) this time the plan is to go to Hamsterly for our usual route of the two loops either side of the river.  The route map and profile are below.  Hope everyone can make it this time.

1. The ride starts from the car park near the visitor centre.  We come out of the car park, turn left and ride along forest drive for a couple of hundred metres before arriving at a firetrack on the left.

2. We take the firetrack across the river then turn right off the track into the woods.  We follow the road through the woods, alongside the river then alongside forest drive before coming back out onto the road.  We ride along forest drive for maybe fifty yards before turning right when we see the house there.  We follow the road around the back of the house then take the hairpin left up the hill.

3. We climb up the hill, go across the crossroads then take the first right into the forest.  The road goes down and around to the left before climbing up to a telephone mast which marks the start of the first downhill.

4. Run down the first downhill then through the woods and back out onto the firetrack before shortly taking the second run.

5. The second run is my favorite, it is a mad dash through the trees, it doesn’t have any jumps or drop offs, its just really fast and twisty turny.

6. The third run is the newest at Hamsterley  and is pretty interesting with more rocks than any of the other runs.  After completing the last run on this side of the river, we ride back down and past the house we rode around earlier.  Upon reaching forest drive we turn right then left over the bridge and up the hill.  After maybe fifty metres we reach a track on the right which climbs steeply uphill.

7. We climb the steep road past the hut and up to the car park on the left.  We ride through the car park and onto the first run on this side of the river.

8. This first run is a long twisting route with plenty of jumps and a big bomb hole which comes out on a fire track at the bottom.  At the fire track we turn right and look out for the next black run on the left hand side.  I haven’t shown this one on the route but we would normally do it and come out onto the fireroad before climbing up to the next route on the left.

9. The next run on the left is a good fast run with a big bomb hole and a steep drop which is easy to miss.  This run comes back ut on the fire road which we take up to the next run on the left.

10. This is the last run of the day and leads back to the blue run through the forest that we first started on.  We turn right at the bottom and follow the blue run back to the fire road where we turn left to Forest Drive then right and back to the car park.