Reviews for Gisburn Forest Mountain Bike Trails

Slaidburn BD23 4TA

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Northern82's profile image

Review by: Northern82 on 29 October 2009

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Summary:
Good days blast.

Review:
Found it difficult to find at first as followed directions to the village little preston. Local postie pointed me in the right direction down station road (B6478) towards slaidburn. Parked up at a pub (dog and partridge i think!) then got the bike out and went up the fire road to the start of the trail.
Great technical singletrack climb mixed with bits of northshore then onto a cool berm section which eventually led to more natural singletrack in the valley bottom.
Good little scene going on there as well. Pub had a good vibe. Wouldn't mind doing it as a night ride at some point.
Good day had by all.

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smurf's profile image

Review by: smurf on 21 October 2009

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Summary:
Fab Ride close to home

Review:
If Coed-y-brenin is a bit far for the day and you love those Welch trails then you will love the new look Gisburn Forest.... Sections resemble Coed-y-brenin and others pure cross country like Penmachno... Cant wait until all the new trails are in place... the car parking area is going to need some expansion though if all the new visitors are to be accomodated... along with a loo and a few other mod cons.... ride it you will love it

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catkinso's profile image

Review by: catkinso on 25 September 2009

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Summary:
Great Changes!

Review:
Rode Gisburn back in May, and was really disappointed with only one remotely techie section of about 100m length. Things however have changed.

New loops have been created, and the Red route is great fun.

The red run starts out with a fire road descent and then a some hard pack singletrack this is then followed by an upward fire road climb. At this stage I have to say I was thinking "this place still sucks".

Then it all changed. Diving into some tight singletrack in the woods laid down with hardcore, and littered with rocks, small berms, and some rocky(ish) descents. This was great fun!

After this the route followed a fire road climb, and a short techie climb up through a quarry and was back into some long single track with some raised boardwalk sections.

This was great XC stuff, but it was all about to get better, now getting into the thick of the more techie faster trails there are a good few K's of larger berms, wider trails just built for pining it. At this point you meet your first black warning. This technical black section which was mostly climb. This I have to say was HARD. The descent was fine at the end, but the size of rocks you were hucking the bike over on the climb made it exhausting work.

Shortly after this my favourite piece. A bermed gully, which was more akin to a series of wall-rides. The biggest must have been at least 20ft. On one of these sections the bike actually G'd out. I was impressed!! This is without doubt the biggest wall-ride I had EVER seen anywhere. (think 2 x th size of the Cwm Carn DH course berm and your about there!)

After all this there were still a few more K's of flowy single track, after which the red then joins the blue, and returns to the car park. The blue sections though were not your standard "pram runs" but were fast, bermed, and just begged you to pump all the corners for traction and speed.
So there is a lot of fire road; But I have to say I didn?t mind, I hate the criminal waste of height fire road descents provide, and am happy to say Gisburn keeps this waste to a minimum. So although their is quite a bit of fire road its the right way round.


If like me your into a bit of hilling and have decent rig, then don't forget the DH course too. I was their on my todd so decided to give it a miss but looked like a series of short drop offs (about 4/5ft) and the odd double/kicker. (to get to DH course, when at top of big fire road climb, ignore right turn into quarry, and carry on down track for about 10m). Its rocky though, so armour is rec?d.

A damn good effort, credit to the people that built this, and from looking can still see they are building.

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requote01's profile image

Review by: requote01 on 21 September 2009

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Summary:
New and improved!

Review:
Ive riding at Gisburn for a while and up to now has been pritty standard. Went yesterday and this has all changed new tracks have been installed on the red route (and now black tracks) they are genually very good, lots of new single tracks and jumps to get stuck into these and the mixture of diffrent styles, rocks, sand and mud. All makes this a great all round place to ride. Will be going here more often in the near future.

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samuelpickering's profile image

Review by: samuelpickering on 6 September 2009

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Summary:
its nearly finished

Review:
i got lost here after going off the marked trail a bit ,riding on the stuff they hadnt finished, bloody great ride tho. the reviews more than a year old saying its rubbish is because theyve just spent 100's of thousand of pounds building new trails

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