Reviews for Dalby Forest Red Trail

Summary:
Amazing

Review:
It never seemed to end. Some great parts which can test you. Greatly enjoyed it, but very tiring.

Summary:
Suprised at the enjoyment

Review:
Living on the edge of the north york moors i have never really needed to load up the car and set off looking for trails, why? its on my doorstep! But this time i did and i was suprised at how much i enjoyed it and i will be going back without a doubt. The sections i found that the sections were about right in length, especially when riding with a mixed ability group, they give you chance to regroup and make sure tail end charlie is still with you. some of the switchbacks are a little servere and change from downhill to up hill which can take you a little by suprise not allowing you to get into the right gear but getting to know the trail will help in this, we did get lost at one point as the orange markers looked too red in one area making us go round in circles. Some of the newer parts of the track did seem a little too man made and plasticy but as i said i'm used to finding my own way over the moors so it might just be me. A half way point shelter of some discription might be a good idea, its not nice having the wind blowing trough your sweaty clothes or the rain bouncing off your lid while trying to get a drink and a few energy bars down your neck, but on the whole "a grand day out gromit"

Summary:
Great, well-thought-out single-track

Review:
This just flows.

The snake sections in the last quarter of the red loop are by far the best bits. Pleanty of ups as well as downs though!

IMHO this is much better than the black route offering (plus much of the black runs parrallel to the red so you have the option of heading on and off it).

Summary:
great fun

Review:
this is an amazing track ride it load great fun to ride with a good mix of track with some fun downhills.

Summary:
Good but could be better

Review:
Dalby Forest. Twenty three miles of red grade trail. It should be brilliant. Truth is its good but not brilliant. Don’t get me wrong there is some very nice singletrack here and some good descents but nothing that is knock your socks off, leave you gasping, brilliant.
To put my cards on the table my idea of a perfect descent is pretty much ‘Spooky Wood’ at Glentress. A fast flowing descent you can blast down with the ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ playing as a personal accompaniment in your head. At Dalby the descents tend toward technical and where there are berms they are too tight to go into at full speed which means the approach and the berms themselves are rutted by previous riders braking to shed speed. Worst of all the flow of the whole trail is broken by firetrack roads and there are lots of them. The numbered waypoints tend to occur where you cross the fireroads and there are 38 of them. Given the total distance of the trail is 34 kilometres you get an idea of how many times you hit a fireroad stopper and far to often it is just when you are getting into the groove of a descent .

There is some good stuff here and I suppose you tend to be most critical when something is good but not as good as you think it can be. The descent that ends with the small wooden bridge and the final descent back into Dalby trail centre spring to mind as little gems. At the end of the day though the descents feel shorter than they should be to justify the ups and those bloody fireroads continually stop the flow.