Reviews for Altura Trail - Whinlatter Forest

Summary:
It has its flaws, but STILL a brilliant trail

Review:
This is my local trail, and a brilliant one at that; a worthy rival to any of the 7 Stanes. I just wanted to set the record straight on a number of points because I hate to see it misrepresented:

First, there IS a cafe at the visitor centre and a very, very good one! It is handily positioned at the intersection between the to red trails if you fancy a mid-ride re-fuelling stop.Those who say there isn't a cafe here (mentioned in a few reviews) must be blind

Second, no need to pay for parking at all if you don't want to. Parking is free (and plentiful) if you go down the road a bit towards Keswick (Masmiil car park). The Masmill car park sits in the middle of the blue 'Quercus' trail, which nicely warms you up for either/both of the red routes or takes you to the visitor centre/cafe in under ten minutes.

Thirdly, the introductory info on this trail on More Dirt says that the length is 10k (twenty when completed). This is two years out of date and needs revising. Riding both reds (N loop and S loop) plus the blue loop will give you nearly 30k of riding; mainly on singletrack. If you add on the ride up to the summit of Lord's seat (on footpaths, so be careful!!) you can easily get 35k of excellent riding done.

Hope this helps new visiting riders.

Summary:
Enjoyable riding with breath taking scenery

Review:
I visited a week ago, still a good day out, I wish I had known about the car park across the road, £6.90 for the car park was outrageous and no cafe. A lot trickier in the winter, very slippery in places. I enjoyed the puple/blue ride as a warm up ride, good fun, a smaller version of Llandegla. Not a lot more to add, unless it expands I don't think I will visit for a while.

Summary:
FANTASTIC!

Review:
Handy tip for non-locals, there's a free forestry commission car park down the hill and across the road from the main/go-ape car park ;-)

Cafe is next to Go Ape, and the burger van fills my fat reserve back up after an afternoon here working it off haha!

Brilliant place, when you get to the top of north trail you have incredible views then a really good ride back down. Winter weather can prevent you getting to the top BUT the trail is almost a figure of eight and meets in the middle so you can choose to just ride the bottom half.

South trail is one heck of a long droning ride/push up fire roads but when you get to the top it is well worth it. The final downhill section will make newcomers uneasy when you see how far down the drop the pine tree tops are! So much fun, well worth the drive to get here!

Summary:
very good even on a downhill bike

Review:
I didnt expect too much, im on a downhill bike and was expecting another forestery comission, smooth, xc orientated area. Im sure its great on an xc bike but supprisingly it was great for downhill too. I just did the north loop and blue loop. the north loop involves a fairly big climb (or push) and then the down lasts a long time. The first bit was the best for me, it had just rained and the roots and rocks were quite slick making for a challenging ride when taken at full speed, great fun. The final downhill is very smooth, fast, but not in any way technical and the jumps are small, the only real downfall.
Well worth a visit, ill be back for the south loop and the north again very soon.
the trail centre and facilities are all great and the parking is well worth the price if the money goes into the trails.

Summary:
straight up straight down

Review:
The main thing that stood out for me at Whinlatter was how the two red loops basically climbed gradually up a hill, traversed across the top and came back down in one long downhill that left me grinning like the joker. Most trail centres that don't have the luxury of massive hills tend to have sections of climbing then a descent, another climb, another descent and so on, whilst these trails got the climbing done and set you up for the fun stuff. Having said that as a generally downwards orientated rider I found the climbs not too steep and still entertaining, even with some fear thrown in with big drops to one side. The downhills are fantastic, the epic panorama in the background only adds to the well built trails which offer a mix of jumps, drops, excellent berms and rooty, twisty, between the trees stuff.

The facilities were good too. I did go on a Tuesday so its hard to say if theres enough parking, but the £6 parking didn't bother me, they've got to fund the trails somehow. Didn't really look round the visitor centre, cafe or bike shop but they looked nice made out of wood rather than plonking a big ugly building in the forest. Also we were the last one out of the car park and everywhere was shut but the bike wash still worked.