It’s not always easy to find a gravel bike friendly circuit in the lakes in winter. Either it gets too rocky or wet, but this is our go to loop in the northern lakes. It was rather windy but a cracking day out getting some more miles on the New Tripster ATR V3. It literally nearly blew away on the high point and we kept getting blow off track!
The loop will probably be best starting in Keswick before it then heads on the cycle path and road up towards Whinlatter Pass. It then heads off into the forest on tracks and cycle path to the end of Bassenthwaite lake. It is then through Bassenthwaite and across a Bridleway from Longlands onto a loop of Skiddaw and back to Keswick on small lanes and tracks. There are lots of Bridleways around Skiddaw but it is best left until drier weather to explore them as they get quite muddy. I also have to remember it’s in England so don’t have open access on them all. You can add more climbing and miles on the weather proof tracks in Whinlatter forest if riding in winter.
Below is the route in Komoot which you can download a GPX from, it’s only about 50km so nothing epic. But saying that it’s not that hard to navigate and a nice loop. This was probably the last outing for Marion’s Tripster AT as a flat bar bike. She is swapping to a SRAM Force drop bar set up to see how it compares.
