On your bike! (Mountain Bike Guide: County Durham - Derek Purdy)

Member Name: kensplace

Product:	Mountain Bike Guide: County Durham - Derek Purdy
Date:	05/02/01 (310 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Excellent rides, well written, informative

Disadvantages: Nothing major.

Mountain Bike Guide - County Durham

One of a series of mountain bike guides, this book as its title suggests covers the County Durham area, which is in the North East of England.

Written by Derek Purdy, this is a handy pocket size book, which at just over 150 pages is certainly value for money at £7.50 (and even better value for money if its on sale at 75% off as I was lucky enough to get it for at Borders - a op of which can be found in my profile, hint hint).

Mountain biking is an addictive pastime, it can become both a sport and a hobby, and as your skills improve so will the length of the rides you undertake. Finding good quality routes is not always easy, so I was pleasantly surprised to find this book, which contains 28 different routes.

The routes are well researched, the author has obviously researched them in great depth, this is not just a collection of maps bundled together by someone who has never been near the area, rather each route is described in detail, along with easy to follow maps and a liberal sprinkling of local history.

The book contains black and white photographs of some of the routes, along with useful information such as local facilities (its always handy to know where to get food or a pint)
and items of interest to look out for when riding.

The routes range from nice easy family rides, to really tough, hard going rides to test your stamina and skills with. Thankfully the routes are graded and the author describes the terrain in depth.


The book starts with a few pages on safety, bike maintenance and clothing, and then swiftly moves onto the actual routes themselves.

The routes covered are shown below, along with the lengths and the grading given,

Castle Eden Walkway (Grade 1, 18.7 km)
Derwent Walk for Bairns (Grade 1, 6.6 km)
Deerness Valley for Bairns (Grade 1, 15.3 km)
Lanchester Valley Railway (Grade 2, 25.6 km)
Hamsterley Back L
anes (Grade 3, 6.5 km)
Waskerley Way for sprogs (Grade 3, 22.2 km)
Dragonville and Pittingdon (Grade 3, 19.9 km)
Durham to Finchale Priory (Grade 1, 17.6 km)
West Auckland (Grade 3, 17.7 km)
Crook and Sunniside (Grade 3, 16.8 km)
Trimdon Whins (Grade 3, 16.75 km)
Hetton and Murton (Grade 3, 13.0 km)
Consett and Sunderland Railway (Grade 3, 36.3 km)
Knitsley and Butsfield (Grade 4, 19.7 km)
Pontop (Grade 4, 28.6 km)
Deerness Valley Full Tour (Grade 4, 26.0 km)
Swalwell to Consett (Grade 4, 34.5 km)
Waskerley and Muggleswick (Grade 4, 23.0 km)
Lanchester Highlands (Grade 5, 19.0 km)
Esh Winning Woods (Grade 5, 12.1 km)
Doctors Gate (Grade 5, 19.8 km)
Harthope Head and Coldberry End (Grade 6, 23.3)
Edmundbyers Common (Grade 5, 20.3 km)
Three Counties Loop (Grade 8, 23.4 km)
Deep Dale Summits (Grade 9 (Gulp) 22.9 km)
Crawcook (Grade 4, 18.4 km)
Darlington Dead Ends (Grade 5, 27.8 km)
Westgate Horror (Grade 10 (Crikey), 21.6 km)


I had ridden a few of the rides before I purchased this book, and thoroughly enjoyed them, but after reading this book, I will enjoy the rides even more the next time, as I will be more aware of the history of the area, and also will be on the look out for any interesting sights I did not notice before, and who knows maybe I will listen for the fairies if I do the Hetton and Murton ride (its amazing some of the history and local knowledge I learned from this book!)

My only criticism of the book, is that I wish it was ring bound to make it easier to use when actually out there in the saddle, but that is a only a small point, overall its a useful book, and a good read in itself.


Mountain Bike Guide - County Durham
Published by The Ernest Press
ISBN 0 948153 47 4

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