Mint - Moutainbiking in Timble Woods

I took my kids to Swinsty/Fewston today to ride the new'ish Yorkshire Water Moutainbike trial.
One 8 year old and one 5 and a half. I wasn't sure if it would work out, but work out it did. You park in the car park by the dam, bizarrely there is a separate car park 50 metres away for horses and bikes, to protect who from who I'm not sure.

Come out of the car park take a right down the minor road to the junction at the other car park. Then head left and pick up the bridleway at the bottom of the short hill and follow it along through a gate. When you come to the woods and a junction, head left uphill toward the road. You will see the bike signs stencilled on the trees and a track heading off right, that's the one you want.

Or ride uphill  on the road from the car park and you will see a gate on your right after maybe 500m that's pretty much the same place. I wanted to get the kids away from the traffic so we went via the trails.

The first few hundred metres where really muddy in places, we had to push a fair bit. At one stage I was carrying two bikes, so the kids could wade though. It will be drier in a few weeks. As you get toward the top of the wood the path levels out and the fun starts. It's  the best part of a Km downhill not too steep with whoops and berms, drops offs and a few jumps which are all avoidable via "chicken runs". My youngest avoided most everything and still had a ball. The eldest whizzed off till he got to far ahead and waited, but he had a grin like an inflated frog when we caught him up. The last section was best of all.  Tree trunk balances some huge rocks to avoid or take on and a nice section of big ramps with lines of varying difficulty depending on your skill level. I bottomed out my front fork a few times, it's been a while.

We headed back to the car park, the kids were jabbering like the Jabba the Hutt and singing "everything is awesome". You know what? For an hour or so in a wood on the banks of the Washburn Valley, they were spot on.

There are loads more trails in the area we didn't ride them but you could probably put a longer fun loop together. A few years back I got onto Blubberhouses moor and came down the old road on Kex Gill that was a nice ride too if your young, fit and keen.

Here is a bit of a sketch map based  on Yorkshire Waters Image which is a bit of a shocker to read on their webpage as it rotated in a daft way, and the description is a bit crap too. Hope this helps as this deserves more riders, I rated it.