Volunteer trail building group Kielder Trail Reavers has been in existence for a year now, and in that time it’s made a lot of progress in developing mountain bike facilities in Kielder Forest. Kielder is Europe’s largest man-made forest, so there’s plenty of space. And thanks to the Reavers there’s now plenty of enthusiasm too.

The first bit of the project, a skills area adjacent to the Kielder Castle car park, is complete. It’s designed to give riders a taste of the trail grades that are under construction in the forest and is suitable for all skill levels – just choose which bits you want to take on. Giving riders a taste of the sort of things they’ll encounter on different trail grades before they’ve even left the car park is clearly a good idea, and should help everyone head out on a suitably-challenging trail whatever their experience and ability.

These days just rolling your sleeves up and building stuff isn’t enough, though. And to that end, the group has secured partnership funding for the construction of a 15km ‘Red’ trail that takes in the 2000ft Deadwater summit high above Kielder. The first section, Primrose Wood, is now open and the second section, Ravenshill, is expected to open within weeks. Work will continue throughout the winter towards a projected opening of the full trail in summer 2007.

Alex MacLennan, Recreation, Communities and Tourism Manager for Forestry Commission says: “The achievements of this group are astonishing, not only have they organised themselves into an effective workcrew but also to have secured in excess of £100,000 of funding to support the project is simply stunning. What these guys need now more than anything else is more trail building members. Have a look at their website for details.”

What website would that be then? www.kieldertrailreavers.com, of course…