UKC

I’ll be in the area shortly so I thought I’d do a circuit of kielder - should I bring a gravel bike or hardtail?

TIA

Gravel bike will be fine for round the reservoir. There is a trail centre accessible from near the village, that would warrant a hard tail.

There's amazing gravel biking around there. I did an overnight 150 km loop around Kielder back in May. Fantastic place for a gravel bike! 

I don't know what the trail centers there and across the border are like but I'm tempted to go back to ride them too!

There are a couple of MTB trails nearby, check forestry England on Google but I've not been inspired by the reviews. The lake itself and the blue osprey trail at the north end is gravel bike terrain. You can easily go off in to the forest surrounding it for miles of gravel, check the second city divide route online for an idea

The Great North Trail route goes from Haltwhistle up to Kielder Water too, it was quite a nice gravel ride from memory).

I've been round on 32mm Gatorskin tyres and had no trouble.

Like others have said though if you want to add in a few more of the harder trails bring your mtb but if just doing the 26 mile circuit around the water the gravel bike will be best.

Theres quite a good little bike shop at the north end.

Thanks all - I’ll take the gravel bike this time but with a bit of luck I’ll be working up that way quite a bit nxt year, so will bring the other bike then…

Take a look at this event for inspiration 

https://dirtyreiver.co.uk/event/

Routes up to 200k all around the lake. They recommend a gravel bike  

You can find their past routes as GPX files easily as well, I based my route on a past year's one. Google reveals all once again.