Family Mountain Biking at Llandegla, North Wales: Blue, Red & Black Trails for All Abilities

Saturday 23rd August 2025. It was the first weekend with S back from his Scout trip to Guernsey, and genuinely, his very first question to us as we drove home from collecting him was: can we go mountain biking this weekend? Honestly I was smiling inside. I’m glad we’ve found him an activity that gets him excited, that he wants to plan ahead for, and most importantly, that I don’t have to nag him to get ready for!

Our return question wasn’t “are you sure?”, it was “well, where do you fancy?”. He said he wanted to go somewhere new, and before we could interject with ‘Hopton Wood?’ he continued quickly “that non of us has gone to before!”. Good save S. Clearly hearing about that hill from his little brother had put him off 🤣. (If you don’t know what hill, you can read about it here 😅)

So Friday evening we all sat in the front room and looked on the map. Llandegla had been mentioned by Dad, so cue all of us sitting around the TV finding Llandegla YouTube footage to watch. It wasn’t a good start. The first video mentioned a 3 mile climb. That’s a mile more than Hopton, and that was hard work! The footage of the downhill sections looked great but we were all hoping to avoid long uphill sections at wherever we went to next. I took a look around Google for feedback. “Downhills not worth the uphill at the start.” “My experienced 11year old was almost in tears”. Hmm, this didn’t sound good. As bed time came around we were still undecided and said we should sleep on it.

I woke up pretty groggy the next morning. Honestly I could have happily stayed in bed feeling sorry for myself, but I knew getting up and out was the best thing. Before I discovered what the ITB was and how much it hurt, I remember reading in a running group that most colds shouldn’t stop you from your run: chest cold, yes, don’t run. Head? Man up and get out there! And to be fair, I did always feel better for it afterwards. I knew today would be no different. I also suggested we should just go to Llandegla and make up our own minds. If it was rubbish, fair enough, we won’t go back, but if it turned out to be good, it would’ve been a shame to have missed out on a great ride together. I did insist that we did the blue route though. No amount of cold medicine was going to make me a hero today 😂

I’d imagined Llandegla would be a good hour and a half or so from us, much like Hopton Woods, but it was actually bob on an hour! If it turned out to be a good trail, this would be great, as that’s about on par with Cannock Chase, so it would give us two good spots within the hour mark. We arrived early-ish – the carpark opens at 9am and our arrival to the gate house was around 9.40. As you enter the carpark you are immediately required to pay for the parking at the gatehouse. It was a lofty £7 per car PLUS £2 per additional passenger! I was then told under 16s didn’t count so that was some relief 😅.

After arriving and getting the bikes and everyone ready, we cycled up the carpark and found the visitor centre and the route signs for the blue, red and black trails. This was the start of the three mile hill – and no matter what trail you ride, you’re in it together for this part! Quite near the beginning we discovered a bike skills park – but I’ll go into this in another post!

Unlike the killer Hopton Hill, which was steep and saw us walking most of it, these three miles were fairly easy. And the views were stunning!

The steady incline was fully cycleable the entire length, although the rugged rocky terrain was a little testing on the steeper bits. It was only C, on his little 20″ er that had to get off once or twice for these steeper, more slippery, sections. On a bigger bike I think he’d have sailed up there! In fact we didn’t have to breakout the Flix Mix once going up here. I lost count how many times we needed it at Hopton 😅

Eventually without a single moan, we had arrived at the fun half! And fun it was! A section of rollers helped us get some speed and we went flying across the first section, grins all round, and smiley faces looking back at me from the end – they were ready for more!

I’d read somewhere that the blue route was described as “fast and flowy” and that’s exactly what we got. There were berms and rollers and several steep downhill sections. The terrain was mostly gravelly and rocky and dry, bar one section (which was muddy) but of course made us all laugh 😂

Between some of the downhills were a few gentle uphills, but nothing that really struck me as badly memorable, or cause the boys any issues. They sailed through the entire route with big smiles – every metre of it. Honestly, I can’t see why Llandegla had such negative feedback!

In fact the only grumpy face came from Dad, as he peered longingly over a view point at the beautiful flowy berms on the red trail, but I insisted we should stick to the blue this time 😂.

As we reached the end of the Blue Trail, we came across another interesting area – a pump track! We couldn’t resist a few rounds on this before finishing the final section of the Blue route. It was great to see how much the boys had improved from our first visits to a pump track back in May!

As we cycled back into the carpark we made a beeline for the skills park we had seen on the first part of the incline, which I’ll get into another day for our bike parks section. When we were eventually done, we headed to the van, loaded the bikes, and settled in to a picnic in the van. (I honestly felt like I was winning at life at this moment. After all the issues we’ve had converting this van, it was great to use the van for the purpose we’d intended. Even if we can’t make a brew in it yet 😜).

As we munched we chatted about the ride. C, 9 on his little 20″ bike absolutely LOVED the route. He said it was better than Cannock Chase! He really liked the start of the uphill and Rollercoaster, because it was flowing. “I’m surprised I got up the whole hill! My favourite bit was the pump track and the downhills!“

S, 11, also said he enjoyed the ride. “I liked all of it but the best bit of it was the really fast downhill bit – I loved that!“

Dad’s views are not quite so glowing. Although I did spot him with big grins on his face when we was going down the really fast bits, overall he wasn’t impressed. He is more into drops and rock gardens and jumps – the more scary, technical stuff, as I call it 😂. But that’s the exact reason I did enjoy the blue route – it was nice and flowy, you could get some speed up, and there was nothing to scare me 😅.

We stopped to chat to a chap before we headed down the last section and he said the red is more technical, lots of jumps, but with some steep uphills too. If you’re more into bigger features I wouldn’t dismiss Llandegla, I’d just jump straight onto that red route! Dad said he preferred Hanchurch, but maybe if we go back and do that Red Route he might change his mind! I’d definitely like to get back here again.

I’m still glad we gave Llandegla a chance and did the blue route today – I think it instilled more confidence into the boys (and certainly me too). I don’t think the uphill was too awful at all, although as with most places the downhill always goes much faster, but thankfully I didn’t feel some of the little uphills between the downhill sections on the Blue route were particularly stressful either. It turned out to be a really great morning, and I’m so pleased I didn’t go with the negative comments we’d read the day before, as we’d have 100% missed a fantastic family ride out!

Have you ridden the trails at Llandegla? What were your thoughts?