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Ballinastoe MTB Centre
Ballinastoe is Ireland's first red-standard (difficult/severe) dedicated mountain bike trail centre. Well worth a trip. About 10 mins past the southern end of the M50 motorway round Dublin, take the turn off for Roundwound. A further 10 mins heading straight into the country and you arrive at the Ballinastoe Mountain Bike trails, at a layby on the right hand side of the road.
Ballinastoe trail map on Coillte website
Some have called Ballinastoe "The thinking man's Kirroughtree" (which is part of Southern Scotland's 7 Stanes)
The 13.7km trail is a 70/30 mix of purpose built singletrack and forest roads and takes around 2 hrs to complete the loop. There is around 270metres of climbing on both fire road and singletrack.
Why "The thinking man's Kirroughtree"? Although most of the singletrack is man-made, it is just that little bit edgier than the 7 Stanes equivalents. It is not lacking the fast, swooping "yahoo fun" of Kirroughtree, because there is still plenty of it, but everything requires you to be that little more switched on!
A common favourite section is the one at the very top of the mountain. The views are awesome, but more importantly so is the trail! For those lucky enough to have been to Whistler, it is a bit like "Angry pirate". Loose rocks, steep dips, tight twists are the order of the day.
Whilst Ballinastoe does not have the 30km of Kirroughtree, or the freeride fun of Omega Man at Ae, it packs so much into just under 14km.
Add to the mix £25 for digs, £5 or so for fuel (based on 4 sharing a car) and you have the recipe for one of the best value mountain biking weekends in Ireland, if not the UK!
Note: Beyond the layby on which to abandon your car (there is a wee carpark too but it is not open all the time), there are no facilities for shelter or changing.
Movies of Ballinastoe MTB Centre
Reviews for this trail
Write A ReviewCURRENT AVERAGE
4.8
OUT OF 5 BADGERS
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Amazing! No time to enjoy the views as you need to be watching the terrain like a hawk. Very challenging but rewarding. forgot to take my fork lock off for one stretch and it hurt!!
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Amazing! No time to enjoy the views as you need to be watching the terrain like a hawk. Very challenging but rewarding. forgot to take my fork lock off for one stretch and it hurt!!
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Amazing trail,it was so good i left my mate cos he was 15mins late.and id do it again.
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Ballinastoe is an excellent centre, only 2.5 hrs from Belfast so easily do-able as a day trip. Pity the NI Forestry dont cater as well for NI bikers.
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rode this trail on sunday. best fun i have had on a bike by far. brilliant swooping runs that give much reward for relitively little climbing.
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Comments
Ballinastoe is well worth a vist, I have done all the trails in Ireland and this is by far the best, Im lucky to live only 20mis away so I do 3-4 times a week in the summer.. -
Very good even with snow covering the trails it was still very rideable, reasonable amount of climbing but well worth the effort. Worth the 2 hours drive south from Belfast.
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rode this on sunday snowed all day which made for a very interesting trail if this was not already interesting enough trail, well worth the trip would go back again soon
very simular to south wales trails in particular afan forest
