Cycling & bike hire at Delamere Forest, Cheshire

Cheshire is a great cycling holiday destination for cyclists of all ages and abilities. With manageable hills and open plains, it’s an area where you can enjoy the beautiful English countryside without having to be a super fit biking enthusiast. There are gentle, family-friendly trails around Delamere Forest, exciting mountain biking opportunities and longer distance routes too, with lots of off-road or quiet country lane cycling. There are wildlife-friendly trails, country parks with picnic spots and pretty towns where you can stop for refreshments. Add cycle hire to your cabin booking before you arrive to save loading up your own cycles, then collect your cycles when you arrive in Delamere Forest and get ready to discover the county from a new perspective.

Delamere Forest is popular with cyclists, so book your cycle hire with us at the same time as you book your forest break. Then relax, knowing that your cycles will be ready for you when you arrive. The cycle hire hub is just a short walk through the forest, and you will be kitted out with helmets too, ready to explore the forest and the local countryside. To add cycle hire to your booking, simply go into ‘My Account’ or call us on 03330 110 495 and we’ll do it for you.

Pack a picnic and follow the Hunger Hill Trail, a scenic 6.4km route, perfect for an enjoyable family cycle ride. It follows wide forest roads with good surfaces and includes a couple of reasonably steep climbs to give everyone a little challenge. The climbs are rewarded by lovely views across Blakemere Moss. The other main cycle route for families in Delamere Forest is the Whitemoor Trail. This is a longer ride of 11km and allows you to discover some of the hidden corners of the forest, passing meres and mosses where you might spot wildlife, including nuthatches and tree creepers, damselflies and butterflies. If you can load your bikes onto the car, head for the Chester Railway Path, which is a Sustrans route from Chester to Connah’s Quay. It’s 24km if you do the return journey but it’s quite flat, making it great for a family cycle ride.

Delamere Forest offers both a bike skills park and a great network of largely unmarked trails for the intrepid mountain biker. Manley Hill Bike Park has some short tracks as well as dirt jumps, berms and table-tops. It’s a great spot to practice your skills before heading out into the wider forest. Also in Delamere Forest, Old Pale Hill is a good choice, with steep sections and a number of different routes to the summit. Stop long enough to admire the views before the hair-raising descent. Book a cabin for a midweek or week-long break and join in the TRACS Thursday Night Rides. These are free 2-hour guided cycle rides from the Delamere Cycle shop at the Forestry England Visitor Centre close to our cabins. They explore the tracks and trails of Delamere Forest and it’s a great way to discover hidden routes if you are not familiar with the terrain. If you prefer to strike out on your own, the forest is criss-crossed with countless single and double track trails, which are accessible from your cabin.

'Biking the backroads' is a pleasant 20km circular route along the quiet country lanes of Cheshire, or you can cycle to it from your cabin, which will more or less double the distance. It takes in the beautiful Marbury Country Park, where you can enjoy a picnic stop. For a longer cycle, you can create a circular route on the National Cycle Network. Pick up Sustrans Regional Cycle Network route 70 at Delamere Forest and take it east to the River Weaver. Here it joins Sustrans National Cycle Network route 5, and you should head west on route 5 as it follows the river. Keep going through Frodsham and on towards Chester. Pick up route 70 again from Chester and head back east to Delamere Forest. The route is approximately 70km and gives you an opportunity to enjoy the countryside of west Cheshire.  On this ride, you are travelling a portion of the Cheshire Cycleway, route 70, which is a challenging 283km circular route, that pushes towards the southern, eastern and western borders of the county and offers some thrilling and challenging sections.