Chiller 24 Route for 2025

The Chiller 24 route for 2025 sticks to the tried and tested trails of previous years as they are pretty much guaranteed to stand up to any kind of beating in any kind of weather.  They are all red graded and in fact the two main descents of Into The Valley and Twist n Shout have recently been resurfaced making them extremely fast flowing.  Let’s have a look at a map:

The route runs clockwise with the main event HQ area being at the bottom of the picture.  The HQ on the campsite will be at the southern tip where the track from the castle shoots down to the campsite.  This is the point where your lap finishes and all pit areas will be after this point.  From here all riders do a lap of the campsite which means everyone on the site we have a trackside location, a key factor to consider when racing.

Coming out of the campsite we use a bit of single track to climb up to a forest road and then reverse a walking route to eventually reach the entrance to Ravens Hill.  I always view Ravens Hill as a bit of a warm up.  It rocks and rolls and just gets your senses gee’d up enough to keep you focused – probably the perfect trail when starting a lap in the depths of the night.  After Ravens Hill there is a long, fast forest track descent followed by a wide drag up to the foot of 3 Dogs Climb.

3 Dogs is probably your toughest climb of the day.  A thin single track that slithers up and around the hillside and the first 800 metres are just relentless little surges where full gas is needed and rests are short.  Eventually it peaks out and you traverse eastward to pop out onto a forest track and begin the big drag up to Into The Valley.  If you’re looking for somewhere to over take then this is probably the opportune moment.  The first half of the climb is quite gentle, almost a recovery, but then the second bit ramps up and you’ll be feeling it soon enough.

Into The Valley is one of the freshly relaid tracks.  The trees were felled here recently and the views are superb.  People will see the lights streaking down the hill for miles around.  The trail is quick and exciting but easily manageable by anyone who’s been riding a mountain bike for a while.  Riders come out of here at speed and instantly fly through Jimmy’s Gate to tackle the slow and technical Along The Watchtower section.  The final kicker is a trip round the Superbowl which spits you out onto a tiny bit of fire road and the to the head of Twist n Shout.

Twist n Shout is a fantastic way to descend back towards the main Kielder area.  It’s super fast and flowing and now most of the trees have gone it gives amazing visibility for people wanting to track down other riders ahead.  It’s easy to coast down but equally it’s a track that begs to be thrashed.  Coming out of here you hit a small bit of fire road before dropping down to a tiny bit of natural singlet rack and then back to the shoot into the event HQ.

In terms of figures you’re looking roughly at 10.5km and 350m ascent per lap.  The regular Chillerati will know that it’s normally slightly more but that’s because we’re dropping the black for 2025.  Forest Dive black is a fantastic track and I love it but the trees have grown and there are no longer any cheat routes for the more spicy bits.  Not the best situation for tired minds in the middle of the night.

All we need now is to have some lovely weather on Nov 8th.  This event has had some real juicy stuff over the years.  The two Feb events had deep snow, sheet ice, endless driving rain and high winds.  People did well to survive these things never mind race in them.  More recently heavy rain has played it’s part and let’s not forget the thunder and lightning that paused the race for three hours during the night last time out.  We DO NOT want a repeat of that please.

So there you have it.  Apart from a walking track early on the tracks can be ridden any time of year.  Don’t forget that as well as the Chiller 24 we have an 8 hour endurance mountain bike race called Eastgate 8 on 24th May.