Leeds Urban Bike Park – Still good in 2025? First Time Back after Opening

This is my first time back at Leeds Urban Bike Park since opening, I’ve heard many people suggest some of the trails are in a state of disrepair, so I ride the whole place for the afternoon, and see what it’s all about now, in 2025.
Enjoy!

Good afternoon ladies and gents. Today we are at Leeds Urban Bike Park. Now this place was built probably about five or six years ago. Had a massive opening day. Lead Urban Bike Parks on the outskirts of Leeds and since then seems to have lost quite a few riders. The maintenance is ongoing supposedly, but there is still riders who think that the trails aren’t really maintained as much as it should be. Either way, I’ve not done a video here before, so we’re just coming after work on the status to see what it’s like nowadays and uh I guess so you can see if it’s worth coming and what sort of stuff’s here. So, let’s go and have an explore. So, instead of doing a lot of little clips tonight, I’m just going to take you around what the sort of what the park has to offer, what’s here, what everything looks like. We’ll start at the BMX track, which is here. It’s all kind of flat to be fair, but the running from the top great, which you’ll see is it’s at least you can gain a little bit of speed on it. So, I’m going to give it a lap on that. Catch you in a sec. That’s fine. So, BMX track. Pretty good fun. Behind me, you can see down the hill a lot of trails leading to a main jump line, which is at the top. Comes down there. I haven’t ridden this in about 5 years, to be fair. So, I’m going to go down this red trail here that snakes down all the way down there. Go to the top. Have a couple runins on this jump line. The wind is blowing that way, which at about 20 mph wind is not brilliant at all. So, I’ll get up there, see if it’s affecting the speed. But either way, enjoy the trail down. Fairly fairly steady tracks here. The reds are nothing nothing serious. Nice and steady. The maintenance on these isn’t too bad really. Pretty grally on this. Couple of rollers, so it’s fairly flat. But there’s still some good bits. That’s about it for the uh for the downhill part of the red leading up to the jump line. So, this is another view of the place from the opposite side to where I set off from. The jump line starts up there. Very quiet at the minute and very overgrown. They’re all tabletops apart from a double at the top which is sort of like a squirrel catcher. sort of like a something they use to see if you can do the trail. But yeah, quite overgrown. Comes all the way down here. Goes all the way down there. I’ll have a run in and uh see what they’re saying. Follow me in. So, at the top of the jump line now, there’s a little rock feature to start. These are the doubles that I was talking about. There’s a double there and a double next as well. The problem is you need a good running from here to be able to clear them both. I haven’t hit them for years, but uh yeah, let’s get on the bike and give it a go. Holy Yes. To be fair, that’s running brilliantly. The Status is a perfect bike for these sort of jumps. I came down here on my hard tail a few months ago. Didn’t really feel comfortable hitting these. I want that rear suspension to absorb the lip, but yeah, thoroughly enjoyed that. I over jumped the last four to be fair. Didn’t expect to, but yeah, I hope that looked good on camera. I might have one more run, see if I can plant the camera somewhere, get a third person, and uh move on. See what else there is to see. Very good line, though. One of the best here, I’d say. Definitely better than the BMX track if you’ve got the skills to do [Music] them. Yep. Nearly went over the bars then. Trying to find somewhere to prop the uh phone whilst I do the line, but terribly overgrown. So, from the top of the line, the best thing I can do is actually put the GoPro here because everywhere down there is so overgrown that you can’t even see the trail. It’s just bushes. So, I’m going to pop it down here somewhere. Do the first few jumps so you can see them. That’s the best I can do. So, I’ll give it a run. Oh, that really overshoots you. So, there’s that. You can actually jump these. Pretty damn good. You know what? 10 out of 10 for a little tabletop line. Well done, Le Urban Bike Park. Right, so after that, back onto one of these trails down the hill. I think I might do this one here with these tabletops in it. Let’s have a go. Very, very loose. That’s a better effort to clear. Oh my god, my wheels are everywhere. Now I have to pedal uphill. What can I do on these? That’ll do for a bit of uphill. Right, we’re heading down into the woods now where some of the long reds are. Now, I’ve heard that these um have not really been maintained and they’re quite rocky. So, I’m going to see what they’re like. Give you a little POV of the run. Let’s find the red. Right, I found the red. Let’s give it a go. Am I in the right gear? It’ll do. Right. What’s this? The worst drop I’ve ever seen into a double. Very windy. Oh my god, it’s rocky. Thank god I’ve got the false. Very good fun though. Some corners are very very blown out like this. Some blown out. What have we got now? Oh Jesus. Let’s have a look at that actually cuz that is interesting. So this hip is very rocky out the corner. You have to pedal into it. There’s a shallow takeoff and a steep takeoff. That’s the landing. Uh I’m going to put my GoPro somewhere, have a couple of runs, and uh see if I can clear, I suppose. Not sure if this will work, but the pedaling is [Applause] insane. Yeah, definitely taking that. It’s bigger than it looks. This the takeoff’s there. The landing’s here. I’d say it’s a good 15T to be fair from where you take off and land. Obviously, there’s a shallower line, but the speed you need for that. Anyway, I’ll strap this back on, do this jump, carry on down. I have a feeling it’ll be very rocky, but there’s only one way to find out. I’ll run in from here and I’ll show you what the pedaling is all about for this hip, and then we’ll carry on. So, you need to hit this rock guard with some pace and then get on the pedals. There we go. Oh. Oh my god, it’s so loose. Oh, what’s this? A jump. Oh, man. Oh my god. You don’t carry a lot of speed for these jumps, especially how rocky it is. Oh my god. So rocky. Holy Don’t know how you’re supposed to jump that. No. Putting these in. So my verdict so far on the red that goes through these woods. Basically that hip-hop stop tact to session and the run up was immense. You needed to pedal as much as you can. The problem with Leeds Urban Bike Park is it’s not really on a hill. It is, but it’s such a shallow hill that you can’t really carry a speed. And they’ve done the best to put rollers and bumpy bits in that you can carry your speed through the trail, but sometimes it’s not enough. I remember near 5 years ago when it opened, everything was smooth. The trails were perfectly smooth and everything was doable. You could hit every gap. But now with how rough it is and how hard it is to maintain your speed, it’s difficult to clear some of them gaps. Don’t get me wrong, I could probably go back session them and do them. But the amount of time it would take to practice as someone who’s come here obviously for the first time in all that time and you’ve only got a day, you need to know what to expect. So this is what I’m showing you guys. But nonetheless, still a very, very nice ride through the woods. Very peaceful considering it’s near the center of Leads. It’s nice having a a little cruise through the woods after work. All right, onto the next part of the red. I know there’s a couple of gaps in this. I’m not really sure what to expect, other than that. There’s a gap here. Not sure where it goes. Oh, there’s a gap here. Aha. These are pretty big gaps. You come in from the top there. Um the first gap is that one stuck up there and then into this somehow which is quite fast. I mean quite long for how fast you’re going I think. But the case doesn’t look too bad. This is the first one. So if I have a run in from the top, see if I can do the first two. I suppose I should be in goodstead for the rest of them. Right. So it’s inside line apparently and there’s a gap off the top. Can we’ll see gap there. Come around. Ah. Ah. At least I can do that. Right. Then this gap straight after the corner is what I’ve got confused about cuz it’s very I don’t think anyone’s really done it for the past 50 years. So, as long as I can get that into there, should be all right for the rest of them. a bit further up this time. So, I need to get that jump out of the corner. Like that. My god, that’s a big hook. And then bang. Oh, that is Oh my god, that is nearly impossible. So, the design of this is not brilliant because that’s about 10t. This is about 12t and this from here to landing I reckon is pushing 20 and you want them to get smaller rather than bigger. And I’m landing just on top of there, but I’ve got no chance. I mean, I’ve hit my fair share of jumps at different places and yeah, not the best designing. So, I’m going to try and do the first couple, go around and do the big one over there through the trees and then uh yeah, so let’s have a look. Oh, that sounded bad. At least I sent it. Definitely didn’t have the speed from avoiding that. Definitely burnt my tire. Well, that’s that bit done, ladies and gents. Hope you enjoyed that little session on that. It shows these jumps can be done, but it needs a bit of session and a bit of well, a lot of pedaling and uh a bit of a bit of familiarity with the jumps really. But good for you guys to know if you ever are thinking of coming here. So apparently this quarry section behind me is the only black section at Le’s urban bike park. Um this is the quarry with a skeleton drop which is here on the map. I’ve come down here. That’s what I was sessioning. I’ve come up here, come up to the quarry. But this drop now is it actually that bad? Let me show you. This quarry has got a couple of I think these are reds. They just come down. Quite a steep rocky descent round the corner and back up to the top again. This is the drop. Now from the top, make it drop. You go from there down to there, which don’t look bad from here, but as you get to the top, well, I’ll show you. I’m going to walk up now. See if I can actually climb the thing. This is the the running the start of the trail is here. I’m sure it has the skeletons on it again. Uh there we go. Very dangerous. Uh and this is the lip. It’s probably I’d say 2 m 2 and a half m. Um but it’s off quite a quite a cliff face as you can see. I’ll prop the camera up, do a run, do a POV. That’s really it for this section. Good to play about on. But for me, maybe the drop is something to come and get ticked off. Maybe for you guys, too. So anyway, this is probably the best angle. I nearly stacked it already. You climb up here over the top. This is where the red line is. Goes down that rocky descent. Another red at the far end. This is the drop. So, you want a nice run in. Lift your front wheel over that. Drift off and over the over the step up. That’s the drop. That’s a step up. Just goes over this path here. Yeah, pretty good. Something good to get ticked off when you come down here. So, I’ll show you a bit of the red back now. What it’s like. Very overgrown. Quite mossy. Not really. You can’t even tell that you’re going down it to tell you the truth. So, there’s a bit of downhill here. I’m sure there’s a jump just after this bird. Not sure whether it’ll be a So, basically now it’s just uh there is a red that goes along the ridge up there, but it’s all uphill. So, I just like to pedal up this up the fire road back to the visitor center and uh yeah, we’ll have a cool down on the uh on the pump track that I guess I’ve shown you guys enough for if anyone’s wanted to come here for a couple of hours. So, this is the uh pump track they have at Le Urban Bike Park. Not bad if you have a jump bike, but not brilliant for a full sus. Uh either way, going to have a little cool down on it. All right. Quite a lot of people on the BMX track and pump track now. So, I’m glad I’m having a cool down. Finally. Well, glad I got that for a little cool down/closer. So, this has been Leeds Urban Bike Park. I hope you’ve had a good little tow around it today. Enough to make a decision on if it’s still worth coming or not. At least my decision is. Yes, definitely. But it’s definitely not in its prime. Now, if you’re looking for somewhere to come for an hour or two after work, passing on a weekend, definitely worth checking out. The BMX track, the pump track is good. The uh red trail I did at the start with the tabletops on it, brilliant. Uh the woodland trails now, not so much, unfortunately. Uh it’s quite hard to keep your flow. The rocks are stuck out the ground like 50 mil. And don’t get me wrong, you could clear them, but it would take quite a while sessioning and learning the tracks. In general though, is it worth coming here? Absolutely. I hope you’ve enjoyed my opinion and some of the trails I’ve done today. Hope it’s made you form an opinion on whether to come as well. So, it’s been a pleasure. I’ll catch you all in the next one.