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The Forest of Bowland is an area in the Northwest of England that has many hills and off road bridleways, and has recently been reviewed in MBR. I have only cycled here a couple of times, and up to now have normally taken the same route. It is considered an AONB (Area of outstanding natural beauty). The map I usually use for this area is the OS Outdoor leisure map #41 (ISBN: 0319234703) available from Ordinance Survey. 

My route starts at Dunsop Hill car park, from here there is a bridleway about 300 meters to the right. This starts as tarmac but as you go further out it breaks up into the more usual stuff (dirt/stone/gravel). There are several routes from here that you could take but there's two trails that stood out to me on the OS map (either Dunsop Head, or Ouster Rake). Whichever way you go you're goanna carry the bike a bit! For my last route see mapping below

Here's a few pictures from a recent trip to this area. Click on any of the pictures to see a bigger image.

	As I climbed my first hill towards Dunsop Head this is the view to the other side. Quite a hill!		I turned around to look back from where I started, look to the hill opposite, there's a trail on that hill too, that quite a nice descent.
	Its starting to get a bit difficult now.. Not too far from here I was on foot for a while..		Well I lost the track, lucky for me I had my GPS unit to help me find Dunsop Head. But, it was boggy and I was on foot!
	Well carrying the bike was worthwhile.. Im starting to descend at last.		Still descending.. Down here you'll cross a couple of tiny streams.. Very nice. Just after this the track gets a little hard to find.

Here's a file that you can use with the G7ToWin program to download onto many types of GPS. Please note that the LaneEnd point is inaccurate and should not be used.  POINT_OUT.TXT. Alternatively you can take the coordinates from this file, and construct a route. At some point later, I may try and provide a map with the route marked onto it on this site, but I think I will try and refine my route a bit first. That may take a while because I only get chance to ride this area when I get back to Preston, about every 6 weeks

Bowland by Bike is a site run by the local authority that gives information about cycling here.

Lancashire - Commonwealth Games another site that has information about cycling in the area.