Sorry for the late post but this ride is a last minute decision.
Paul Royle and myself will be riding one of mbr (Mountain Bike Rider magazine) classic mountain bike routes in the Peak District this coming Sunday, 23rd October. The ride is 18 miles long with 940 metres of ascent.
Because of other commitments we need to finish the ride by 1pm. This would mean an early start if you’re joining us, as we’ll be starting the ride at 8am. This will be a physically demanding ride and we’ll be pushing on a little to complete it the 5 hours. If you’re interested in joining us, then please bare in mind that it will be a hard ride. I don’t know how technical the ride will be, but I get the impression it’s not too technical. We’ll both be riding muni’s as opposed to 29er’s.
If anyone would like to join us, then we’ll be meeting up at the car park opposite a pub on the East side of Ladybower reservoir (sorry I don’t know the name of pub), close to where the A6013 meets the A57. I’m not sure what the mobile reception will be like there, but here’s my number anyway. 07990 600 006
Can’t make it myself, but sounds cool. What route are you doing?
Incidentally, have you ridden the route from Edale via Hope Cross to Ladybower, there’s a couple of fantastic rocky descents that would be right up your street, just on the edge of rideable, took us longer to ride down them than to walk back up them.
I’ve not riden anything in the Peaks so far, so I’m looking forward to my first outing there. Hope you can make out the route from the scanned map. The only difference being that we’re starting from the meeting point mentioned above.
From what I’ve ridden or heard about, the bit north of 3 is better as a down; the hill above Fairholmes (north of 2) would be blummin’ marvellous fun as a downhill, and the track to Cutthroat Bridge (east of 6) is better as a down too. From what I’ve seen coming off Win Hill that way round (point 4) doesn’t look very interesting, so may be better as an up.
Personally I think I’d do it the other way round, and (depending on whether you are feeling gnarly-hardcore-tastic) add a little shortcut between points 3 and 2 involving a right turn at point 3 to go down the truly fantastic uber-rocky descent known as “The Beast”.
Of course, I’ve only actually ridden around the area twice, so there’s always a chance I’m missing something. It’s on my list of places-to-take-a-tent-for-a-few-days-to-explore-more…
In the end, wherever you go the riding is always good in the Peaks. Have fun!
I’d be with Phil on going the other way, looks like the route is designed for people who enjoy really fast easy downhills on a bike and technical climbing.
That shortcut from 3 to 2 (Hope Cross -> Hagg’s Farm) is really fantastic, v.v. difficult and rocky, I’ve no idea what the other way round is like though.
Sounds as though you got home anyway Paul - thanks for posting the photo. So how many times did you fall asleep on your convoluted route back to London?
Thanks Phil and Joe for suggesting that we ride the route clockwise, as that was a far better direction to ride it than the one described in the magazine. Even for the ‘two wheeled ones’ going round clockwise would have made more sense.
In a clockwise direction the uphills were definitely the more mundane, boring slogs on either road, grass or mud. Whereas the downhills were rocky, technical in parts, and above all else a lot more fun. Thanks again guys for your suggestion.
The ride would be best done after a dry spell though, as parts were pretty muddy and hard going, as you can see from Paul’s photo. The ride was also fairly demanding and in the end it took us 5 hours to complete the 18 miles. We did take time out for a photo shoot with a photographer covering a mountain bike orienteering race and also to do some playing by the side of Derwent reservoir.
There’s certainly some beautiful scenery in the High Peaks, although that was only apparent toward the later part of our ride, as we had low cloud for most of it.
We had a great time and would certainly recommend this ride, although some of the uphills were were rather boring.
Joe’s post on the Singletrack forum regarding “The Beast” reminded me to add a bit of a footnote to this thread for future reference. From Hope Cross there are two routes down to the road; one is The Beast, as mentioned above; the other is the roman road across Blackley Hey. The Beast is the kind of descent that takes longer to ride down than walk up because it’s so super technical; the other descent is more of the hold-on-tight-and-go-for-it variety, but it still looks like it would be great fun. It also has the advantage that the climb up the hill on the other side is on a farm track that is nowhere near as steep and rocky as the track past Hagg Farm, so I’d imagine would be very rideable even for people without thighs like treetrunks.
My brother and I did this route (in the proper direction) on bikes over Christmas; I’d like to try it on a muni sometime…
Phil
WARNING! Two-wheeled content; just look at the rocks instead, dammit…
