No, yellow doesn’t suit me. Think of me more as Able or Baker from the 1950s 
STM
Ha - very appropriate. I must admit I had to look that up. Let’s hope it works out more like Baker than Able for you…
Rob
(sorry Joe - going off-topic - but at least it’s bumping your thread!)
I’ll be there for the weekend Joe - and looking forward to it.
Send Spencer down beforehand if he wants to…:p, but I’ll be happy with whatever you come up with - I know your rides will be good ones.
Steve 
As I understand it Joe is sending Spencer down at some silly time tomorrow morning 
I’m planning on joining in on a ride or two sometime over the weekend but I’m not sure when I can get yet.
No, it’s a sensible time tomorrow evening. 7AM. The A.M. does stand for After Midday, doesn’t it? 
STM
Yeah, Spence & I are going to scope this downhill out at stupid o’clock tomorrow morning. There is nothing like 250m of climbing to wake you up of a morning as I am sure Spencer will agree! I just hope the descent is worth all that climbing!
Can’t wait to ride with everyone in September - I’ve not ridden with anyone non-local since ages ago (probably since riding with Phil in January).
I’ve attached another picture - this is a nice descent that we might well do - picture by Phil H (rider is John H). It isn’t 100% obvious from the picture, but it is surprisingly steep, mostly quite narrow, paved with bumpy rocks, and loses about 150m of height in total, which is all good.
Joe
Well, for those of you worried about how I got on, I can tell you that I have lived to tell the tale. It was quite unpleasant though, and although I didn’t come to any physical harm, I was certainly well out of my comfort zone. I wouldn’t opt to do anything like that again, but I suppose there has to be worse things than getting up at 5.30am.
As for the ride… well, I’ll let Joe tell you about that. I think he got some good photos too.
STM
Phew, a bit of a slog, and we didn’t find the downhill marked on that track, if indeed it exists - the top of the hill is covered in bracken, so anything except the most popular path wasn’t visible at all. We did get on another decent downhill in the end, after about a mile of bracken and nettles, which made for what the map says is 212m of descent, almost all on wooded singletrack, which is better than nothing, and I have worked out how to make it a loop in a sensible way, with uphill on a road, but all the downhill off road (and avoiding the big nettle/bracken waste of time). Some nice sections - lots of little steps and some dead steep bits.
The attached shows Spencer cunningly levitating down one of the sets of steps. As always, much steeper than it looks!
Joe
Some more planning -
I have a rough plan, I’ll post up the full details / my house address etc once I come back from holiday (which will be about 6th September)
Friday:
Turn up at my house in Belper at some point in the afternoon / evening.
Afternoon or night ride depending on when people appear, in my local woods. This will be short but steep (very steep if you want) and as technical and rooty / rocky as you want it. Bring lights if you have them and want to night ride.
We’ll grab food from the chip shop. Beer from the beer shop.
Saturday:
Ride, starting in Matlock at 10ish. We’ll start with a nice 10 mile loop round there via Cromford. Once we’ve done that, we’ll grab some lunch, and then there’s a pub/go back to mine option, or a few more riding options, either
a) A loop up onto the high moorland, a nice ride, ending in a great rocky descent but an absolute shed-load of climbing, so depends on how tired people are.
b) A bit of twisty turny singletrack in some woods near Matlock - there is a decent climb to get to the start of this too, but it is a laugh still.
c) Depending on what cars / drivers / people too tired to ride we have, shuttle something, either Back Lane in Darley Dale (a nice 150m of descent, finishes in a rock-tastic chute bit), or the last half of the Matlock Woods stuff (more of a steep cross country ride, a bit of uphill in it and a fair bit of across, oh and lots of fun steps).
d) Possibly a ride from Cromford, which starts with a stupid 230m height gain climb on road, but does most of the descending on singletrack, and the rest on an easy but fun and steep fire-trail. It is only 7km long, but it does have 230m of ascent and 230m of descent, this is probably only an option if we’re all super keen.
Penny says she will get some sausages / vege sausages / baked potatoes etc. in for people, so we’ll work out some food, and maybe have a fire or something too.
Sunday:
From Belper or almost Belper, either:
a)Joe’s Big Loop: 16km / 10 milish ride (300m ascent, 300m descent), taking in Longwalls Lane and the Chevin, basically wide rocky descents, with a bit of singletrack stuck in there for variety.
b)The Chevin loop: A classic short loop from Milford near Belper, it’s about 7km / 5 miles (150m ascent, 150m descent), and is a great loop for beginners, tired people, has a few good places to play, and ends in a fantastic descent to a pub.
It occurs to me that there are a couple of good riding spots near me that are completely missed out by these rides - to some extent we’ll have to see how keen people are to ride and what/how much they want to ride and work things out as we go - there’s always scope for a bit more riding in there.
Joe
Okay,
the final details for the Peaks Muni Trip:
My house: 34 Long Row, Belper, DE56 1DS
My email: groups@joemarshall.org.uk
My mobile: 07905 696427
My landline: 01773 820881
(if the mobile doesn’t answer, try the landline, as mobile signal is a bit patchy round here).
Friday: Turn up any time, although if it’s going to be before about 4pm, let me know and I’ll make sure to be there. I may be able to have the day off anyway if anyone wants to come up early, I’ve got a big deadline at midnight the day before (a non-movable deadline), so I guess I’ll have be working extra time this week and next anyway. If you have night riding lights, bring em, and we’ll go for a night ride (the night riding place is 10 mins muni ride from my house). If you can get there early we’ll go for a ride in the local woods which is a great place to get used to the sort of terrain we have here (except with only a small hill), or on a longer ride from my house if there’s time. For food, there is a local chippy that is very good (and Indian / Chinese if anyone would rather get that).
Saturday:
We’ll go over to Matlock for 10am, and park somewhere near the school on Starkholmes road - I’m not sure if we can park on Starkholmes Road itself, but there are residential roads off the sides that should hopefully be okay. For anyone coming over for just the day’s riding, the meet up point is in front of the school, on Starkholmes road, pretty much in the centre of the map linked below, at 10am.
The first ride on Saturday will be 10 miles, with a couple of big climbs and descents, a bit technical in parts, but a ride that is accessible to pretty much any muni rider as long as you’re happy enough with some steep sections and to either ride or push up a couple of hills. There is a decent snack shop half way round.
We’ll probably grab some kind of junk food in Matlock, then follow this up with something else, centred around Back Lane in Darley Dale which is a very nice descent, and the rideable half of the climb is a fantastic challenge which I believe has never been ridden clean on a unicycle yet, although last time I was sooo close. There is a nice 12 miler from here, although I seem to remember it has about 600m of climbing on it which we might do, or if people/vehicles etc. permit, we might shuttle just the Back Lane descent, or maybe we’ll split into 2 groups, one to do a ride, and one just to play at downhill, as I imagine not everyone will be up for a 20 mile+ day in big hills. We can work this out on the day.
Oh yeah and Penny has promised large quantities of sausage sandwiches etc. for dinner.
Sunday:
I’m still not sure which ride to do - we will have to make a decision depending on how everyone did on the Saturday, how tired people are etc. Options include a couple of decent loops from mine or very nearby, either 6 miles or 10ish, both going to a nice lunch pub. Also, a couple of woodland places to ride, one of which has a load of steep but not too insane singletracks, the other which is a well known downhill spot. I’m gonna scope these out at the weekend. Anyone wanting to just come along for the ride on the Sunday, let me know, so we wait for you, and get to my house for about 9:30am.
Oh yeah, a note about our road and parking:
Our road is stone laid (like giant cobblestones) and quite bumpy. Some people don’t like driving their cars up it, cos they worry about their suspension. If you worry about that, or if you’re coming in a wide vehicle, you might want to park on Green Lane instead. Also, being an old road, it is narrow, there’s only parking on one side. It is generally a free for all and everyone parks everywhere, not just in front of their particular house, so don’t worry too much about parking anywhere on the road. If Long Row is full, you can usually find somewhere on Green Lane (as linked above).
Sleeping:
We have a bunch of spare beds (4 in total, plus a sofa). If you want to bag one, email me. Otherwise, bring a sleeping bag + sleeping mat, and we’ll find a bit of space in one of the rooms for you.
Joe
Sounds good Joe. I’m definitely going to make it now - booked the time off and everything 
See you there.
Rob
Cool, seeya in a couple of weeks. (edit:10 days actually)
Joe
I’ll certainly be there Joe. Won’t know until later in the week if I can get there on the Friday night, but hopefully I will. Failing that, then I’ll meet you on the Saturday morning.
I’ll be stopping over and riding Sunday as well.
Really looking forward to it - should be a great weekend.
Steve
Cool,
it’s looking like we have 7 riders for definite, with another 6 or 7 possibles, so we should have a pretty good riding group.
The trails are in great condition too, this dry weather has left them really lovely and fast, Spencer & I headed out to scope out a few today, and there was pretty much no mud. We did a ton of lovely singletrack in the woods, it was ace (except for the bit where I crashed on a big rock in a really very painful reducing my chances to have children way!)
We also did one of the trails that I am planning to do on the nightride (if we manage one). It was also ace, we both fell off multiple times on the rocks and roots, but that’s all part of the fun.
Joe
p.s. Everyone, don’t forget to pack your lights if you have them!
I am officially excited now.
Looks like 8 definite riders, plus a few possibles, seems like a nice number of people, not too few, not so many that it becomes hassle herding everyone.
Joe
Yeah, I’m getting excited too.
Just checked out the weather, and although a little cloudy, it looks good. Hardly any wind, and dry pretty much all weekend (although a vague chance of small shower Sunday afternoon).
STM
Right, looks like I’ll be driving up - less hassle (and considerably cheaper, which is very wrong in all ways) than the train. My car is officially legal again as of yesterday (the usual stuff - sorting out a bit of rust spread into a major job, ended up off the road for a couple of months), lots of primer but generally sound and MOTed again. Should be with you latish tomorrow afternoon. Presumably it’s not too dodgy an area to leave a very unsecure old car?
Rob
Nah, not at all dodgy, it’s the sort of place where people leave their doors on the latch.
Joe
Cool - coz one of them might be!
See ya tomorrow.
Rob
Edd, Leo and I hope to arrive at about 5:30pm depending on traffic.
I am looking forward to this weekend, although I will have to take it easy due to an injury, so will not be going on the night ride.