A Calver Christmas

Ride Date: 28/12/2013

Location: Calver

Riders : Jake, Deley, Matt & Howard

This ride took us back to Calver, the destination of the first ever post on this blog, for this years Christmas ride. Plenty of absentees this time including Dan due to headset trouble , Basil due to Center parcs, Ryan & Rob due to colds & Tony due to a bad back, some say down to his hard work with Santa over the last week! I also had some back trouble myself, but was OK for most of the ride, just struggled on the steeper climbs.

We set off through Calver village on a crisp sunny morning with Howard sliding off on some black ice at the first junction, good job he had his new knee pads on. Soon we were at the foot of the first big climb, it was just as difficult as I remember but it wasn't too bad especially with the good views lit up by the winter sun. After negotiating a few gates we were soon at the top and decided due to the small group we would make some "on the fly" route decisions and adapt as we went along. So we carried on past "Old Man's Demise" and headed for the quarry descent down into Eyam. The descent was nice and quick although it looks like the council have seen fit to resurface a good section of it, making it fast, but not technical. The last short section however, remains untouched and a good bit of fun.

Next up was a very pleasant climb on the roads up to Riley's Graves at Eyam, with a small break in the village center on the way. This led us to the start of the very good descent down through the woods to the road below, it didn't disappoint, throwing up rocks, ruts, roots & fallen trees. 

The View From The Bottom Of The Riley's Grave Descent

A short bit of tarmac led us next to the blast down to Stoney Middleton which was as good as I remember from last time, worthy point of note, if you ever find yourself at the bottom of this descent put your hand in the roman spring, lovely and warm flowing water especially in winter.

Next up was the steady 3 mile climb back up to Old Man's demise via Coombs Dale. Once at the top we hit Old Man's Demise, another excellent descent that is now a shadow of it's former self due to the council's over zealous resurfacing, it's still a good blast down, but with no real skill needed.
All that remained was to ride back down the first climb we had come up, despite a few interruptions from gates, this proved to be a decent end to the ride.

We finished off with a pint and a nice bit of dinner in the Derwent Water Arms, very nice chips and I'm told, by the other three, that the homemade pies were very nice too.

Dave with his well earned pint, albeit in a "ladies glass"!

Below is my first go at a video of the ride, feel free to add constructive criticism!  

See the full route here http://www.endomondo.com/workouts/280138459/151189

2D gradient profile

3D Gradient profile

The Chase

Ride Date: 01/12/2013

Location: Ambergate Woods, Black Rocks, Crich Chase

Riders : Jake, Deley, Matt, Ryan, Tony & Rob

Back by popular demand & with the knowledge we gained from the last ride out this way, we left the Hurt Arms car park as a gang of six welcoming back Rob who had previously joined us for the sub-zero blast around Sherwood Pines back in April. Absentees this time included Basil & Dan due to "mechanicals" & Howard due to Santa duties!

We set off along the road in the early morning sunshine with plans to improve on the last time by getting in at least one more descent, either Hearthstone Lane, Crich Chase or both. We took the usual fire road climb up to jackass lane and into the top of the wood at good steady pace, where we met some other riders who were setting off to the woods behind us. The ride along the ridge saw the first fatality of the day with Rob succumbing to the rocks and roots that were incredibly well hidden under the autumn leaves & taking a blow to the ribs.
We all met up at the top of the first descent, which again proved tricky for some due to it's nature and took a bit of the flow out of the section, I do have a plan to slightly alter this first bit and make it more flowing as I know there are a couple of other trails leading down from the ridge and maybe also include the woods to the left of the final climb up to the ridge from the fire road, hopefully more on that the next time we ride here. 
The second half of Shining Cliff was the usual fast, fun & flowing section made all the more interesting as a lot of rocks had a nice green coat on them. That just left the fire road climb up to Alderwalsley, where some front runners went the wrong way (that'll teach you for riding off ahead!). 

The winter sun peering through the trees as we rode back up the fire road

Once on the tarmac we had the chance to enjoy the fantastic winter sun on the way up to Black Rocks where with a small stop for Matt to fix a puncture we took time for a quick drink and to take in the views over the area.

A quick puncture repair, just below Black Rocks

Black Rocks was it's usual fine self from top to bottom with nothing to report other than fast, dry trails and we were soon down at the canal side in what seemed to be record time.We made the decision here, seeing as Rob was starting to feel some discomfort due to his earlier fall, that we would miss out Hearthstone Lane & we would divert left at Whatstandwell and climb up to Crich Chase, while Rob would head back along the canal and have a well earned coffee back at the pub.

So Crich Chase it was then, almost brand new territory for us (except for a brief look by me earlier that week), based of some Strava investigation we were aiming for what seemed to be one of the most popular descents, strangely named "The Bishop's Pointy finger", rather than ride the path from the corner of the road down to the wood, we opted to ride just a bit nearer to the reservoir and down to a slightly too high stone wall where we wrestled the bikes over completely missing the stile only 25 yards away, we'll remember next time!
The ride down through the wood despite a couple of stop/starts and us apparently veering slightly from the planned route, ended up being really good with a very nice of tricky bits and faster sections, we will definitely  add this in as a must do part of the ride, I can't believe it's took us so long to get in there and try it!

That just left about 100 yards of canal where we met back up with Rob at the pub and enjoyed a pint in the glorious sunshine and mild temperatures, not too bad for December


Below is Tony's long awaited second movie of the ride, enjoy!

 

See the full route here http://www.endomondo.com/workouts/273628360/151189