Above The Clouds

A Linacre Re-mix due to the Chesterfield marathon.

Ride Date: 20/09/2015

Distance: 25 miles

Climbing: 2900ft

Route: Baslow>Curbar>Sheepskulls>Cartledge>Shillito

Riders : Jake, Matt, Deley, Howard, Basil & Liam


This was planned to be a ride based on last years Linacre loop, However due to Chesterfield Marathon we had to make a last minute change & moved the start to Baslow. Everyone got the new plan, with one exception, however this time he got the start time right, but failed to remember Chesterfield was on lockdown.
Anyway, on with the ride. This one as is generally the case, started with a brisk warm up climb, this time we left a very foggy Baslow and climbed for 2 miles up onto Baslow Edge, there was a minor pause half way up for a bit of tweakage on Deley's brakes, many hands made light work and we were soon off again. as we reached the top of the climb we were met with the most stunning temperature inversion across the valley and fantastic blue skies above us.

The view over Baslow

After lots of photo taking we set off again along Curbar edge where the views got even better, the riding itself was superb with the trail along the edge being bone dry and fast, plenty of grins by the time we got to the road at Froggatt. A short amount of tarmac then a swing of to the left and the not unpleasant climb up past the hunting lodge and them onto the bridleway over Totley Moor, we did take a slight wrong turn and missed out the walled descent, however we still managed a quick blast on Sheep Skulls. We then hit the nice fast, Horsleygate Lane bridleway  bridleway, before the excellent & famous Cartledge descent, it was superb as usual. A short link up BW took us out on to the road at Barlow.

Deley enjoying the views from Curbar Edge

Coming out of Barlow, we dropped onto another BW, this time one that had unfortunately been sanitised by the fun police at Derbyshire County Council since last time Matt had ridden it. This led us to a gruelling off road climb up to the main road & at 18 miles in a few were starting to flag a bit. time for a quick drink and energy boost, then off again heading back towards Baslow Edge via Shillito Woods (Moist), I think a few had some "incidents" along the edge of the woods, but details are sketchy.

The rest of the ride was incident free as we made our way along baslow Edge, negotiating a healthy group of large Highland Cattle. This just left a descent at speed back down into Baslow.

Another view of the inversion from curbar

A good ride all in despite the last minute change, I probably preferred it to the previous ride from Linacre & well ridden by everyone, being 25 miles it was a fair bit longer than our usual Sunday rides.

Not Howard's Day

Summer in the Amber Valley.

Ride Date: 23/08/2015

Distance: 21.6 miles

Climbing: 2700ft

Route: Shining Cliff > Black Rocks > Crich Chase

Riders : Jake, Matt, Carro, Paddy, Tony, Howard & Liam


First ride after the summer break, with a few missing due to holidays & Paddy's first outing on an Ambergate ride.

All the usual for the most part, starting with the nice warm up climb through the woods to the first section of trail, Tony was the first casualty with an OTB about halfway down this section where the rock step is, the short following climb up into Shining Cliff was start of things to come, with myself & Howard having some drive train issues, mine turned out to be a bent tooth on the small chain ring.
The ride along the top was good fun and the descent down "Millstone" to the fire road was nice and dry, more trouble for Howard's gears & he also ripped the hose out of his Reverb actuator. I must add that up to this point we had assumed that Carro had overlay/forgotten/couldn't be arsed (delete as applicable) but a missed call from him showed he had the time wrong and was at the Hurt Arms, luckily for him it was the best place to happen, a few quick directions and a short ride down the fire road had him joining up with us for the rest of the ride. By now it was getting warm and humid as we climbed back up to the top of the wood and over the fields towards Black rocks. Howard was having even more gear trouble and finding it difficult to go on so left us and headed back by road & canal. 

Time out on the way to Black Rocks

Black Rocks was  bone dry and running well, Matt had a rare off at some point on the way down to the first gate. The rest was incident free as we dropped down onto Intake Lane, also this time we added in the new section of trail I had spotted on the way to the Gully on a previous ride, safe to say it went down well, the trail pixies have done a great job & although a work in progress it's very ridable and great fun. Some whispers suggest it will be extended when time allows. Down on the canal some discussions were made as to the route, due to some time constraints & a bit of tiredness we opted to skip Riber and head back, with Myself, Matt & Carro opting to do Crich Chase. We lost Carro at some point on the way down to the campsite, half my fault for saying keep left & half is fault for taking it too literally! Some shouting eventually drew him towards us & we were back on track down to the canal.

A converted roadie??

Everyone else had buggered off by the time we got to the pub, a nice cold pint of 1664 in the sun finished the ride off nicely.

Dark Peak Double

Two Mid-Week Dark peak Epics.

Ride Date: 23/06/2015 & 21/07/2015

Distance: 27 miles each

Climbing: 4000ft (ride 1) 4500ft (ride 2)

Route: Hope > Mam Tor > Hope Cross > Derwent Edge

Riders : Jake & Matt Plus Mick for ride 2


Ride 1 started just outside Hope and began with a steady warm up along the road through Castleton and up the broken road of Mam Tor, then a bit more road before taking the north descent down towards Edale, then a mix of riding and pushing back up to Hollin's Cross, before descending back down another great trail to Edale and the not unpleasant offroad climb & short drop to Jagger's Clough. Next up is the short but killer climb to Hope Cross & a decision point, we opted for "The Beast". Now I'd only ever come up The Beast as a short cut, so was more than chuffed to clear it clipped in & without dabbing, the only negative was a rock strike near the bottom that resulted in a fair whack on the shin from my pedal.
Next choice was a push up Hagg farm to Lockerbrook, with the sun starting to warm up this was a very tough climb. The reward, Lockerbrook was excellent as usual & almost dry on top. Time for a quick break at Fairholmes.

The usual excellent view from the broken road

For Ride 2, we were joined by Mick, the start of the route was the same as Ride 1 as far as Hope Cross, from here we chose Potato Alley, another superb descent, then over the snake and up via Rowlee Farm to Lockerbrook. Again the ride down Lockerbrook was a delight, probably my favourite in the area. Then we had a steady roll to Fairholmes for refreshment, the highlight of which was a malfunction of the "99" machine which gave me and Matt probably more Mr Whippy than we needed, still it cooled us down, but I felt a bit sick afterwards.
From here it was same again with the tortuous climb to derwent Edge, from where we decided to ride down the cheeky bit and on to Cutthroat without stopping, again it was bone dry. Once down on to the road we opted to climb up Hagg Side (where the flies were abundant) and do Hagg Farm, then push up The Beast to Hope Cross.

Taking a breather on the way up The Beast

Once at the top of Hope Cross, it was a case of pedal at full chat down the Roman Road in to Hope, well that was the plan, I had a game of chicken with a ram and Matt had a blowout, might have even been both tyres, memories are fuzzy after the sheep altercation.
That was all fixed with a pint in the Old Hall afterwards though.

Two cracking rides, i think if I was forced to chose then I may prefer ride 2 as Potato Alley is a faster ride than The Beast and climbing up Hagg Farm was a bitch, whereas Rowlee is all rideable, either way, we might have to squeeze another in before Christmas!

Cut & Dry

The Annual Summer Cut Gate Ride.

Ride Date: 12/07/2015

Distance: 21.8 miles

Climbing: 3000ft

Route: Ladybower > Cut Gate > Langsett

Riders : Jake, Matt, Carro, Deley, Scott & Phil


There was a bit of light drizzle in the air as we met on the banks of Ladybower for the high anticipated Cut Gate ride. Carro was slightly late, misjudging the travel time & Paddy had the runs, so couldn't make it.
This was the first outing of Deley's new beast a lovely long travel Lapierre Spicy.

We started off nice & steady down to Fairholmes and over the dam then along the banks of Upper Derwent Reservoir and up a shortcut. After some hiker biking and pushing to the top we checked the maps and found that we had taken a wrong turn and were heading away from cut gate, we retraced our steps, which ended up being a pretty good descent back to the road, although Scott came a cropper on the way down.
Back with plan "A" we headed round to Howden Reservoir and up the rock steps and switch backs of Cranberry Clough. Here we passed a very brave or crazy woman who was attempting cut gate on a touring bike with big panniers & wearing flip flops (her, not the bike). Phil being the gentleman that he is, gave her a lift up with her luggage. At the top of this section, as it turns into the grassy bit before the slabs we took a minute in the now baking heat of the sun, Dave & Scott also took this opportunity to head back and left the 4 of us the carry on. 

The Classic Cut Gate Slabs

Refreshed and ready to go, we rode the slabs and pushed up the final section to the cairn. From here on the top "Lunar" section was wonderful & dry, with the exception of the perma-bog in the middle. Then came one of the 2 big rewards, the descent down to Langsett was superb tricky, rocky, fast, sketchy, everything you want and seemed even better than my first ride there. Everyone was grinning as we dropped through North America to Langsett.
Another rest point, we made the decision to flip back from here, rather than visit the cafe.
 

The Langsett End Of Cut Gate (North America)

Time to retrace our steps, the tough, but rewarding climb back to the plateau was made a bit tougher by the headwind, as before the going was good, so the riding was steady, until the perma-bog, rather than push my bike over some firmish ground as I did on the way out, I was "encouraged" by Matt and Phil to go for it over the marsh, well it worked for them I thought, so off I went, I think I was about half way across when I realised I might not be carrying enough speed & the bike stalled in the mud, that's Ok I thought, the ground feels firm under the thin layer of mud & water. I put down my right foot to steady myself & sunk up to my thigh. I had to be dragged out, after the laughing had died down a bit! Luckily there are plenty of streams up there to wash down.
As we came to the top of the drop down to Howden we paused to replenish energy ready for the descent ahead. I opted for the switchbacks rather than the steps this time and the ride down was ace as always.

That just left a steady ride back along the reservoirs followed by a refreshing pint of Farmer's Blonde in the Yorkshire Bridge Inn, we managed to find a nice table out in the sun too!

2D Ride Profile

3D Ride Profile

View the ride on Endomondo - http://app.endomondo.com/workouts/559410329/151189

East Is East

A tour of the Eastern Moors.

Ride Date: 14/06/2015

Distance: 19.5 miles

Climbing: 2400ft

Route: White Edge > Curbar Edge > Houndkirk Moor> Devil's Elbow 

Riders : Jake, Matt, Basil, Howard, Tony & Liam

Missing Deley & Scott due to 50th birthday celebrations, Happy Birthday Deley!!
Missing Carro due to general slackness (his own admission!).

Another 8am start, quite enjoying these early morning meetings, nice & quiet on the trails. We did have a slight delay due to the postcode being vague, but were soon underway with the warm up climb up past the hunting lodge and onto White Edge. it was a lot dryer than the previous visit here, still a few puddles about, but no real mud. Liam, despite being on his first Mountain bike ride, was taking to it like a duck to water, however fell foul on a rocky drop, sustaining a nasty hand injury that made riding difficult, but he carried on and we were at the Wellington Monument for the first break in good time.

Breaktime at The Wellington Monument

With energy levels back up, we set off along Curbar Edge, now a fully fledged Bridleway, so can be fully thrashed without fear of reprisals from the red sock brigade! It was on here that Howard became the second casualty, with a spectacular over the bars effort, he came away unscathed though and we carried on this superb trail all the way to the road. A short climb on tarmac took us back to the cars & the midpoint of the ride.
Here we bid farewell to Liam due to the hand injury, Howard due to fitness & Basil due to socialising. That left myself, Matt & Tony to sample the rest of what the moors had to offer.

Excellent Views From Curbar Edge, All Part Of The Experience!

First up was some steady Bridleway work out onto Totley Moor and climbing up to the Trig point, from here we rode an epic descent along side an old dry stone wall, it was fast, steep and littered with rocks and step downs, an excellent test. We dropped out on to a bridleway and on to Sheep Skulls, a downhill inspired trail, hand built and like a rollercoaster for bikes, great fun & well worth the push back up. A bit of leg work took us up Blacka Hill and onto Houndkirk Moor, it was starting to rain a bit and with the strong winds was quite grotty, fortunately it was short-lived though & we left the wide track on to some "cheeky" singletrack over the moor, weird sensations aplenty as despite it looking like you were going up hill, we were actually going at a fair old pace down hill, Tony had a minor off in the heather and we took some "advice" from a walker. A good twisty descent though and as we popped out on to the road we still had the best to come.
Devil's Elbow it's called, probably a fitting name, it's only half a mile long, but it feels a lot more, it's got the lot, roots, rocks, drops, off camber and it finishes off with a fast swoopy section, superb from top to bottom, Tony summed it up nicely by saying that from 90% of it he had no control over his bike. 

Pushing back up a tamer section of Devil's Elbow, Matt obviously still grinning from the descent!

At this point we were feeling tired especially after the excellent workout of Devil's Elbow so we opted to push back up and roll back along the road to the cars, not without taking a minor detour to do the climb to the hunting lodge in reverse, it was a fitting finish with a fast flowy descent back to the cars.

Just time for a nice pint of Hobgoblin Gold in the Grouse Inn

Another great ride, tweaked from it's previous incarnation, the second half adding some excellent trails to the loop along the edges.

View the ride on Endomondo - http://app.endomondo.com/workouts/542194779/151189

Wye Valley Special

A remix & tweak of the first ever Sunday ride, nice & dry.

Ride Date: 17/05/2015

Distance: 21.5 miles

Climbing: 2600ft

Route: Miller's Dale > Cheedale > Wormhill > Priestcliffe > Monsall

Riders : Jake & Matt

Loads missing for this one, reasons too numerous to mention, a production Saturday didn't help either.

We went for an 8am start, seeing as these nice light mornings are too good to miss, plus we can have the trails to ourselves, after a short wait for Carro, only to find he had overlay & wasn't going to make it we set off for a short 1km warm up on the Monsall trail followed by the stiff, rocky climb up to the hamlet of King Sterndale and across a couple of fields to the first short, but fun descent into Horseshoe Dale then the satisfying steady climb weaving around the rocks up to the road. A short section of tarmac took us through Chelmorton and the steep climb at the back of the church, along the undulating single track and the fast blast down the Pennine Bridleway to the A6, another short section of road and it was the steep, fast descent into Wye Dale as we had previously done on the first ride.

We took a quick break and headed up the switchbacks (scene of Basil's chain snap on a previous ride) through many sheep and up to the farm where the famous "Tractor Photo" was taken last time.A bit more road was followed by some trail & fields, this time bone dry and into Wormhill. Straight across the road and on to the good stuff, starting off with single track between dry stone walls, then switching to tree lined, then on to rocky craziness, we were only stopped by a gate and a puncture on Matt's rear wheel. 

Unusually for me, I didn't take any photos, so here's one of the descent from Wormhill robbed from MBR magazine

Not even stopping for a breather we were of again, with the steep but short climb up the the solitary farm house at the start of the Limestone Way & and our route back down to Miller's Dale, another great and long descent, ruined a bit by the amount of gates. Again pushing on well at this point, we headed out of the valley and up a tough off road climb and following the farm tracks out to Priestcliffe, meeting some very courteous Quad riders & some not so courteous Motocross riders, not much of interest trail wise, but the views were nice and with a short stop for tyre pressure adjustments we soon hit Brushfield, from here you get a small up then it's all down, getting steeper & rockier as you drop onto the Monsall viaduct.
All that was left was a nice 2 mile warm down along Monsall Trail back to Miller's Dale.

After packing the bikes up, we had a steady walk to the Angler's Rest and Farmer's Blonde all round, well you can't turn it down can you?

Not a bad ride all in, helped with the dry conditions, it's a good example of what the White Peak offers, and apart from a very minor tweak we can make before the steep drop into Wye dale, it's probably the finished article and a ride we'll likely add each year.

 

View the ride on Endomondo - http://app.endomondo.com/workouts/524007866/151189

Ashover & Beeley Beast!

A Midweek Escape with Gale Force Wind & A Smidge Of Rain.

Ride Date: 06/05/2015

Distance: 31.5 miles

Climbing: 3400ft

Route: Ashover > Kelstedge > Holymoorside > Rowsley > Two Dales

Riders : Jake & Matt

This was all set to be a multi purpose ride, not only a midweek escape, but also a reccy of Ashover in anticipation of a revisit later in the year for a Sunday ride.

With a usual 8am start we headed out of Ashover and round the back of the Poet's pub, with a nice stepped drop down and over the river and a push up what would be a superb descent at the end of the ride, once at the top we took a right and had a superb blast down through Cockerspring woods, before climbing back up via a steady fire road to where we started. Then a bit more climbing through more woods and a quarry led us out onto the road. We then headed out towards the delightfully named Robriding & hit a superb descent down into Kelstedge.

Time for a break at the bottom of a cracking descent into Kelstedge

After a short rest we were off again, via a slight detour due to an error on my crib sheet, a few miles of road work and we were on another short, but sweet down through some woods, before popping out on the road and then on to a strangely satisfying climb up and over the fields to what would be the highest point of the ride. By now the wind was really picking up, made even worse by being so exposed out on the moor.
We soon had some respite though as we swung off the road and dropped down into the many woods above Rowsley, some lovely twisting, undulating singletrack took us on our journey through the woods, there were plenty of trails in the woods an there was much talk of finding a way of adding it in to a Chatsworth or Bakewell ride in the future. We should have taken a bridleway through more woods back to Beeley Moor at this point, but due to some logging operations by the Haddon Estate we had to detour, although this did give us a superb, albeit cheeky footpath blast down to Beeley village.
From here it was more road, this time a 2 mile stiff climb back up on to the top of the moor, the wind was now trying it's best to drive us off the road at this point, plus despite my timely statement that we had got away without any rain, it decided to rain! We dropped down in to Two Dales on what was in hindsight not that interesting a trail and then started to head back to Ashover.
Once back at the bridleway, we retraced our steps from earlier, with the excellent (in name & fun) Coffin lane descent, followed by the equally superb rocky, rooty drop back down to the river in Ashover leaving us just a short push up back into the village.
We just managed to sneak in to the Mucky Duck (Black Swan) for last orders, I can't remember what I ate, but it was more than welcome as I was famished, I do remember it was washed down with a pint of Sharp's Atlantic.

A bit of an epic ride all in, should have no trouble sorting a good route for Ashover later in the year plus also the promise we saw in the woods around Rowsley.

 

View the ride on Endomondo - http://app.endomondo.com/workouts/517001087/151189