Here’s a little summary of our recent rides over the snow Christmas 09 period. With a video with footage left over from two rides from the latter part of 2009.

24th Dec 09 – I (Jeff) went out for some Christmas Eve riding on Win Hill, with the group of young people collectively know as ‘The Kids’ (this name could stick til they’re well into their 30’s). There was a reasonable depth of snow at that height and we sessioned a corner, with mixed results – some slid like a squid, while others went down like a clown (editors note Jeff wrote this bit!). We also went up and rode the root section below the steps – knowing where all the roots are here pays off. It was signification colder at that level, once out of the woods, so it wasn’t long before we headed home.

09-12-24 WinHill JK+The Kids, 16 Pictures by Jeff

26th Dec 09 – The Epic Christmas ride was even more epic than normal! With a serious amount of snow even at lower levels the full epic route was going to be a serious challenge. But we (James), Shane, Jeff set off with that route in mind. It soon become obvious that we might have to rethink the route! Although the snow made for a very picture perfect December calendar shot. It wasn’t so great for riding in with the up hills being rather tricking epically once we had made it up onto the western side of Win Hill where the drifts were even deeper meaning that pushing and carrying your bike were the only options in places. Once we reached the ridge we had hoped that the gradient might be enough to all us to ride the bikes. We headed off down the ridge just about staying on the bikes. After stopping off to test how deep the snow was in some of the bomb holes (answer very deep). We carried on down towards hope cross. Where the snow had completely filled in the bridleway approaching the the start of the Hope Cross bridleway. So although it was rather nice to continue the tradition of a Christmas ride we might have been better heading out on the sledges or just making a Giant snow man somewhere!
See the the footage from this ride in the second half of the video at the bottom.

Our route – roughly 11km / 7miles long, plus some road afterwards
09-12-26 Aston+HopeX DH+HaggSide JI+JK+ST, 19 Pictures by Irwin & Jeff

31st Dec 09 – After the rather disappointing Christmas ride (in terms of riding) myself and Jeff decided that we would head up to Hope Cross to do some riding. With the Trees around this rocky bridleway providing some welcome shelter from the still snowy conditions still effecting most parts we thought we would be onto a winner. I (James) was eager to test out the full capabilities of my new Transition Bank. The idea behind the build was to create a all purpose bike that i could ride down the pump track, take to Bolehills, ride some longer epic rides on and still be able to enjoy the downs on. And so far i think it easily covers the job! With both myself also taking our cameras there was a fair amount of pictures taken on various parts of the track.

09-12-31 HopeX DH JI+JK, 22 Pictures by Irwin & Jeff

21st July 09 – On a damp Tuesday evening we (Irwin, Shane & Jeff) headed out after work to ride some of the Hollins Cross and Mam Tor bridleways, which are great for short rides as you can park at the top of the hill and don’t have to ride far to get to some pretty good tracks. Shane was on his first outing with his new SPDs (that magical invention that lets you attach yourself to the bike so you don’t need to be as fit when climbing hills ). It wasn’t long before the inevitable and he stopped but didn’t manage to unclip, fortunately (for Shane) Irwin was stood next to him and made a good temporary leaning post.
We rode the top section of Hollins Cross – BackTor Bridge and first section of Hollins Cross – Greenlands. Shane manage to get two punchers – one on each bridleway (the second in exactly the same spot as a previous ride), probably caused by a bad mix of XC single ply tyres and his DH riding style. While fixing the second puncture we decided it would be more fun to head back up the ridge and ride the short descent that goes around the side of Mam Tor. We weren’t wrong! With the previous rain it was quite slippy and muddy in places, this made for a great final run, with water flying everywhere and sketchy moments had by all.
See the the footage from this ride in the first half of the video below.

Filmed this a couple of weeks ago while out on a XC ride on the Hardtail.

For for a full guide see the Gores DH track page

The Hope Valley Adventure Film Festival is an annual event aiming to entertain and inspire using a mix of adventure films, guest lecturers and activities, with easy parking and on site catering. This is a fund raising event with all profits used to develop facilities at Hope Valley College.
Hope Valley College is situated in the centre of the beautiful Hope Valley in the Peak District National Park.
We are kindly assisted by ShAFF (Sheffield Adventure Film festival) and will be screening the ‘Best of ShAFF 2009’. The trailer can viewed on the right of the page.

It is on Saturday the 27th of February from 11:30am at Hope Valley College. See the location on our OS Map. Day Film Pass Tickets should be bought in advance online. Prices are; Adults: £7.00 (£8.50 on the door if still available) and Under 18: £4.00.

For the full list films see the What’s On page, here are the biking films being shown:

Crux
12 minutes – Best of ShAFF: Package 1
Trials riding involving Ryan Leech (the guy in the trials section of Roam).

Seasons
25 minutes – Best of ShAFF: Package 2
One of the best mountain bike films ever made and features Sheffield’s own downhill legend, Steve Peat. Previously shown at the Showroom in Sheffield.

Revolution One
10 minutes – Youth Adventure Film Package 1
Two World Champion unicyclists in a film about the rapidly emerging sport of off-road unicycling.

Look To The Ground
4 Minutes – Youth Adventure Film Package 1
The story of a blind mountain biker.

KRANKED Revolve
22 Minutes – Youth Adventure Film Package 2
Revolve blasts from the French Alps to the lush coast of B.C., incorporating dirt jump, trail, freeride, slopestyle, and downhill.

As well as the films there are also some activities going on, including riding the new Hope Valley College Mountain Bike Trail. HVC is the first UK state school to open a purpose built mountain bike trail and it will be open on the day for supervised use. You can take your own bike or borrow one of the 2 loan bikes available on site.

Drinks (including a licensed bar), snacks and full meals are available between the film programs and there is a exhibition of art and photography from the Peak District to admire while you enjoy your pint.

Ride the Peak is a group of mountain bikers, from a variety of riding types and backgrounds, who are interested in maintaining and enhancing mountain biking in the Peak District.

Irwin, Shane and myself (Jeff) are part of Ride the Peak’s track maintenance group, which has previously undertaken small maintenance jobs on bridleways, mainly involving improving drainage (eg Aston Bridleway, Derwent Edge & Hollins Cross to Greenlands). More recently the group took on a larger job, doing maintenance on the bridleway which runs from the lay-by on the north side of Mam Tor to a junction with the bridleway from Hollins Cross at Greenlands and the track from Greenlands to Edale.   [Track Page | Map] The main aims of the job were: removed tight gullied and rutted sections in places where the route had split up; get everyone back on one line get the water off the track (water flowing down tracks causes a lot of erosion) but at the same time, keep the character of the track and keep it fun to ride Starting in late June the group spent about 8 evenings over 3 months working on the track through wind, rain, darkness and midges (what is it with Edale midges?!). We adopted the top-down management approach; starting below the second gate, near the top of the track, filing in narrow ruts and making drainage channels into the ditch at the side. We then moved onto the straight with the high wall, this was a case of bringing most of the higher line down to fill in the gullied bottom line. Where drainage rollers were put in, small sections of the high line were left to aid drainage, it was later noticed they look remarkably like mini ‘bus stops’. In the next section we added some flowing, slightly bermed, curves while filling in the gullies. Lower down is a sort of left dip down a small rock step followed by a right shwosh up, pump, avoid a few rocks and out …well it makes more sense when you ride it. Another interesting feature is where we put in a 45° sloped wooden boarding to help hold back the earth for a slope down into some flowing curves before the wide gulley by the hawthorn tree. We used the two parallel straight lines that had developed to make one line with curves and we widened the narrow exit of the gulley and cut back overhanging gorse bushes. For this section we had some aggregate surface material to use, which is better draining and longer lasting than normal soil, the only problem was that the aggregate was up the top of the hill by the second gate. We had two wheel barrows and a motorised wheel barrow to move it with, you might think pushing empty barrows up hill and full ones down hill would easy – WRONG! It was a constant battle to stop the barrow running away from you down the hill or gaining too much speed and spilling the precious load. Shane loved driving the petrol driven motorised barrow, which was cross between a wheel barrow and a military tank (I’m sure I heard him whispering to it at one point). It was decided that no work was needed lower down, so we didn’t do anything to the track below the wide gulley next to the hawthorn tree. The Peak Park also did work around the same time on the bridleway that runs from the top of track, around Mam Tor, towards Hollins Cross. Martyn Sharp, who is the Pennine Way ranger for the Peak Park and, as a MTBer, is a member of Ride the Peak, organised and oversaw the work of the Ride the Peak maintenance group, as well as making our digging legitimate (not just anyone can dig up bridleways). At the end of January, Martyn, Irwin and I went back to see how the track had faired over the 4 months since we finished working on it. It was generally working well, with only a few area that might need looking at in the near future. The ground was frozen solid, so apart from axing out a few tyre ruts there wasn’t much work we could do, other than move a few stones to the side where part of the wall had come down. Fortunately we had brought out bikes and there was time for a short ride down the track, up to Hollins Cross then back up the ridge to the lay-by. Irwin had borrowed a nice HD helmet camera and there was still some snow and plenty of ice about, so there’s footage of Martyn coming off once and me twice.

Below is a video and pictures of Shane & Jeff riding the Mam Tor to Greenlands bridleway, in October 09, a few weeks after the work was completed (Shane only had a rear brake):

09-10-10 MamTor-Greenlands ST+JK, 8 Pictures by Jeff & Shane

Helmet Camera run during the snow, gives a good idea of the track lengh and features.

After a long time biking and skiing & snowboarding in Whistler, Canada, Joe has returned to ‘the shire’. He’s found himself a good camera and he’s found himself some good riders. Here’s his video: