Back in May last year, Irwin, Shane and I (Jeff), went for an evening session riding the track known as Mono6ti. The evening sun light made the top section look great and the camcorder did a good job of capaturing it. Irwin managed to get a puncher straight away and, without the right tools, only just managed to get his wheel off to repair it.

I had expected to some other footage to use with it and make a longer video, but that didn’t happen so here’s a nice short late one instead. I’ve still got some other 2010 stuff to edit so expect some more in the coming weeks.

About this time last month Irwin and I (Jeff) met up with Joe Bowman and Rob Stokes (of ThisiSheffield fame) for some late afternoon riding of a new track at Wharncliffe:- ‘Alexander Super Trout’ (you can ask Rob where the name came from). It’s a good track, quite steep in places and, unusually for Wharncliffe, doesn’t have that many rocks in it.

Appropriately, considering his plan to become a ‘mountain bike personality’ rather than actually having to ride a bike, Rob soon crashed and sustained a finger injury preventing from further riding. This left Joe and Irwin to do most of the riding for the video and since the light was going we only got the top half of the track, but apart from that not a bad little video IMO.

10-09-26 Wharncliffe JI+JK+JB+RS, 7 Pictures by Jeff.

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.

James W and Irwin riding Nemba at Wharncliffe, with some dual action. It all went well ’til James W came off and blew a seal in his Boxxers and then Irwin, feeling left out, decided to come off and break his seat clamp and gears. But apart from that it was a good morning in the woods.

View on Youtube

Late on Saturday afternoon, Irwin & I (Jeff) went to Jacob’s Ladder, Edale, to do some filming. The lighting on the track wasn’t great, but we filmed pretty much the whole track. Since I was taking it easy after a fall at Glentress the previous Saturday I went on foot, which lead to a few sketchy moments as we rode two blokes to one bike on the return to the car.

Go to the Vimeo site to view the HD version.

View on Youtube