On a recent sunny July Sunday afternoon… what?, no really, there was one at the start of the month… anyway, Irwin, Matt A and I pushed up Win Hill to the Moorland Singletrack. We hadn’t ridden it for a while and I’d just got my bike back after it being at The Bike Station for a while as the forks were away being serviced. We had some good, fun runs and there was plenty of cool breeze on the push back up. Matt and I had our cameras so we did short runs of the middle section leap-frogging each other to get pictures of us all.

Afterwards we returned to the ridge and rode down to the top of Brinks Road. As we descended the top section of Brinks Road it reminded me of why people like full-sus bikes. It’s the sort of section where line choice is futile; it’s just a choice of very bumpy or extra bumpy, pedalling or braking aren’t needed either, it is just a case of hanging on and pumping small down-slopes where possible.

We ended a ride in good weather with a good BBQ, with our head chef, Shanus, making the school-boy error of turning up after the riding with some poor excuse about having to work.

09-07-05 WinHill MA+JI+JK, 7 Pictures by Matt & Jeff

Irwin and I dodged the weekend’s rain and headed out for a short evening ride in the WinHill area on the Saturday. We rode the moorland singletrack, which was fun as usual. We then headed down the hill stopping off in a random section of the woods for some flash photos, the midges were really biting so we gave up the MTBing in favour of pro-amateur stone skimming at the side of the reservoir, I won.

08-07-05 WinHill JI+JK, 4 Pictures

Strange title i know but i thought it might get your attention! It was a day of firsts for two reasons. James got his new Sunday after bending his old bike and spending the last couple of months trying to get a replacement, he went out and bought a Iron Horse Sunday. With this being his first ride out on this new bike there was lots of fiddling with setting to get the bike riding right.
So after meeting up, there was Me, Jeff, James W and Matt we headed up Win Hill so that we could ride the moorland single track and Hopton section to really test the bike out.

We ended up doing a couple of runs down the single track as it was so good. Then we headed further down the hill were Matt had a off which was only seen by me which would have looked great on video as it involved lots of spinning in the air! He was luck not to land on a massive rock that was only a matter of feet away.
After that we decided to really test James’ new bike and are own riding so we went up Mono for the first time in months. This track is one for the summer months and this was the first time we had ridden it for quite some time. I had forgot how may evil rocks there are up there ready to throw you off line. Jeff decided not ride and just take pictures which was good as the weather and view made for some great shots. It looks so good up there when all the ferns come out really adds something to the pictures, gives them a really nice contrast.

The top section was very dry and dusty which made from some interesting corning especially on the last corner before it gets steeper just over half way down. We did a number of full runs which is quite tricky but once you get it nailed it feels so good.

08-06-07 WinHill+Mono6ti JW+MP+JI+JK, 25 Pictures

I’ve been out riding various DH routes recently, but not really had much time to write about them (or made the effort), so heres a round up of the last four rides featuring the current four ‘usual suspects’.

21st April, Chapel Gate
Nicky and I parked at the back of Mam Tor and sessioned the bridleway there for a while before riding along Rushup Edge to reach Chapel Gate, somewhere I’d never ridden (although Nicky had probably ridden it once years ago, like everywhere else), I knew it was rocky but I was still surprised how rocky, it was still good fun tho and we got some nice shots.

08-04-21 Chapel Gate NB+JK, 13 Pictures

6th May, Jacob’s Ladder, Edale
I got a lift over to Edale with Ben and we parked at Shane’s pub, before a fair distance of road (and ‘road’) riding to get to Jacob’s Ladder, we decided to walk and carry our bikes up the steeper but shorter footpath to the main corner. The name ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ originates from the Bible where a guy called Jacob saw in a dream a stairway (or ladder) leading from Earth up to Heaven. It certainly felt like it was going to Heaven by the time we’d got near the top, especially with all my camera gear. On the subject of which I later realised I hadn’t brought any discs for my camcorder, nuts! So this let concentrating on pictures, which worked out quite well.

Ben was on his first outing on his ‘new’ Kona Stab which had all sorts of randomly sourced parts on it, having previously been on a much lighter XC full-sus Rocky Mountain, he soon found the joys of riding the more tech rocky lines rather than taking the smoothest line. We pushed all the way to the top and got a few pictures on the first straight, and then Shane found a drop off a drainage feature. We did a helmet cam train on the way down, and all had fairly good runs. Then back to Shane’s pub (The Nag’s Head, Edale) and enjoyed a pint and review of the footage and pictures before heading home.

08-05-06 Jacobs Ladder Shane+Ben+JK, 30 Pictures

12th May, WinHill
Nicky, Ben and I met up for some riding on WinHill, we spent the whole time riding as the tracks were riding that well, so we only took a few pictures on our last descent, and after processing they have been rationed to one per person. On the way home I had the weird experience of a bat brushing across my shoulder!, I kept my head down after that.

13th May, HopeX-DH
I met Shane as I ascended the bridleway out of Aston as he’d had time and energy to spare and rode down to meet me. We pushed up, then rode down the ridge and then into the woods at the top of HopeX-DH, no sooner than we closed the gate Nicky appeared pushing up, “I love it when a plan comes together” 😀 . We sectioned the track filming each other, moving fast to keep the light, and got pretty much the whole track. Nicky then left us and Shane and I pushed back up to the first corner where I pulled the stills camera out, and inevitably the flash too as it was too dark for natural light, and we mastered a line with a nice rock jump at the end of it. As it got dark we returned up the ridge and then down the Aston bridleway. I nearly hit a rabbit on the road down from Aston, good job it moved otherwise I would have had to bunny hop it! 😆 😀 ( …and I can’t bunny hop 🙁 ).

08-05-13 HopeX-DH Shane+JK, 7 Pictures

Hope you’ve enjoyed my ramblings, and if you ever think we’re being lazy and not putting up any content remember to check out the gallery cos we’re probably put up pictures and not written any words to go with them (the story of my education…). Anyway I’m riding tomorrow night, o and Friday night, so I need some sleep now.

In conclusion, the tracks and weather are great for evening rides at the moment, so get out there and ride!!!

Yesterday Irwin and I headed up WinHill, we met in Thornhill and went down the footpath to the railway, the last wooded section was a Class 1 Sloppenfest, with back wheels weaving all over the path. We then went up to the moorland single track and had two good runs down there, fortunately the strong wind was behind us.

I rode the root section below the steps, while Irwin took pictures, then we swapped over for the top section of Parkin Clough. I was pleased with my flash which could light Irwin up from the other side of the gully, 8-10 metres away.

Later on we went out to Hurst Clough which wasn’t as wet as expected, only the run-in on the first straight was covered in water. We did a few runs and took some pictures, which I was fairly pleased with.

08-01-26 WinHill+Hurst Clough JI+JK, 12 Pictures