Read more on Bike Garage: Lady Cannings MK2

Further information about the trails can be found on Ride Sheffield: Lady Cannings Plantation

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The post Mountain Biking in the Peak District 2013-2016 Video first appeared on Monkeyspoon.com.

With James running Bike Garage and Shane Peak ebikes, we had the chance to play with the latest full suspension electric mountain bikes from Trek and Haibike. And what better place to try them out than our old proving ground, Hope Cross (aka The Beast).

After filming the video, we carried on up to descend Potato Alley, climbed up the other side and over to Gores, so had a chance to try them on a variety of terrains and gradients.

A couple of notes on the technology. It only puts in power when you peddle, so it’s not like a motorbike. The assistance reduces and stops as you go above 15mph and you realise you’re not superhuman after all. All that high technology adds a fair bit of weight to the bike (and that’s unlikely to change any time soon), so on the flat when you’re going faster than 15mph (or if your battery were to run out) you have a lot of bike to pedal.

James’ Thoughts – Riding the Trek Powerfly FS 8 LT

“So I like ebikes,  but probably not for the reasons you might at first think. Often they are dismissed as a way of cheating, getting an advantage of your fellow rider. If that’s your game then yes you could quite easily use them to set the fastest KOM’s (King of the Mountain) on strava or equivalent. But for most people their real intended use is to allow you to ride further, take in more interesting routes, challenge yourself. Rather than being limited, because you know there is that hill. Effectively to give you the same freedom that as a cyclist we all enjoy.

With that said your probably wondering what that has to do with the challenge at hand. Climbing the beast, well our logic was if you can climb this route (spoiler alert: you can) then think of all the possibilities.  I was riding the Powerfly FS 8 LT, which in case your wondering FS is Full Suspension and LT stands for Long Travel. 150mm front and rear so you can enjoy the downs as much as the climbs. This model and other LT models also feature plus size wheels. The tyre width of 2.8 inch provided a really big benefit on this rocky climb, with Bontrager staying away from fitting a super knobby tyre and have gone for the chupacabra. Which provides good grip without compromising the rolling resistance on less technical trails. Where this bike really excels for me is when you get it going downhill, it feels super planted and very confidence inspiring to ride.”

Jeff’s Thoughts – Riding the Trek Powerfly FS 7
“It was very impressive technology, the assistance of the motor was useful when tired (or lazy). Getting to the point where I’d normally give up and push (which is often), and being able to wack it up to full power and peddle with easy was great. But on technical climbing, like on Hope Cross, it was quite different for normal climbing. The assistance gives the feeling that gravity or the steepness has greatly reduced, until you lose rear wheel grip, can’t get power into the pedals, or your front wheel won’t go up a rock, then you quickly stop. The easy of pedalling and speed from the assistance gives a false sense of momentum. For those concerned that eBikes make mountain biking too easy or might take the skill out of technical climbs, they didn’t in our test. I performed about half as well on this climb as the other two (I gave up three quarters of the way the first straight), so about the same ratio to how well they do when we’re on normal bikes. Climbing Hope Cross remains a hard challenge.”

Shane riding the Haibike SDURO AllMtn Plus

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The post Bike Garage – Peak District Mountain Biking video first appeared on Monkeyspoon.com.

Hopefully it’ll be dusty and sunny for this year’s race (Saturday 17th May www.steelcitydh.com).

Steel City DH, Greno Woods, 380 Race Photos

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Steel City DH, Greno Woods, 598 Race Photos

12-04-21 Peatys Steel City Downhill, 42 Pictures by Jeff

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I started out making a best of 2011 video and then extended it to include the last 3 years. Apart from it being previously seen footage to new music, quite a bit of the 2011 stuff is new and there are some older unseen short bits and a few alternate shots that weren’t in the original videos. For more of these videos see the Video pages for the last 3 years.

The bridleways we’re riding are all named, see more info on them on the track pages and you can also view their locations (and much more) on the OS tracks map.

The post Mountain Biking in the Peak District (2009,2010,2011) Video first appeared on Monkeyspoon.com.

Below are the pictures taken there this year:

11-03-24 Bamford Pump Track JI+JK+OS+JR, 7 Pictures by Jeff

11-03-31 Bamford Pump Track JI+JK+JH+TH+JR+, 25 Pictures by Jeff

11-04-14 Bamford Pump Track JI+OS+AM+JR, 16 Pictures by Irwin

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I remember the first time I ever found out about Ambergate, it was at least 8 years ago. However at that point I didn’t have a means of transport to get there. So quite a few year past by until I was able to drive and we headed down south,to go check it out.

For those who haven’t been I can best describe Ambergate as a flatter less technical version on Wharncliffe. Although the tracks are no where near as steep or as long as Wharncliffe it shares the same wild west approach to trail building. I mean that as a good thing. With the local trail fairies always hard at work, there are a number of trails in the woods. Some old, that have seen large amount of traffic. Some relatively new loamy trails like the one feature at the start of the below video.

“Downhill trails” are something of a sort after items in Derbyshire, yes we are blessed with stacks of natural bridleways covering a huge range of technical difficulties. But something that you don’t often find are corners. I know this sounds daft but think of your local bridleway most of these are purposeful rights of way that you string together together into routes. They are not often designed with mountain biking in mind. After all what we recognise as a mountain bike didn’t even exist when they were first opened. Riding a downhill bike on a bridleway always feels like overkill, and is something that can get bikers into trouble when sharing the route with other user groups. So places like Ambergate and Wharncliffe are great, as you can get loads of time on your bike. Riding a trail that warrants the use of a downhill bike. Anyway random talk over, having visited Ambergate less than 10 times I know the location of most of the trails I still have yet to master them though.

The Video features various trails within the woods all starting from the main pike. They range quite abit in terms of rider experience. The original mainline being the fastest with a couple of jumps and drops along the way. The Loamy track featured at the start of the video despite being the shortest would probably have to be my favorate. The other trail featured is much tighter to the trees with a good number of turns and roots to catch you out.

11-11 Ambergate JI+JK+JG, 12 Pictures by Jeff

The post Ambergate 11-2011 first appeared on Monkeyspoon.com.

Last Thursday was Shane’s birthday and he’d arranged a ride on his old home turf; Edale. As part of his present Irwin had got him some new ‘aerodynamic’ bar ends (word on the track is Gwin will be running them at the Worlds) and plastic spokey dokies (personally, I was disappointed he hadn’t got anodised aluminium ones, but apparently they don’t exist!).

I (Jeff), Irwin, Shane, Alex (aka That Megson Youff), Nat & Josh rode up from Edale and sessioned the Hollins Cross -> Greenlands bridleway before being joined by Joe (aka ProBow) and Ruari (of This Is Sheffield fame). The track was dry and dusty and we did many runs.

We then headed up the ridge towards Mam Tor and down the bridleway that traverses the back of Mam Tor to the top of Mam Tor -> Greenlands bridleway and then down that. It’s is holding up pretty well from when we worked on it two years ago and is still great fun.

Shane completed his compulsory actions check-list that he uses for all rides we go on:

• Get puncture    √
• Chase sheep    √
• Crash    √
• Rip shorts in an embarrassing place    √

Unfortunately he missed out on top marks, by not using his catch phrase. An honourable stupidity mention also goes to Nat, for riding into a ditch on the way back down the road.

All in all it was a great evening of riding in the sun, topped off with a pint and chip butties at The Rambler Inn in Edale. – Shane needs to have a birthday more often!

11-08-25 HollinsCross-Greenlands+MamTor-Greenlands, 19 Pictures by Jeff.

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