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Mam Tor to Greenlands – Track maintenance by Ride the Peak

Jeff — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 10:36:12 +0000

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 45Â° 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.

[See image gallery at monkeyspoon.com]

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.

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Derwent Edge Bridleway Maintenance

James Irwin — Mon, 04 May 2009 12:44:41 +0000

As some of you may be aware myself, Jeff and Shane are members of Ride the Peak. ‘What is Ride the Peak?’ I hear you say.

“Ride the Peak is a group open to all with like-minded interests in maintaining and enhancing mountain biking in the Peak District”

A couple of weeks ago now we went to carry out some basic maintenance to the Derwent Edge bridleway. There was only a small group of the four of us. With Martin Sharp, who works for the Peak Park, keeping us in line we were able to achieve what we set out to do. Which was to unblock the ‘bomb holes’ so that they could start to dry out.

Anyone who has ever ridden there before will know that in the winter it get extremely muddy. Which leads to users (not just cyclists) trying to find alternative routes around the worst bits. But even in the summer some of the deeper bomb holes just don’t dry out. So we were trying to drain some of the largest puddles/pools of water. Although we did leave a couple as there were full of tadpoles.

09-04-21 Derwent Edge Maintenance, 5 Pictures by Jeff

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Let’s Get Digging!

shane — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 23:29:49 +0000

Right me(Shane) and James are getting together to get some maintenance and new ideas put in down the pump track

So if you want to lend a hand and get together bring a Spade, Mattock, Shovel, any thing to dig with. We’ll be there from round 12ish [On Monday 22nd] till dark just leave a comment and let us know who’s coming

cheers Shane

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Bamford Pump Track 15th & 18th November

James Irwin — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 19:50:02 +0000

Not had any updates on the site recently so to make up for it here are two at once!

Pump track 18th November
The pump track has been looking a little neglected recently so me and Shane headed down on Tuesday afternoon and cleared the leafs of the track and sorted the drainage. But we also decided to give the jumps a make over. And have started to alter the jump line, the plan being to move the first take off a couple of feet further up the hill and generally make the whole set bigger and safer. We removed the old Bowling green roller from the first table and whole load of other rubbish (half a bed). We got the first take off rebuilt in the new position although it still needs a little bit of work to shape it just right. I will get some pictures soon. Hopefully we can organise some more digging down there, leave a comment if you can lend and hand with the aim being to re-dig the lot bigger and better than before as the ground is nice and soft at the moment (think of the positives).

Anyway back to the riding, after we had cleared the layer of leaves that was covering over half the pump track it improved things, even making it possible to put some of the more technical lines together into full laps.We only left about 40mins of light at the end of the day to do some riding and take pictures but i am pleased with the results. Shane brought his mini pump track bike down for its first test run see if you can spot it.

08’11’18 Pump Track JI+ST, 12 Pictures by James

Pump track 15th November

I hadn’t been riding with Jeff in quite some time so i suggested that we meet up one night at the pump track, having not been down there for quite some time it was interesting to say the least. Even trying to complete full laps was a difficult enough task, all good practice for the summer though. We did our normal mixture of riding and sitting on the bikes and talking.

But after a couple of failed laps the technique started to come back to us, even with the leaves and damp ground trying to do the best to stop it. The main problem was leaves sticking to the tyres and frames creating loads of rub. The bmx was suffering a lot with this so after i while i ditched the bmx and we took it in turns riding Jeff’s bike.

We got some good pictures of us riding the bank berms which was covered in a layer of leaves making for both interesting riding and pictures, i suppose those two are linked. Anyway get out and ride!

08’11’15 Pump Track JI+JK, 7 Pictures by Jeff

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2 and a bit birds, 1 stone.

nicky — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 11:59:50 +0000

Exams are but a few weeks away, which means revision is looming and encroaching on riding time. However mother nature is being kind at the moment and giving us ridable light until late in the evenings. So I have been riding quite regually mainly with Jeff. We sessioned the brinks road DH track on Sunday & Monday (yes we pulled our fingers out of our arses and got out riding).

On Tuesday I headed up Pindale with Jeff, Shane & Ben. We had a pretty good time playing on rollers and a tricky rock section some where halfway up the quarry face, only Shane made it through and he did so by endowing on slippy jagged rocks, nice. We sessioned a small drop and scouted a maybe doable gap jump which would look awesome on film. With all the playing we only had time for a couple of runs. On the last run Jeff took some photos. It was about 8.30 and pretty much dark. Jeff kindly got his flash out and blinded us leaving us to blindly hold on for dear life down the rock track.

Yesterday (Wednesday) me and johnny headed up to the quarry above the millstone. We didn’t ride but did some digging. The old hip is rebuilt some roller drops have been rebuilt and we built a gap drop which is quite big. Should be good for a session some time soon (maybe after exams or one evening).

On other news, there are rumors of some spangly monkeyspoon.com jerseys! (talk to Irwin if you are interested in one, the current idea is to base them around sombrio jerseys).

Nicky

08-04-03 Black Rabbit, 13 Pictures

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Thursday (3rd April) pump track sesh.

James Irwin — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 22:08:41 +0000

Nice short post, pump track sesh thursday from around 5, list of people attending is growing so make sure you get there. Would be nice to see some people that have been off the bike for a while (Nicky). I will around all afternoon so let me know what your plans are. Pump track is nice and dry and running fast so make sure you bring your hailtails and i will bring the big pump down so we can get some high pressures going. There is some new stuff, allot if you have not been down for a while. So make sure you dont miss out. We should be able to get a good few hours in before it gets dark.

This is a oldish picture of Tim from No cycling railing the far berm, this berm has since increased in size making it even more fun. Please let me know if you can make it. List so far is Jeff, Shane, Jonny, Myself, Matt , Ben Armit and Nicky and i have asked a couple of other people so dont miss out

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Meeting up for a ride, plus some news

James Irwin — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 20:22:02 +0000

Okay after this snow has past does anyone fancy going out for a ride on monday or tuesday of next week. Just think this time last year it was the driest march for years shocking. I have spoken to a couple of people about riding on Monday (depending on the weather) ,Tuesday if not so if you are free let us know.

In other news

BMX spraying guide, As most of you will know i recently bought an bmx (second hand). I thought to make it a bit more special i would re-spray it. As a helpful guide to anyone else interested in spraying there frames i thought i would write a short guide of the steps and helpfull hints so look out for that in a couple of days. Shane is also going to respray his hardtail so we should have some more pictures to add in the following weeks.
Helmet camera, Shane is in the process of buying a helmet camera which when up and running will allow us to gets some good quality video footage to add to the “Tracks Page”. To give a better impression of the different tracks around.
Bamford Pump track, I have been down there digging a fair bit the last couple of days so there is some new stuff to test your skills on. But can i please ask that you keep noise to a minimum and make sure you pick up any litter.

(please note not full screen as only preview )

Further update Right got the frame sprayed and put everything back together so this is what it looks like now. I have got some crank arms, just waiting on an axle so i can put them on. Plus i have ordered some Fit (bike make) stickers to put on it so everyone knows who made it. Would be nice to know what everyone thinks to the colours, so please let me know.

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Dig Day MKII at Joes this Sunday

Jeff — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 20:48:35 +0000

“Joes place, 10:30 ish

This Sunday…

Bring a spade!”
DHP

Any takers?

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Dig Day at Joe’s

Jeff — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 21:07:54 +0000

We had a successful dig day at Joe’s on Saturday, with Joe, Jonny and myself (Jeff) present. Joe had already done the first roller line and the majority of the berm. The first thing I noticed about the rollers was they were pretty big, twice the size of the ones at the Bamford Pump Track, also the track slopes slightly down into the first berm, meaning you can just roll into the first berm without much effort if you want to.

The berm is a little different to anything I’ve seen or ridden before, the down slope from the roller is quite long before the berm starts to curve, its fairly tight with a high wall and steep angle on the wall. The exit is the interesting part, a metre high large roller. It took some time to perfect the roller position, angles, and size, and even more time to perfect riding it. The combination of speed tightness and the exit roller means the berm has real kick to it, sucking you in and spitting you out where you don’t expect to be. If you don’t get you line right you end up shooting out the berm and going of the right side of the roller, or if you don’t have the speed to make it to the summit you have to jump off you’re bike and back to ground level. O and braking cos you’re scared would be a mistake too.

After we had finished digging for the day Jonny headed home and Joe and I pushed up the hill for some razzin ‘n shootin. I set up my flash on the extension cable and Joe sent the loose bracken flying.

As it got darker I noticed the sky was looking good with dark clouds and some slightly pink sky in between, after a bit of fiddling with the flash brightness and shutter speed I had the camera set to get the nice sky in the shot too.

I decided to go a bit controversial and keep the flash burst in shot, I think it adds something.
I threw the wide angle lens into the fray later on and then with the setup good we swapped over and got some ones of me looking quite good for a change (the pictures and riding, not me ).

When we came back down the hill we stopped at the rocky track for some more shooting, it was pretty much dark by time I’d set up, so Joe had to stop as soon as the flash fired and blinded him.

Thanks to Joe’s mum for the egg and bacon cobs, not just cos digging is hungry work, but more for the opportunity to see Joe make the Text Book mistake when eating an egg cob… again.

I doubt it will be long ’til there’s another dig day, so make sure you get yowr ass to the next one, in the mean time check out the progress in the Image Gallery.

08-02-23 Joes Dig Day JK+Joe+Jonny, 28 Pictures

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Dig Day 23rd Feb

joe90 — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 13:20:34 +0000

Pump track is coming along nicely…
Just need a few people to come lend a hand on the 23rd if people are around??

Theres some pics over on DHP of the progress so far!

Bring shovels, spades, mattocks and biceps.

Cheers, Joe

Event Gone – Write up here.

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