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.

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.

When later asked about the ride Irwin said: “Cheese and marmalade sandwiches are quite nice.”

There are also pictures of me and Matt riding there a few weeks ago in the Image Gallery:
11-04-23 HopeX JK+MA, 14 Pictures by Jeff and Matt

The post Hope Cross DH – May 2011 Video first appeared on Monkeyspoon.com.

Having failed to get out for proper group ride 2010, we put things right on the first day 2011 with the New Years Day ride. Irwin, Jeff and Matt A meet up with Jack R and his mate Joe Mallinson (who set the second fastest time at a recent Dual Race) in Aston and following an obligatory puncture repair, we sent off up the bridleway out of Aston. After many years of unblocking the tiny hole in the wall where the stream crosses the track, we were amazed to find a proper channel had been dug under the wall! Perhaps the track will not be a river for the rest of the winter this year!?

Jeff recently got a new stills camera, a Sony Alpha 55 (a DSLR with a twist), so was keen to take lots of pictures and try out the HD video performance.

Route on OS Map Length: 16km / 10 miles

11-01-01 HopeBrinks+HopeX+HaggTor+Gores JI+JK+MA+JR+JM, 38 Pictures by Jeff

The post New Years Day Ride 2011 first appeared on Monkeyspoon.com.

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.

The post Christmas 09 riding & Left Overs video first appeared on Monkeyspoon.com.

I found more parts to add to my collection for ‘Project Trail Bike 2009’, which is a challenge involving building a bike from parts I find on the trails in 2009. So far I have two orange pedal reflectors (so I’ll be able to legally ride it on the road at night ), half a (genuine) Shimano large front ring guard and the end part of a large metal brake lever (obviously another victim of a tumble on HopeX DH). Inner tubes should be easy to find, although unpunctured maybe a little harder. If anyone finds a frame on a local trail (preferably green and with air rear shock) let me know.

After that we went up the fire-road to Wooler Knoll on the ridge and then rode Brinks Road, which was quite dry and dusty and more smoothed out than previously. It was a very quite day, despite good weather, we saw more motor bikers than mountain bikers and unusually few walkers were out.

09-04-25 HopeX+Brinks Road JI+JK, 13 Pictures by Jeff

The post Hope Cross & Brinks Road April 09 first appeared on Monkeyspoon.com.

Hope X was the first port of call. I was surprised how dry it was so we all pushed up for the first run of the day, down the main straight. Which I really enjoyed on the new bike. Although Nicky was having lots of problems with his Gears skipping due to a worn out drive train. But we came up with a longer run in so he could get enough speed to make things interesting.

First ride in my new troy lee gear, got a bit of stick off everyone about it I decided that it was time to get some popper all weather riding gear so I went for the Grand Prix air Jersey and Pants. After some trial and error Nicky got his gears to work, but only in granny ring which I thought was quite ironic! As I think doing to the coast to coast might have worn them out. Half way up Hagg Tor we stopped off for a break from pushing and had a look around for some different lines to hit. We all spotted a gap/drop just off to the side of the main bridleway, it is something I had looked at before but was put off by the line. This didn’t seam to put Jonny off, saying “I don’t see how it’s actually possible to mess this up”, watch the video to see what happened…

Hagg Tor was good as always, but a little less wind would have been nice! Josh and I did a couple of fun runs down the upper sections while Jonny and Nicky messed around further up. Jonny was his normal creative self finding different lines to ride and mess around on. That boy’s got skills, unfortunately Jeff missed Jonny’s other crash of the day. So I will try to describe it to you instead; after an impressive huck down the near vertical bank on Hagg Tor, Jonny then went flying off the small jump/drop in the run-out, but due to the wind the back of his bike was blown out from underneath him. It almost looked like he was doing a tail whip and he landed with his hands still on the handle bars but the rest of his body completely separated from the rest of his bike. An impressive crash!

Jeff didn’t take his stills camera, guess he expected to be having too much fun with his new video camera. So the only pictures we have are ones that he took on the video camera, but I think the video makes up for it!

We’ve uploaded the video in HD (1280×720) onto Vimeo. You can watch it in full resolution by clicking Vimeo to view it in the Vimeo page then toggle HD on and go into Full Screen.

The post HopeX and Hagg Tor ride & video first appeared on Monkeyspoon.com.

08’08 The Beasts of Hope Cross MID
(640×480, Download, 3ivX, 50MB)

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