10th January 2008 - Hawkshead for Grisedale

5 intrepid MTBer's met up in Hawkshead on a flood-prone Thursday, as the weather was damp we entered a democratic debate on route choice, some saying Claiffe maybe drier, others opting for the North Face route, the final vote seemed to be taking some time and as Chris M had had a busy day driving around Cumbria he wanted to be off round the North Face trail and so he was, leaving the remainder to make up their minds....! So the NF trail it was, allowing CM a head start the remaining 4 headed up the first climb, joy of joys an up hill warm up, again. We met Chris at the first gate taking a breather, then we continued onto the NF route. This route from Hawkshead, although beginning on a hill means we get to enjoy the downhill single track to the visitors centre, (watch out for the building works and de-tours) where as usual it was raining, so we continued on up the fire-road, during the steady climb and whilst chatting CT clashed handlebars with CSC and fell off, this was not to be his first off of the day. We continued up the steady climb and regrouped at the top to comment of the wet boardwalks! Also Chris M's lights were blinking off and after some investigation, it seemed that the Li-ion battery system has as safety cut out which was coming into play, so Chris had no lights, he decided to continue on the fire-roads with his back up "Black Diamond" LED head torch (very useful). The other 4 carried on and enjoyed the NF trail, pretty good considering the wet weather we had had. We kept meeting up with Chris M on the fire-road until he went past us and carried on back to the car. We reached the final single track and headed down the trail, CT was leading JB for a change, until he came to a damp board-walk section under some trees, here it was like ice, but we did not notice until CT had gone down a pearler, i.e. the front wheel slipped away and CT fell off the board-walk, luckily onto some soft-ish fern. No real harm done, but we noticed that CSC and Joel had not caught us up and so we headed back up the trail, we got all the way back to the fire-road and no sign, so we decided to continue back down the trail, this time slowly over the board-walk, all OK and we met up with the 2 others on the trail, apparently CSC Li-ion had also stopped and so they took the fire road option, so we were now heading down the last descent to Hawkshead by sharing lights, while cycling back to the cars through the village we checked the time and noticed that it was ten to ten, so that's why the lights were going out! Now just time for a drink in the Sun Inn and a warm by the fire. Next ride is at Oxen Park.