24th July 2008 - Askham for High Street

7 turned out for a warm evening, Grant, John, Chris, Charlie, Jamie, Neil and Paul, the swimming pool was open and in use, it was very tempting. The route is basically a big climb followed by a downhill (still with climbing!!) and it goes something like this; out of the village heading south, through Helton and carry on until a fork in the road, go right, onto an unfenced road, look for a right turn near some buildings at Rough Hill Tarn. The bridleway starts climbing and heading in a south west direction. Follow this all the way up to Loadpot Hill, it's quite a climb Jamie lead the way, C&C following waiting for a chance to overtake!!! but no, we needed a pause and so walked a bit, back on bikes near the top the track diverges and some wanted to go up and others to take a track on the left (the actual bridleway as it happens) and so the group got split up for the final assent, Charlie and Jamie on the bridleway, C,G & N half way along before teeing off and climbing straight up and P&J going the steady way up. Any how we all made it in the end and had snack time by the trig point. From this point down it's High Street, although you can divert to the west and check out the view point at Arthur's Pike, we stayed on High St, and headed down to the Cockpit before carrying on down to Askham, with a little downhill racing, at one point seeing who could brake the latest, Grant left it a little too late, especially as Charlie did not have the gate open, and guess what, Grant crashed into the gate with his new fork/wheel set up!!! So we all made it back in one piece and had time for a little drink in the pub afterwards. Next ride Sedbergh for Dent.

17th July 2008 - Elterwater

A slight drizzle was in the breeze, but 4 hardy souls turned out, Grant, Neil, Jamie & Chris. We set out up past the quarry and onto the testing route (i.e. a walk, but it would make a tricky downhill later maybe) up through Sawrey's Wood, heading past Dale End to Little Langdale, at the road we decided to go right and climb up and over to High Tilberthwaite, this is a good testing but do-able climb, with a reward of a downhill, just near the top J & C had a little race thing going on, but as soon as the route started downhill C eased off to the inevitable faster downhill 29er! Just at the farm turn left and tee off towards the play-ground area, here we went right to Hodge Close, then uphill to Oxen Fell to take the downhill in the NT Tongue Intake Plantation, still very good, but now there is an optional jump, you just need to hit it at the right speed, maybe someday! At the bottom we turned left and climbed up and out towards Stang End, down to the ford (very deep) back up the lane to Dale End to take the testing descent back to the quarry, it's quite a test! All back safely, Elterwater is great but tooooo much choice! According to Neils bike computer the riding time was 1 hr 39 mins and we travelled 10.7 miles. Next ride is from Askham up to High St.

10th July 2008 - Keswick for Whinlatter ride

The weather looked good in south lakeland, the few folk who were not on holiday looked keen for Keswick, even young Harry (now not so young!) planned to come, in the end a few folk must have looked at the forecast, George turned up and gave a lift to CT, Jamie made it up (but without Harry, something about mechanical problem), so it looked like 3, but Jamie had arranged a secret weapon, that being Max a local guide and what's more Max bought along a riding partner in the shape of Emily (soon to be Trans-Alp-ing check out http://www.bike-transalp.de/englisch/ that's 600km in 8 days, just don't tell Emily how big the mountains are!). So we headed out of the car park near the old station, by the swimming pool and headed through town, the idea being to check out the new Whinlatter Forest Park Altura Mountain Bike Trail (ref:http://www.forestry.gov.uk/forestry/infd-79yfhn) and some other local trails. This involved a couple of miles of lanes so good opportunity to warm up, head along the road until Braithwaite then take the lane towards the visitors centre, along the way we headed off and through some tracks and fire-road until we got to the visitors centre. I won't bore you with the route details albeit we rode around the completed north section, including some timber planks (no board-walk, Grant, and totally optional, just a tad slippy, no real bruises!) on up some steep testing singletrack, a bit of fire-road and some impressive views, at least before the rain came. There are some switchbacks, berms, tree roots and the last section is an epic downhill, twisty and jumpy a great end to the official trail. At this point it was fairly raining so we just headed on down using local trails, all well guided by Max, although at one point he mentioned some slippy rock formation, I asked was it rideable? oh yes Max and Emily said, so when we got to said rocky section, Emily stopped, so I though slippy or grippy, but it was fine, Emily was just being cautious in the rain before her Alps trip in 5 days. Thanks to Jamie for the cake supply; we rode back on the lanes and managed to get a hose down before we were back at the cars, a bit too wet to wait for chips so we headed home, well Jamie would have had to stop for chips, just a snack to see him home. Thanks also to Max & Emily for the loacl guiding. PS While in Keswick check out the local bike shop KMB (http://www.keswickbikes.co.uk/acatalog/information.html). Next week it's Elterwater.

3rd July 2008 - Lowick for Satterthwaite

6 riders met up near the Red Lion, Lowick Bridge, Chris M & T, Neil, John, Jamie and Ian. We set off north along the Crake Valley to take the right hand hill up Bletherbarrow Lane, this is a killer warm-up and as it happened one member of the group did not make the hill start. As we were heading along the lower valley lane warming up, someone had a rear type blow out, (no names ..Ian "and it was a brand new tyre") and so he had to walk back to his car because the tyre had split too much to fix, but he does live locally and so he may change his tyre and meet us at the top of the descent (he's done it before) just to avoid the first hill!!! The rest of us continued on, merging at the top with the bridleway and enjoying the muddy puddles before the downhill to High Ickenthwaite, join the lane turn left and head to Force Mills, we ignored the shortcut left bridleway at Force Forge and choose to try out the little testing route to the right at Force Beck, we tried it going up, you need to walk in places and 3 of us tried it going down, 2 dabs. Then we all continued up the road to Satterthwaite where we took the bridleway of Moor Lane, keep going up, at the first gate we were offered flapjack, no just yet, so we made Neil carry it further up the climb! More up hill with rest stops at the fireroads, now we get flapjack (made with dates and coconut, nice!) onwards to the top and cross to High Parksmoor, more puddles, here I noticed that although I got wet feet peddling through the larger puddles, Neil on his full susser did not, something about higher bottom bracket! It was getting darker on top, no rain yet but it looked due at any moment, jackets on and head along, enjoy the view over Coniston and we met up with, guess who, Ian turned up with a new tyre all ready for the downhill. It's a great tester, watch those rocks, I passed Jamie heading back up for more he shouted something like "the rocks are grippy" but did I hear slippy or grippy, mind games? pick a route, ignore everything and just ride, it's great. Re-group and continue along and down a few more rocks and switch-backs to enjoy. Brilliant, back onlong the road in a little shower of rain and into the pub to discuss past and future rides.
Next ride is Keswick.