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.