Local Routes – Page 2 – R O T H A R . C O M

West to the Hills

Day two of riding. West of Durham is up hill though the west Durham Colafields towards the North Pennines. Today it was about doing some climbing and the sun was out. I hadn’t expected uphill into a headwind, but that’s what I had.

Ti Crown Jewel

From the higher elevations there are some good views to be had, this is looking north west above Langley Moor.

Ti Crown Jewel

Lanchester nothing like Manchester, it’s a small, attractive village nestled in the hills. There’s a 1:5 ascent up Peth Bank to wake you up.

Ti Crown Jewel

Burnhope. Pity Me. Killerby. There are some uplifting names for villages. Another 20 or so miles in the bag…

Back to Basics

riding again

From the first ascent I knew I had lost it all. Any hope of having retained any bike-related fitness evaporated from my pores and in the steam from my gasping lungs. This is what it’s like to be starting again from scratch, legs burning, feet feeling like lead, awkward on the bike. Walking, even up and down cardiac hill on a regular basis, doesn’t prepare your body for the task of fighting a road bike (even a featherweight one) against gravity.

It seemed to make perfect sense, choose the road bike. Everything else into storage. The rationale being that skinny wheels were best for covering distance and exploring a new landscape and the villages and towns within it. Over the last six weeks I’ve often thought that the ‘cross bike would have been the better choice, particularly due to the seemingly vast network of disused railway lines, but I keep reminding myself that just means more mess. And so as I once again drop off the big ring to crawl up another incline, I confirm my decision. There was no other option.

The offers are coming in. Once you get settled lets go mountain biking at Hamsterley. Kielder. Into the Dales. I’m missing sliding around corners and bouncing down trails, but today is about grinding out the miles and noting mentally which former pit villages are to be avoided. By and hour and half in my legs give up. The rest is still willing, but ten miles from home and increasingly cold and wet, my legs have hoisted the white flag and are begging for me to stop.

Meanwhile my feet have picked up on the fact that the thick merino socks I was sure I’d packed are absent and that actually race socks and shoes don’t offer suitable protection from the elements. Later they burn and tingle as they get circulation moving back through them under a hot shower. The return to Durham requires use of Google Maps to avoid ending up on dual carriageways and occasionally my legs forget that they’re destroyed and I stomp on the pedals and progress nicely (this is usually downhill) and as I eventually find my way back to my digs there is a strange and somewhat forgotten sense of achievement. Maybe I am still a rider after all.

Jodphur Cafe

This week’s Tuesday afternoon adventure was to the Jodphur Cafe in Reddish Vale. It’s always been a welcoming place for muddy mountain bikers and thankfully they don’t seem to mind small children either. Even if they do make a terrific mess eating muffins. Turns out that next door to the cafe is a farm where you can take under 3s for free which meant a nice bonus treat for the boys. Most climbing of any ride with the trailer so far, but survived okay. Not likely to get a ride in next Tuesday which was my last scheduled afternoon off.

See the Hills

Picked the boys up from Nursery again on Tuesday Lunchtime and headed straight out on another adventure. We took the Fallowfield loop line to the eastern most limit, which is the edge of Debdale Park. Turns out the bit of land that used to have a few dirt jumps on it is now part of the golf course and the old industrial site next to it is now being turned into a housing estate.

The Boys

The View

So having got quite close to the Audenshaw reservoirs and the M60 we doubled back and headed off in searhc of ice cream. Suitably equipped with icy treats we stopped by the reservoir to spot ducks before heading off home. Good jaunt and a few more miles logged on the Singlespeed towing the trailer.

The trailer is looking a bit battle scarred. This come from being squeezed, dragged and scraped through various trail barriers. The canopy is also looking a bit dogged. The who thing did a full barrel roll and back onto the wheels whilst unladed one day last week on the nursery run. Took a right hander corner and next thing I knew it had gone. Not sure if it caught an edge of a pot hole but it rolled nonetheless.

The Damage

I’m going to try and get some kevlar fabric and sew it on.

Seeing Red

Day off yesterday, so headed out on the road bike. I was immediately reminded that the pawls on the Mavic Helium freehub are bolloxed and I need to order some new ones from the hub doctor. Nonetheless in general motoring around it was fine. I am also having to come to terms with the fact that I cannot just big ring it everywhere and I will occasionally need to use the front mech.

The results of doing so were interesting – the acceleration once you put the hammer down on the Ti Crown Jewel is insane. I think the super stiff cranks and BB setup just equate to immediate power transfer and coupled with the right gearing the bike accelerates like stink. When you’re slightly lifting the front wheel when gunning it then you know something is going on. Those SRAM Red levers shift so sweetly down the block too.

The ride itself was rather intense. The conditions when I left seemed to be cool and overcast and within 15 minutes became sunny and then incredibly humid. This on the whole was okay as long as you kept moving, but once you stopped then it was a hot and sweaty affair. Worst was being stuck in insane amounts of traffic for a mid-week ride outside of rush hour and then getting stopped at every single set of red lights. I kid you not it was like I was a bloody red light magnet yesterday.

Red lights

At the top of the climb out of Woodley into Hyde I felt like my brain was boiling. At least getting on the down hills provided some relief. Short on water I headed home sooner than planned, but I am at least getting some mojo back. A combination of more biking, a bit of running at a kettlebells class once a week is seeing an improvement in my general fitness and clearly I’ve lost some weight as shorts that wouldn’t fit before do now. Still someway to go to get back into a decent level of form, but those Peak District hills are calling.

Singletrack plus extra track

As the in laws are on holiday for a month I’ve booked off Tuesday afternoons to look after the boys. So today at 1pm I scooped them up from nursery and bundled them into the trailer. It was adventure time.

Suitably armed with children’s snacks, spare nappy and baby wipes we were off. The downside to being lax on the riding front is that I have just discovered my Camelbak bladder has been stewing for the last god knows how long in the muddy Camelbak from my last ride. It is far from usable. I think it had water in it, but can’t be sure. It may now have aquatic life in it.

So my MULE was not sloshing with water but it did have other trail essentials and some water bottles. We were going off roading. Hooked up on the Fallowfield loop line, made a beeline to Chorlton and then took Hawthorn Lane down to the Mersey.

No way through...

The bloody kissing gates and horse step boxes were a nightmare. I manages to get the bike and trailer through one kissing gate after 5 minutes contorting bikes and then gave up. It was quicker to decouple and do it that way. I also did haul it up and over through a few of the horse step boxes, but that was only a recipe for breakage.

From there the TPT took us to Chorlton Water Park where after ice creams we had a pleasant, but bumpy ride up to Northenden before turning North for the ride home. That ribbon of occasional smooth single track is ok on a bike, but he wide track of the trailer meant a less smooth journey for the boys. I don’t think we’ll try that again.

Nick

We were home via a trip to the park to play on the swings after 2 hours riding and 16 miles hauling. My knees ache and I’m knackered but it was good to get out. Now I have a week to plan the next route…

Seven Month Drought Ends

It’s been just over seven months since I did more than a mile or so biking. So today I decided to change that which led to 12.2 miles biking down to the River Mersey and back to ‘see the ducks’. Inappropriate clothing, no real plan for a route, no spares, money or time constraints. Just a bike that’s a bit too small length-wise for me, which I have to pedal in a weird way so my heels don’t clip the child seat on the bike, a new riding buddy sitting out back and an afternoon out and about. It was great, the weather didn’t matter (bit of rain at the end) and everyone was either happy or asleep when we arrived home. Oh and the ducks were much appreciated.

Marc's First Long Ride

Hey Jacob…

…it’s been a long time!

I’ve decided that todays ride could have gone in a number of directions. I could have taken the cross bike out. I could have changed the tyres on the singlespeed and taken that, but the most appealling prospect was taking the Remedy out again and letting it rip. The time spent between getting up and setting off to ride was extended a little by having to change tyres from the downhill numbers it’s been wearing recently to some lighter weight treads. As I was ground uphill later I was glad I’d bothered.

From Glossop I had the intent of heading over Chunal and dropping into Hayfield, but a huge traffic tailback saw me take an alternate route via Charlesworth and the Monk’s Road. Thick pea soup fog on the tops meant that the early part of the ride out of Hayfield was a bit overcast. The white shooting cabins at the top of Middle Moor which are usually the point of reference for the turn down to White Brow were hidden in the gloom, so as I nailed it downhill I was hoping it was the right trail.

Snake Path

Turned out it was the right trail, and after hacking up and over Kinder and contouring around some cheeky bits, it was a hack uphill to reach Edale Cross from where it was time to hit Jacob’s Ladder. This is one of my favourite descents, now with a new added roll in and funnel chute at the top… I ran out of disc pads half way down, so just had to go even faster and try not to crash. After the down, there’s always an up, in this case Chapel Gate, which now has ruts 4 to 5 feet deep where the rain has washed away the trail.

The group of five trail bike riders who blitzed passed me on the lower flat sections were soon rediscovered pinned under their bikes, in the process of falling off them, revving the nuts off the engines (but going nowhere) or pushing, dragging and manhandling their bikes. It could be described as messy, but with all the heavy breathing, burning rubber and hot air, it could quite equally be called gay.

I’ve decided that the vast majority of trail bike riders are rubbish. When they come to anything remotely technical and they might as well be wearing pink ballarina slippers and a tutu for all the poncing about going nowhere fast that follows. So they can’t ride up technical climbs, can’t ride down technical descents, about the only time they’re quicker than a mountain bike is when the trails so wide and smooth that they might as well be on the road, which, it seems to me, means they’re missing the entire point of having something with big brakes, a powerful motor and masses of suspension travel…

In Pursuit of Robin Hood

Trail Photo

It had been looking like a complete washout for today with another cold, wet July weekend. Amazingly (and thankfully) the weather forecast was wholly inaccurate for sunday.

It was great to wake up to see out of the window.

I’ve had it in mind for some time to revisit some of the old trails I explored some ten years ago when I first arrived in Manchester. Today’s key trail was the bridleway over the moors that passes Robin Hood’s Picking Sticks.

Despite all the rain the trails were in good condition and it was great to be out riding. It was quiet too, I saw four riders all day and loved some of the great downhills on the Remedy. I think I’ve sussed out the RP23 settings and now have the pro pedal working even better – I managed to complete the ascent up from Mottram Old Road to the summit of the ridge and Werneth Low Road for the first time with no dabs.

Weather Rules

It rained a lot today, this was good news for Lewis Hamilton because it appears Ferrari’s don’t like the rain. The British Grand Prix was an amazing event to watch. In the end at about 4pm the weather changed and with all the gear ready I headed out to Marple. Years ago I led a few rides as part of demo days for Harry Halls which were based at Marple’s Roman Lakes on a cracking little route. I’ve used it a few times since to try other bikes and I still think that it’s a good benchmark.

Escape the Rain

The route has a tricky climb, but the Remedy just swallowed it all up. The grip from the rear end is amazing and very impressive. It doesn’t feel mountain goat like in the same way that the Ti Deluxe does, but pop it in the granny select a sensible gear and concentrate on a line and the bike just does the rest. Very impressive. On the downhill it is great to be back on a long travel bike and the Remedy just flies. It feels balanced and stable in the air and rails through corners. What a cracking bike!