This has always been my favourite time of year, maybe it’s the easter eggs, maybe it’s because it’s my birthday, or maybe its because it feels like summer is coming, the days start getting longer the sun starts to shine more and the trails just feel great after the cold dark wet winter.
Thanks to two posh folk getting married most of us got some extra holidays so I decided to spend mine back home, in the North riding my bike with some good mates.
It usually takes around 5-6 hours to drive back to the mother land so a quick stop off on the way up to Lee Quarry helped break the tedium of motorway driving. The sun was certainly out and it was blazing hot so lots of suncream was needed for the exposed trails on this exposed Yorkshire hill top. It’s really great what they have done up here lots of nice short loops that can be rode again and again and some very challenging black options, plus the pump track here are awesome good fun. We finished the day off with a pub lunch in Pooley Bridge and a quick blast down Arthur’s Pike, a no nonsense how fast dare you go downhill.
The main reason for this visit was to ride some real hills in the Lakes (no trail centres if possible) and take advantage of the amazing terrain up here.
First ride out was a route that takes in Garburn Pass and some of the bridleways and tracks that roam the hills in this area, lovely warm day, with some great rocky and loose descents (and ascents too). Unfortunately my rear mech problems continued to hound me on most of the descent so a new one was bought to ensure the remaining days could be enjoyed to the full.
We had to bow to group pressure on the next day and ride a trail centre, it was a much larger group and it was a safer option to cater for all skill levels.
Though I have been to Drumlanrig before i’ve either ridden it wrong or they have more recently added extra to the red trail so it’s actually a decent length loop. There is nothing too serious here just some nice singletrack through the woodland, quite a lot of it feels very natural and it was quite nice to have a easier ride after the previous day.
Our next lakes ride was Walna Scar, a fairly well known route and often praised as being one the of ‘must do’ descents in the Lakes.
Starting off it was a nice ride along the lakeside (Coniston). In an alteration to the stated route we descending into Seathwaite, one reason being it looked like it could be a fun down and another reason there was a pub. After a pint and an amazing bit of carrot cake (seriously nice) we made the trek up to the top of Walna Scar.
The trek up was hard, made even more so by the wind that was coming straight down the valley, however this was nothing compared to how windy it was up top, the bigger gusts were enough to knock you over and if you jumped up in the air you would land a few feet further back from you where started.
The run down Walna Scar is as good as they say, wide, rocky and probably very fast if you do not have to fight the wind all the way down, it was very tough going and not as fun as it could of been.
Since the wind was still present the next morning we made the choice to do a route with more tree cover and hopefully more shelter. We had tried a route around Claiffe Heights and Loughrigg fell over the xmas break but too much snow had forced us to abandon it, this time it was dry and sunny and much more inviting, plus it also had a pub stop just over half way round. Superb!
We finished off the day with a few quick runs of Latrigg Fell in Keswick and fell into the trap of the ‘one last run’ curse. Not far from the top Grave came off in a corner and landed heavily on his shoulder, picking himself up he carried on the run, it wasn’t until one hospital trip later we found out he’d broken his collarbone.
More photos can be found on Graves photo album