Blog
Lake District Soul Rider
Monday, 20 April 2009
A couple of us headed out to The Lakes this weekend for a bit of hardtail trail action. We lucked out on the weather big time with bone dry trails and not a cloud in the sky.
We started proceedings in Ambelside with a stop off at the always welcoming and friendly Biketreks for a few essential last minute maintenance items. In my case a set of new brake pads that clearly weren't going to last an hour of Lake District riding let alone the 5 hours we had planned!
From Ambleside we headed through the park and over the bridge and up the steep tarmac climb which eventually turns into a track and brings you out near Ivy Crag. From here it's an excellent fast downhill to Mill brow with numerous hits along the way if you keep your eyes peeled and your imagination fluid. Here's a pic of Marcus at the start of the decent.
The Ivy Crag decent leads you down to Skelwith Bridge and from here instead of doing our usual climb up High Arnside we decided to follow another trail on the OS that leads you past Iron Keld and allows you to do our usual ascent as a descent..and what a decent it was...singletrack mixed with open grassy sections with rocks, hits and drops everywhere...
After this we headed along the A593 for a short while and then dipped into some trails in the woods en route to Hodge Close..once again a great decent which even had a natural log drop off to the side which we both hit blind...I love that feeling were you think it looks doable but are never quite sure until the last minute..at which point you're committed anyway...
Below Hodge Close we did the usual 'Greek Wedding' decent..well we think that's what it's called or did we just make it up..not sure...anyway it's a narrow gully strewn with loose flat slate giving you that breaking plates sensation as you descend over them.
My memory is a little faded at this point as we explored another new push up and descent, which once again was great and very, very long...then we headed over to our usual rooty, rocky woodland descent down to Elterwater quarries and then onto the Wainwright Arms for a well deserved drink!
From there it was a steady tarmac climb up to Loughrigg Terrace and then the final crakin' decent down to Rydal...fast singletrack that traverses the hillside high above Rydal Water with a very nice small, but perfectly formed, rock slab gap to transition to boot.
On our way back through the park at Ambleside we decided that we had ridden past the large lump of slick rock there too many times without investigating if there was a rideable line down it...so this time we did and and found that there was. As always...it is steeper than it looks in the photo!
| Comments |
|
