Another year, more mountains. A bit of a Lakes heavy one this year – a possible move back to Scotland (fingers crossed, anyone want to employ a geologist in the Central Belt?) next year will hopefully redress the balance a bit. I also managed to sneak in another trip abroad this year, to the lesser-visited Vosges Mountains.

Here’s the video.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F39T12I2T4s[/youtube]

Helvellyn

My uni cycling club turned 15 (or maybe 20, it turned out no one knew) this year so back in March we had an anniversary get together with current and old members in the Lakes. With pretty good conditions and the memory of all those that had done it that Sticks Pas was pretty easy going we decided to get up there.

I have, previously, been pretty cruel about how tame Sticks Pass is. I remembered, along with the rest of us that had done it before, tootling along rather uninspiring singletrack. Turns out we’d remembered wrong- it is, actually, a really good ride. It’s not as good as Dollywagon and Grisedale, not by a long shot, but it’s certainly a good day out. We couldn’t do Seldom Seen, the footpath at the bottom with 25 of us in tow, but I’m keen to do Sticks again now to try it out.

Wetherlam

Wetherlam, an often-overlooked mountain in the Coniston Fells to the north of the Old Man of Coniston, has been on my radar for years. It seems it’s a popular evening jaunt for the locals and I had high hopes based on recommendations from the natives.

There’s loads of ways up this, but the way down I’d been recommended wasn’t much cop. It’d been dry for a while when I did it and the trail is mainly a wet grassy line, although it does brighten up nearer the bottom where it joins a skinny rocky trail back down to the beck. While the trail was a bit tame, the conditions when I went up there were superlative – it was total perfection.

Four Passes

I’d had the Four Passes ride on my to do list for a while, but never had the appropriate company on a day with enough daylight. A fortuitous work trip to Lancaster in May timed itself nicely with a very sunny Saturday and I made the most of it.

The first pass is Warnscale, one of my favourite Lakes descents and one I’m familiar with. Familiarity breeds contempt and I had a massive crash within the first few minutes of the descent but, having got away with it relatively unscathed, I managed to savour the rest of it without issue.

The climb up Scarth Gap is pretty bleak, but the descent on the other side is a pleasant enough affair – a well surfaced but enjoyable bit of singletrack down to Black Sail YHA. I’d been meaning to do this ride since I was 15 when a friend and I youth hostelled our way around the Lakes after getting our GCSE results, but this ride was just too far off the beaten path for our parents. The climb up is a slog, but the descent was just great, reasonably sympathetically sanitised and, while not mega technical, it was just plain old good fun.

Up again, and a little bit sunburnt and with a Camelbak refilled with stream water, the descent of Styhead Gill was a bit of a wake up call after Scarth Gap and Black Sail Pass. It’s a tougher affair, brutal on the arms and brakes once you’ve slogged clear of the flat section around Styhead Tarn. Then the gradient eases up again and a satisfying descent plops you back on the road to recover before the grind up Honister.

Vosges Mountains, France

Just before the trip up Helvellyn in March I’d bought a Porsche 924, slightly on a whim. This brown box was to form the basis of an adventure around Europe with my friend Tom in May. Taking a potentially unreliable 32 year old coupe halfway across a continent doesn’t necessarily sound like the best basis for a biking holiday, but it was just the best. Stops along the way included Spa, for the Spa Classic, some trails in the Belgian Ardennes that were much more meaty than you’d expect, Koblenz, the home of Canyon, Stuttgart and, after a mad dash across France via Paris and Le Mans, Carnac in Brittany. Despite the front of the exhaust snapping off before we even reached Dover it survived.

The Vosges Mountains in the Alsace was one of our stops. Staying here for two days, we rode a set of trails used on one of the French enduro series. The climbs in these races are massive, and we climbed for a seriously long time on each ride. The descents were obviously more “built” than the others in this post, but they’d been built by riders who were clearly very talented both on a bike and with a spade. They’d been designed in such a way as to abstract maximum fun from the gradient.

Once I got back I scribbled down a full set of words about it which were in MBR in October. If you’re interested that’s available here-

Roadtripping Europe’s best hidden riding spots in a ‘classic’ Porsche

Capel Mounth

Capel Mounth was a long-time target of mine, having, for a variety of reasons, missed the opportunity to do it when I lived only an hour away from Glen Clova. Jock’s Road in Glen Doll is one of my all time favourites so I was keen to tick this off.

The slog up from Loch Muick is relentless – just steep enough to hurt, and long enough that it hurts a lot at a reasonable pace. The deer were out though! It was a bit of a shame, then, that Capel Mounth, while a nice enough trail, was nowhere near as exciting as Jock’s Road. Worried that I was going to leave with a fairly forgettable ride I pedalled up the valley and trudged up the hill to find that the lunatic whose Strava route I’d put in the GPS had descended back to Loch Muick by the fireroad!

A quick spin back to the trail I’d planned to follow on the map turned the whole thing around – the singletrack down to the southern tip of Loch Muick is top class. It’s very fast, but with rocks well placed to catch you out. The mix of peril and thrill turned what would have been a nice day in some great scenery into an excellent one.

Mount Keen

A bit of a classic that had passed me by, Mount Keen is a ride that’s been ticked off by countless riders for as long as bikes have been going up mountains. While this is because it’s a relatively smooth trail it is a ride with many merits. The spin up Glen Tanar to get to it is lovely on the right day – and the right day was definitely what I got, with blazing sunshine bringing the deer, hare, red squirrels and stoats out to play.

The climb up is just about rideable, then you rumble along the top, take in the view and turn around for the descent. The descent, at full pelt on a modern bike, is alarmingly quick. Almost 2,000 feet of descent was despatched in under nine and a half minutes, after an hour and a half of climbing! I think many would consider that a poor ratio, but, despite the heinous arm pump I’d got by the bottom, it really was a great descent.

Lochnagar

It’s about 3 years since I last went up Lochnagar, and the view from the top that year was non-existent. After a massive storm the night before I wasn’t holding out much hope of seeing the amazing view of the loch I’d seen in photos, but the day dawned and the sun blazed. The ascent of Lochnagar surprises me with how quick it is – it just steams up, and the biggest stop we had was to get a good look at an adder sunbathing right next to the trail.

The descent of Lochnagar via Glas Allt is one of the greats- the top step section is hard but goes well before opening up before the falls to flow. My riding partner, Pete, and I have quite disparate skills – he’s a very fast flowy rider while my speciality is rocks and so we switched around and played off each other all the way down. I’d forgotten just how tough the last bit of the descent is from the falls – it really is hard, even on a day with perfect conditions. The following day my wife and I followed this up with a spin to the end of the loch on Cycle Highland’s tandem, which was absolutely loads of fun.

Yoke

This was supposed to be a totally different ride. I’d heard great things about Kidsty Pike and so, for my birthday weekend, we headed up to the Lakes to tick it off. A fairly big day out was planned – from Kentmere, up to Nan Beild, over High Street, down Kidsty Pike then back over Nan Beild. But it didn’t happen like that. After a bit of creaking and groaning on the way up, my freehub ratchet ring stripped out of the hub shell just as we were approaching the top of Ill Bell (Spank Oozys, avoid). There was no way the rest of the ride would be completed by the time we were booked into the pub for tea without being able to pedal so we split left and headed up and over Yoke.

This definitely fits into the “pleasant day in the hills” category. Not particularly technical, but the views are just great and it’s a really nice place to be. While I’d not necessarily recommend the route we did it’s a good trail – I bet it’d make a great climb to access this block of hills. And when we got to the pub someone had driven their traction engine there for a pint and parked it outside, so all in, a good day.

Fairfield

The following day, with no freehub, I borrowed my friend’s old Orange Five and we sat in a café umming and ahhing about what to do with ourselves when the absolute pissing rain stopped. We settled on having a crack at Fairfield, one of our number having just done the Bob Graham Round and remembering in his semi-hallucinogenic state that it looked like a goer on bikes.

As it turned out, a summit wasn’t going to happen today with the weather being so grim and the bridleway from Fairfield to Thirlmere we were hiking up looked awful to descend. Judgement questioned, he realised that the footpath on the other side of the valley was what he’d been down. And so, with the barks of trail hounds racing over Great Rigg in the mist above us, we slid down the slabbed path. After a bit of sketchy slipperiness this opens up into an enormously satisfying flow trail, interspersed with some challenging little river crossings. A really fun bit of trail, but it does leave me with some unfinished business with Fairfield – apparently going up and over it and down Heron Pike is a nice ride, one I’ve earmarked for the future.

Kidsty Pike

A month later and a day off gave me the opportunity to see what the fuss was about with Kidsty Pike, aided by having a new bike to play on. Grinding up the last stretch to the summit there was some cracking and BANG – another freehub dead! This was on a totally different, and pretty much new, set of wheels, I couldn’t believe how unlucky it was.

Being so close to the summit I pushed on, then coasted down. A puncture halfway down further soured the milk, so I can’t honestly say whether or not it’s a truly decent trail as I was in a bit of a grump. At the time it felt like it was a bit of a bog, followed by an overly manicured footpath, with an interesting 200 yards in the middle followed by more bog. I’ll not be rushing back.

Helvellyn

Again! And with the same bunch of folks – a get together of my old cycling club around bonfire night happens every year in the Lakes. Half decent weather and a mixed ability group made Helvellyn the easy option, this time going down Dollywagon. The light was amazing, when the sun was out- a hail storm that almost caused bleeding near the summit tried to spoil things, but failed.

Dollywagon gets a mixed press – I know some on here think people that enjoy it are willy waving gnar-gods, but I think it’s great, as did the range of riders that tackled it. There were some crashes, one of them a bit of a whopper, but it’s a descent that tests the mettle and encourages the rider to get into a flow without being a wall of bewildering rocks.

Grizedale Pike

With the sun out but temperatures down, we all headed to Whinlatter the next day. In order to catch up more time was spent in the café than riding, but there was just enough time to sneak off the South Loop and sneak in Grizedale Pike again. It was too greasy to face the top section but the lower part of this trail is right up there with the greats of the Lake District.

The rocky section at the top is great fun, then the trail encourages you to twist and shake down some top quality singletrack. Then, just as things mellow out and you think it’s getting a touch tame, you hop over the style and the trail throws in some of the greatest turns in the country just to remind you that you’re having the best time.

Then you get fired out onto the bottom and have to grind your way back over Whinlatter Pass, which allowed me time to reminisce with my mates about the year of bike riding just gone, and all the bike riding yet to come. Here’s hoping it all comes off next year!