Chapel Gate "Its Lethal"

Rode it on Sunday, it’s been sanitised a fair bit that’s for sure but its lethal, gone are the natural surfaces of stone, rock & Dirt replaced by what appears to be burnt coal from a power station ?

Its a fast descend, made treacherous by the top surface which just creates no traction whilst braking. I very nearly hit the wall on the lower parts and just managed to avoid hitting a gate,

I won’t even mention the Water Bars

It’s been like that a while now sadly.

One of the worst bits of trail maintenance ever!
They’ve even banned the vehicles from it now, so it was all pointless.

I heard something about measuring the oil coming off the trail as being the reason for banning the motor vehicles, but surely most of that must be coming from the road scrapings they’ve used!

Bring back the ribbon of tarmac!

Yeah, I mentioned it in a thread yesterday about riding a CX bike in the Peaks:
http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/is-taking-a-cx-bike-to-edale-in-the-peak-district-madness

I’d only ever do Chapel Gate as a climb now.

Oh I see, it’s chewed up Tarmac, that would explain the Oil leeching into the water table ?

There’s nothing to get you over the water bars its featureless, you have to rely on sheer luck & judgement and a good old fashioned bunny hop, and a sense of humour.

Oh I see, it’s chewed up Tarmac, that would explain the Oil leeching into the water table ?

Well that was my assumption. Someone more knowledgeable may be able to shed more light on it.

A fair assumption, especially if it’s been lifted from the slow lane of the M1, plus Tarmac has that oily waxy residue when water is on it.

You would think that the conservationists would have the foresight to see the impact on using contaminated Tarmac in an area of outstanding Natural Beauty.
But then……… Maybe not.

I’d only ever do Chapel Gate as a climb now.

Yup, it’s only worth going up now. At least it gives a decent alternative to the road up to Mam Tor, but I agree it’s a shoddy piece of work. Sadly this seems to be a theme in the Peak and surrounding areas like Marple/New Mills. I’ve lost count of the number of formerly great bridleways which have been destroyed* with this type of ‘improvement’. A paranoid person would think it’s actually a plan to rid the Peak of bikers by making it so boring that they go elsewhere. And then they have the cheek to get all worked up about people riding on the footpaths.

*from a mountain biking point of view

Glad I read this.I’m riding around there at the weekend so it I might give the Mam tor Rushup Edge Chapel Gate option a miss and go over towards Hollins Cross

A paranoid person would think it’s actually a plan to rid the Peak of bikers by making it so boring that they go elsewhere

Now I’m not one to pay attention to conspiracy theories but this has occurred to me too. Move the problem elsewhere.

Just to go off on a tangent, and I’m by no means trying to liken myself to a pro rider BUT you hear the likes of Steve Peat say “the Natural courses are the grippiest” when he’s seen walking a track, and I’ve often thought EH ? That’s not right the smoother sculptured surfaces are clearly grippiest, well I can see where he’s coming from in that respect,

There’s nothing to hold you and sit you up to bounce off or focus on, and then all of a sudden you realise that your traveling too fast and can’t stop.

Move the problem elsewhere.

Well around Marple/New Mills I think it’s more a case of ‘do what the horse riders want’. Around Roman Lakes they’ve flattened loads of stuff which from what I’ve heard has been done after lobbying from the local horse riders around there. Thing is the ‘improvements’ they’ve done have made it more dangerous for everyone. A good case in point is the Strawberry Golf Course descent. Formerly a great section of flowing singletrack with a solid compacted surface, and just technical enough to slow most people down, now a 5 foot wide flattened path with a loose aggregate surface which encourages people to go faster (the strava times support this, the KOM average speed went up about 10kph after the sanitisation) and where it’s more difficult to stop because of the loose surface. The result being a much higher danger of bikers scaring horses as they can’t stop without skidding behind them, whereas before it was no problem to stop under control with a minimum of fuss.

Whilst I don’t like this trail sanitisation (and the more it goes on, the more footpath riding I do), I still can’t understand how people can call these sanitised trails dangerous?

Surely it’s up to you as a rider to plan ahead and ride at a speed where you can stop safely regardless of whatever the surface of the trail is? If like the OP you nearly hit a wall or a gate, then that’s simply down to your own poor skills/judgement surely? You can’t blame the trail!

I still can’t understand how people can call these sanitised trails dangerous?

Surely it’s up to you as a riderwell…I kind of agree, rules is rules but there are also ways to naturally influence people’s behaviour. Build a new road make it perfectly smooth and wide, bank the corners, give it good sight lines and then give it a 20 speed limit coz it goes through a housing estate, good luck with that. There are other ways to slow the majority down, it won’t work on everyone but neither do rules. On shared use tracks where people are worried about negative user “interaction” smoothing it out to increase “natural” speeds and then covering it in loose chippings/gravel so braking is lessened is a pretty dumb idea.

What i dont understand is why they dont just create a second trail made from shavings and give you an option. Im sure even walkers prefer the natural option.

I had a right go at two chaps destroying the rangers path not too long ago. In fairness i didnt realise they were doing the work, i assumed they had stopped for a brew and i had a rant about more trails being ruined. Their argument was that teh trail had eroded and needed repairing. Utter bolox, it was down to the bedrock. People dont go to the hills for manicured trails at all.

We should form a vigilante operation whereby we block up the water channels and feed water over the trails to rejuvenate them.

@agent007
It kind of detracts from the general feel of the Peak District though, 95% natural riding with a 5% imbalance, if I wanted to foresee that nothing was going to jump out at me on the trail then I’d ride at a trail centre.

It’s not n keeping with the general feel of the area and the Natural relaxed style of riding the area lends itself out to. The loop we did on Sunday was a classic example of Peaks riding, like doing Cut Gate, you pass people on the way out and catch up for a chat on the way back, exchange pleasantrys and offer encouragement / abuse / ridicule dependant upon the severity of misdemeanour, the walkers even exchange pleasantrys and people respect each other’s love if the great outdoors, if you see a dog half way down Roych Clough or even at the bottom stood in the ford having a drink in the middle of the bridleway with its owners then no one bats an eyelid, imagine that at a trail centre ?
It’s too serious, it’s fine if you are of that Elite status within the MTB forum fraternity but for those that ride for the enjoyment Natural Terrain in a great area gives it’s a bit shit to be honest,

And in my defence OR stupidity / inability to ride I didn’t actually realise I couldn’t stop until I applied the brakes. At that point I kind of braced myself for impact as I drifted along the surface and rolled into a gate, the second one just sent me wide and I managed to stay off the wall.

I have evidence on Gopro but I haven’t got a spare day to faff about uploading it.

discoduck – Member

…the Peak District … 95% natural riding old dirt/stone roads

fixed it for you 🙂

It kind of detracts from the general feel of the Peak District though, 95% natural riding with a 5% imbalance, if I wanted to foresee that nothing was going to jump out at me on the trail then I’d ride at a trail centre.

While I see the point you’re making, nothing in the Peak District is “natural”. Flagstone/packhorse trails, access roads, 4×4 tracks, everything from old Roman roads to Industrial Revolution stuff like canal towpaths, old railway lines, market trading routes across the hills…

All repaired, destroyed and re-repaired by all manner of people/nature over the years. What we’re left with is a mish-mash of stuff but none of it is “natural”.

I agree, but the wind and weather create that natural feel, in a way that if it happened at a trail centre it would be repaired, the loose rocks and stone help create that feel.

The channels water carve out are kind of natural buy yeah, Most if not all of the routes have been created at some point in time by Man. Some of them are bloody good though and some terrible

The whole thing was a good old-fashioned fingers up from DCC. There was arguments and recriminations – particularly with regards to motos, but also mtbs. The council thought “sod you, then” and flattened it. So the NIMBYs and redsocks go their way and they took the opportunity to sanitise it to the point where the ‘problem’ just goes away.

Stuff ’em. It’ll just lead to more riding on footpaths.

Stuff ’em. It’ll just lead to more riding on footpaths.

Exactly. I always religiously stuck to the bridleways until the last couple of years or so. But as each one is destroyed you go looking for new routes, and this inevitably leads you onto the footpaths. Ironically the stuff I ride now is way better than what I rode before my ‘non-cheeky’ days, and I get very little hassle from walkers and see few other bikers. But does the Peak Park Authority and DCC want all the bikers riding the likes of WIlliam Clough, Shining Tor, Derwent Edge etc as that’s what will happen.

You would think that in Austerity Britain funding for this sort of thing would be the first thing to get the chop.
It really, really makes me mad.

Zippy, access to rural England has had to be made more accessible for the Al Quieda training camps.

If I’d started this thread, the second post would be some idiot telling me that I have no right to to ask for any sort of empathy towards mountain bikers when trails are restored and instead we should just suck it up on the basis that they should all be suitable for blind people on pogo sticks. I don’t know what this forum is coming to. 🙄

I know, I daren’t even think of the consequences some folk might distribute when they get in from work and have their Tea, to find fellow riders have not only ridden on footpaths but they have admitted to it ?

Crazy,

Oh well, it’ll soon be 7:30, should be interesting.

The worst part of it is: I’ve just looked at my Gopro footage to see if its worthy of www distribution and my mac book has thrown a hissy fit and piled in.

Have they finished Stanedge yet?Peaks are not what they use to be 😥

I’m looking forward to seeing how they screw up Burbage when it becomes a bridleway.

There must be some sort of mend our roads pressure group .
I’m sure they would be very interested to hear of the sums being spent on making sure the countryside is perfectly flat.
Calling Clarkson.

Sorry BWD, been out on my road bike tonight…

Slowoldman – already done.

slowoldman the eastern moors partnership say they aren’t planning any significant works for that change and they’ve been very good to mtbers and folks in general so far so hold out some hope!

Sorry BWD, been out on my road bike tonight…

On Chapel Gate I’m guessing 🙂

Lilly bank farm track used to be a good scenic bit of descent to open the taps and a nice blast before the fox, now its sanitsed and the wood at the start is removed its too easy to go at warp factor 10 putting ramblers in danger of a close encouter of the hope hoop kind 😆

I’ve noticed its already starting to fall apart though with small water channels appearing. Also what happened to the no cycling sign at the top and bottom?

A friend of mine was told the couldn’t use road plainings on the entrance to fields because of oil contamination – oddly he is located in the Peak District. A case of do as I say not do as I do

Pook – Member
Slowoldman – already done

It’s not open as a bridleway yet is it?

the eastern moors partnership say they aren’t planning any significant works for that change and they’ve been very good to mtbers and folks in general so far so hold out some hope

Good to hear.

Given the heavy rains you’ve had down south for the last few years it won’t be long till they get eroded. Bertha has left interesting ravines all around here 🙂
Or you could wait till it’s snowy and icy if you want a challenge. 🙂

slowoldman – Member

I’m looking forward to seeing how they screw up Burbage when it becomes a bridleway.

they’ve got to turn it into a logging road first – all for good reasons, but it’s going to be a bit messy for a while…

Bridleways I understand are relatively safe, as they’re not maintained by Derbyshire Council. RUPPS/White Roads (aka Chapel Gate, Stanage, Wiggly Lane (Rowland) etc) are all DCC’s responsibity as being “roads” so get mullered.