I had my first ride in the peaks today. The descent into Castleton on the limestone way was mental. Very fast at the top then rocky as ****, very challenging, before speedy up again. I rode it all but jees it was exciting/tough.

I had to share it with someone, my wife glazed over when I tried to tell her.

I’ve got another ride planned later in the week. Any suggestions of similar descents?

cavedale?

Cavedale *is* the limestone way

Similarly challenging and fun descents include any of the paths down from Hollins Cross, any of the paths down from Hope Cross and the descent of Dirtlow Rake and Pindale from the top of the Limestone Way

yeah that’ll be Cavedale.

Do the beast (Hope cross down to the A57 at teh bottom of Hagg farm, another top descent – go left on the A57 then climb up past Rowlee farm and go right at the top, down past Hagg farm to teh A57 again)

Chapel Gate is anothe gnarly fun one, ends down at Barber Booth.

Respect. Always worry about wrists and jaw on the steepest part of Cavedale.

The bottom half from Hollins Cross was a real mudfest yesterday , great fun. Also looked to be a load of Landys going up Chapel Gate, albeit with one stuck at an angle widthways across the track.

Gotta love Cavedale as a first intro to the Peaks – mental isn’t it?!

Agree with Beast and Chapelgate for your next challenges..

My first time down Cavedale – no one warned me what to expect. I just said ‘watch out/coming through’ as I approached the gate….that’ll teach me 😆

This one? It’s brilliant, one of my favourite trails.

In the peaks, you get used to the rocks being the grippiest part of the trail. Then you ride Cavedale and scare yourself silly. Great ride. Particularly the fast run-in as a build-up to the tricky stuff.

singletracksurfer has already given you some good ones.

I would do what we call the ’10 miles of hell’ (although we don’t really know how long it is). Start at roadside carpark at corner of Rushup Edge and Roych Clough. Go down Roych, over towards Hayfield, then turn down Coldwell Clough (there’s a cheeky ridge ride alternative here). Then over Jacob’s ladder. Then up Mam Tor and over Rushup Edge to finish in the gloriously rocky sunken track.

We did Cavedale on Sunday, it was frozen solid and took us half an hour to mince down

That’s what we did a week or two ago Simon, but rather than doing Roych Clough, we went down Chapel Gate, then did Jacobs Ladder as an out and back. Love the sunken track!

http://www.monkeyspoon.com

Wharncliffe: ‘Alexander Super Trout’ Video

Overkill with those forks for that trail? 😯

not many change there fork per trail at Wharncliffe Hora !

There is a vast range of trails. That one is new, steep loamy.. The one next to it has the 6′ drop offs, the one the other way is Peatys which is mostly rock… etc etc..

This was from sunday and the ride out with Podge.

Gives you an idea of how bad it was.

There’s no way you rode the whole path down Cavedale unless you had spikes on your tyres.

As podge and skiprat say ^^ that river there is the path!!!!

EDIT: hang on – apologies! Just read the date you posted. Two weeks ago. I’ll let you off. Well done bud – that top section is tech.

At the side of Cavedale. Can you walk up/into that castle? Can we do it next time?

you can walk but I don’t think it leads to the hill, just to / from the castle