Count me in.

Wouldn’t want do miss slick greasy death stones, especially in the dark. 🙂

Good to hear the new bike was worth the hassle too, Danny!

Good to hear at least two of you are going to be there!

I wondered if you were going to own up to what could be construed as a training ride, scandal!

I saw you heading up towards the bulls head, I’d had to pick some stuff up from the outlaws house, so happened to be driving home that way.

Tentative peaks ride weekend after this one by the way, will discuss more tomorrow.

Yes – if I’m not, you will see me on Central News as the top story – murder of a work colleague. Looking forward to it

Danny…might be up for that Peaks ride. Chat over a beverage tomorrow night.

Having consulted the ‘Leisure and Recreation Committee’ at home, it has been decreed that next Saturday (5th October) is the better bet that weekend, although the Sunday is still a possible if that is loads more convenient for others.

My preferred ride option would be my ‘four up, four down’ route around the reservoirs. Start at Bridge End, up onto Hagg Side. Then down Hagg Farm, over the A57 and up the track to Wooler Knoll. Then along the roman road to Blackley Hey (aka potato alley). Then up the Rowlee Farm climb and down Lockerbrook. Quick snack and a drink at the visitors centre, then up Derwent Edge to Whinstone Lee Tor before a blast down the kosher bridle way, or the well-known super-steep cheeky, to finish at the Ladybower Inn before a quick spin back to the car.

This takes in four absolute classic dark peak descents and keeps the climbing as easy as possible. Only the last climb is not 100 percent do-able.

Other alternatives are to start in the same place, do the same first climb, but come straight down Lockerbrook before doing a Cut Gate out and back.

Or do the classic Edale and Jacobs Ladder route.

The last two are more ‘ridey’ where as the first one is maximum bang for your buck in terms of descents!

Anyway, this has been a long rambling post when we can discuss properly tomorrow, but planning away days is brilliant!

Car sharing etc can be sorted in advance too, although some swapping of email addresses will be necessary.

If we can get there quite early, it is surprising how much we can have the trails to ourselves.

Ahhh balls, I was planning on riding the Viking Challenge on the 6th, but that Peaks trip sounds a good one.

http://www.vikingchallenge.org.uk

Danny, my training ride will more than likely leave me knackered from the start tomorrow night 🙂

****.
Outlaws up that weekend – very reluctantly gonna have to count myself which is an arse as I really like the sound of that 😕

Just looked at preview and my swear word has been swapped for 4 asterisk – technological swear filters eh?

If anyone could bring a spare rear light I would appreciate it 😳

Also I have no helmet light and have had to bend a snapped spoke around another spoke as I don’t have time to sort it.

Looking good.

No problem, I’ll bring a spare rear light.

Good to see no last minute drop outs this week (yet!) 🙂

muddyfool – Member

No problem, I’ll bring a spare rear light.

Good to see no last minute drop outs this week (yet!)

Me 🙁

Sorry fellas, I won’t be there, wife has wisked me away for a couple of days (birthday surprise). It’s been brill so far though, track biking, bmxing and mtb at the National Cycle Centre yesterday and a gentle peaks ride today.

Unfortunately (again) I can’t make the 5th, I have a ticket to the Tigers v Saints game, I’m in if you change it to the Sunday for whatever reason 🙁

Well that was over all too quickly for me 😆

Nice to meet you all and sorry I had to cry off early.

As good as riding is, being a fair bit slower than the rest of yooz is a bit poo.

Hope you had a good ride and I’ll see you when I’ve deposited 3 stones somewhere 😉

No worries twonks and fathomer, the ride will be kept going, so there’s plenty of opportunities in the future.

Great ride this evening folks, really good to be out and about again locally. I’ll post something about the Peaks ride next weekend soon, fathomer – it looks like it will be Saturday at the moment, so apologies for that.

I can’t make next Wednesday, so enjoy that. And make sure your lights are charged!

Rascal, I’ll put the forum topic that shows the 2 led light I was on about on another post in a mo.

Rascal, the thread is called “talk to me about trail lights” and is in the bike forum about four pages in at the moment. There’s a pic of the red metal bodied one I mentioned plus another link that takes you to something that looks identical to my lumenator. Both are on the first page of the thread.

The best thing is probably to read the whole thread and see if anyone has had any disasters with any of these lights!

Yeah, really good ride last night. Great route with some fun little descents (and not-so-little ascents, by local standards at least!)

Shame you had to leave twonks, I’ve been at the back of groups often enough to know what you mean but nobody minds a bit of waiting, there’s always someone at the back (usually me tbh!). Hope you can join us another time anyway 🙂

Danny/Dom – will have to let you know about the 5th, hope to make it but I’d be going straight to a mate’s birthday afterwards so will have to find out plans/timings/shower availability – would definitely be up for it another time if not though!

I’ll probably be going for a quick play around swithland woods area on Saturday afternoon by the way, in case anyone’s interested.

Twonks – don’t throw the towel in – pretty much straight after you left I fell to the arse end of the ride – suffered after 5 weeks off the bike. FWIW I’m feeling very unfit at the mo – need to dusk off the road bike! Get some sneaky rides in to get your fitness up if it helps – trust me, I need to play catch up too 😉
What with fitness, rubbish lights that packed up quite early on, a stupid ‘off’ on the first part of Bardon Hill it was challenging but good all the same – I will have new lights next outing.
A good turn out last night – will make it next week and hopefully not holding people up the the climbs again!

I couldn’t agree more with rascal. The third time I made it out on a Wednesday night I had a complete fitness blow-up. I was pissing sweat, holding everyone up after every slight incline and making a sound like Ivor the Engine. No one seemed to mind!

lol, cheers guys.

From leaving work half an hour early to make the ride after a docs trip – Wednesday was a catalogue of disasters for me.

I’ve ordered some new lights and will make a few more mid week nights I’m sure 😀

Twonks

What lights did you order?
Having a dilemma about which lights to get…the ones Muddy had look good, but so does the double unit in pink – very fetching!

Hi Rascal.

Link to a decent thread about lights:

Thread

Link to lumenator look-a-like for £34

Lumenator-Look-a-like

I’m sure something on that thread will do you! Plenty of opinions and options!

I ordered the Solarstorm X3 from DealExtreme.

http://dx.com/p/solarstorm-x3-3-x-cree-xm-l-t6-2000lm-4-mode-white-bike-light-deep-pink-4-x-18650-238309

Have used them in the past for a lot of bits and these seem to be a good buy.

The lamps are T6 instead of the U2 but reading torch forums suggest it is no bad thing.

For the money I’m sure it will be ok, although I am hoping ‘deep pink’ will be more red like 😉

Muddyfool.

What time were you going to be out on Saturday?

If it is after 3pm, I might be able to meet up for a blast around Swithy area.

I’m up for a Swithy ride Sat afternoon…better with a few in the Curzon too! What time you thinking?

If it is 3pm or after, I’ll be there. Shall we just meet at the top of the slate piles next to the pool at 3?

After 3 would be perfect for me too – I’ll be riding there as it’s only about 3 miles from home so could meet you in the top car park closest to Woodhouse Eaves/Swithland? Say around 3:30, if that works for you both?

I’m not thinking of anything too strenuous by the way, after commuting today and motorbiking tomorrow morning my legs will probably start feeling it soon… in which case I’d be more than happy to retire to the pub for a pint 🙂

By the way rascal, don’t take my light-evangalising too seriously. The ones I have seem really good to me but I really have nothing to compare them to so the dual-led ones may well be better for all I know. We should have done some comparisons on Wednesday in the car park!

3.30 at the bomb holes in the middle of the woods?
It’s a date. Not up for a mega-blast – any time on the bike at the mo is a bonus.
Bring beer tokens 😉
Open to anyone else too.

Ooooh I fancy this but im off to the bike show at the nec in the morning so depends when im back.

3.30 at the three bomb holes, by the slate pile, by the pool? Even better 🙂 (somehow I completely missed Danny suggesting a place to meet in the post before mine!)

Scandal: if it helps, drop me an email (in profile) and I’ll send you my number so you can catch up if you don’t quite make it.

Yes, I’m 99% certain I can make that. See you there. Probably an hour and a bit rattling round in the woods, a quick couple of runs down hallgates as well if you fancy it. Maybe a nip over to Beacon Hill if you fancy that as well. Probably be much too busy for any Braggie action, though.

Guys

Sorry but gonna have to bail this one.
Up to my neck in DIY and the other Swans fan in Loughborough has reminded me they play Arsenal on TV at 5.30…down the pub. Duty calls….and yes, I am shit. I’ve been rubbing down plastered walls which has given me an incredible thirst so go easy.

Prob worth a few of us swapping numbers too in case of these ‘let’s meet’ scenarios go belly up.
Have a good ride and squeeze a cheeky one in at the Curzon or Wheatsheaf 🙂
I will be out that way sometime tomorrow if anyone’s interested. Cheers

Me and Rob who came on Wednesday are coming over so should be there for half past. However I don’t know the woods well and we will be driving over, hopefully we will find the meeting place.

Hello All,
Can I ask you to be a little more discreet with your posts about the woods please?
Share the cool trails with your mates, arrange rides, but please consider how national notoriety would be detrimental for all the existing users. The delicate loamy trails cut-up badly in winter.
A new geographically non-specific thread would be an ideal start.
Have fun.
Cheers
e.

Erm, yes, I suppose I can be more discrete, but it’s quite difficult to organise a meet without being a little bit specific!

Anyway, point taken. Now we have done a meet over ‘my way’ and the others know the area a little bit, we can just meet in the ‘usual place’ rather than naming it!

Just by the way, those woods have appeared in a printed country-wide trail guide! I was a bit taken aback when I saw it in Waterstones in Leicester, but it didn’t result in a noticeable increase in two-wheeled traffic. However, I do appreciate that this area is ‘sensitive’, although that is down to the archaic attitudes of a fair amount of local folk more than anything else.

On to happier matters, nice little ride today folks, who’d have thunk it, bike covered in dust on 28th September? And a very agreeable pint in the wheatsheaf. Tidy.

More soon on next weekend’ peaks ride, hidetherum you are more than welcome, I reckon an early ish meet, pedals turning by 10am latest should fit the bill. If we do the route I have in mind, there are loads of add-on bits we can do if we finish in too good a time.

Heading up Whitwick way later if anyone fancies it…gonna take a pootle over Bardon Hill way too…

Sorry rascal, I can’t come out to play today! Arriving back later than advertised yesterday after a pint in the wheatsheaf didn’t do me any favours, although the missus didn’t seem to mind too much!

Up to my elbows in garden destruction / reconstruction today, it’s coming to something when the first piece of kit out of the shed for a spot of gardening is a bow saw. Mind you, after yesterday’s four-man removal of a fallen tree (at least 15m long) from a well-known local trail, hacking down a few lilac bushes is mere recreation.

Scandal. You mentioned the shed alarm thing. Type ‘personal attack alarm’ into amazon, then look down the list for the square black box one that is called the ‘chieftain personal alarm with strobe light/torch ‘. I know it all sounds a bit OTT, but it might make the difference between getting your bike nicked or not. It’ll take you less than ten minutes to put up. Then all you’ve got to do is remember the bloody thing is there before you open the door.

Did the ride we did last Weds this afternoon.
It looks a bit different in the day doesn’t it!
Wasn’t as useless as I was then.
The descent to the res was nice – went a bit shite (literally) on the climb back up as my chain snapped and while sorting out a Powerlink the cow shit form near the monastery lept from the wheels and frame to my hands – though I wasn’t sure at one point if it was the cow or dog egg variety – lovely either way.

Bizzarely I also found 2 pairs of walking boots in Swannymote Road car park – shout if you know anyone who’s lost some boots 😀

Good ride on Saturday chaps, I usually ride that area solo so it was good to have some company for a change 🙂

Hidetherum – fair point, will be a little less specific in future. Although ‘national notoriety’ might be a bit strong, anyone who travels would be rather disappointed I suspect!

Danny – I’m going to have to give Saturday a miss. Shame as I would really like to come but it just doesn’t work out this weekend. Hopefully another time! I’d probably be interested if you’re doing a local evening ride anytime, by the way.

So, who’s up for the usual ride tomorrow? Pub at 7?

Not me.
Lots of pitches on in work this week.
No lights either.
Enjoy!

To those of you making it out tonight – have fun drifting in the stuff that was dust last week. I really fancy a ride in the wet, but other things are in the way.

I’m reclaiming some of the evening for ‘blokedom’ by cooking a nice Jalfrezi for my tea.

How many for the Peaks on Saturday then?

Can I suggest 8-15am meet in the layby on the Loughborough side of the M1 J23 (on the A512) going into Loughborough, about 100 yds from the island?

Let me know if no-one is coming, then I won’t have to hang around in a laybay for half an hour on my tod!

Enjoy this evening.

Hey chaps

Was a great ride last Saturday, much fun, thanks for showing us about guys.

Gutted, can’t make the Peaks ride (gagging to get out there) and I’m struggling tonight (still at work)

Will try but If i’m not there then feel free to leave at 7.05

Once again I can’t do tonight either. Maybe next week!