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2015 – A Year in Mountains
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Posted 8 years ago
As 2015 is just about done, and most of you will be winding down and dossing about at work a bit, I thought I’d do this now.
As ever here’s the links to previous years’ threads, sadly time has been unkind and stolen most of the photo links.
http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/2010-a-year-in-mountains
http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/2011-a-year-in-mountains
http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/2012-a-year-in-mountains
http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/2013-a-quiet-year-in-mountains
http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/2014-a-good-year-in-mountains2015 has gone well in mountain terms- the weather in the spring was good, even if the summer was a bit of a chilly blowout, and I have had much more success than usual in finding quality trails rather than pushing up things then walking back down them or turning back. This is in no small part thanks to the help of Sanny from this forum who’s been very generous with his time and advice.
There’s another video to go with this year’s post. Crank it up to HD. I hope you like it.
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VUvtHoOjf0[/video]
As with last year’s post if you click the title of each ride there’s more photos.
Red Pike, High Stiles and Scarth Gap
We got a very early start this year- the day after Valentine’s day is, I think, the earliest I’ve had a real crack at a mountain on the bike. The forecast said light snow on the tops, the reality turned out to be blazing sunshine. I’d had a little crack at this before and enjoyed it, and seen that video with the dog from last year and thought it’d be a nice ride if we did the full loop up Red Pike and across the top.
That was the theory. The reality, despite it being relatively calm at the bottom, was a slog into a headwind so hard you couldn’t breathe, let alone ride. The traverse along the ridge at the top is, under normal conditions, perfectly rideable but not today! The steep descent was similar- if you got going in a break in the wind it would soon come up again and blast you into the side of the trail and off. I’d also forgotten that the top of Scarth Gap is largely unrideable. However, on a normal day the enormously steep descent from High Crag, the ride along the top and the last bit of Scarth Gap make for an exciting day out.
Despite being a short ride it feels very epic, and the climb up Red Pike is pretty serious. If you’ve got big balls and a taste for the steep then it’s worth a crack once, but there are better rides in the area. In all, we had an exciting day out and enjoyed ourselves but it wasn’t the most successful bike ride!
Garburn Pass, High Street, Ill Bell, Nan Beild
Having a job postponed by a day in north Lancashire when I was already on site gave me a perfect opportunity to go for a sneaky ride in the South Lakes. Fortunately I’d banked on this being a possibility and had packed my bike and big mountain gear. This was a nice route that would suit most riders with an open mind to cheek (though most of it is bridleway) but the weather made it a real epic. To do this ride you have to do Garburn the wrong way, which is a shame as the eastern decent looked superb, if a little short. However it allows a nice spin up to High Street with only a little hike a bike.
At the top the cloud was low and a lot of standing snow made it a compass and bearing job to get to the turn to the footpath over Ill Bell. A few brave walkers were out but it was eerily still and quiet up on the top in the snow with little wind. Eventually I found where the Ill Bell path should have been and it wasn’t there- it turned out to be a path about 40 metres away but was easily found. It starts off like a trail centre, metalled, flowy and swoopy before getting into a nice bit of tech to ease you into the switchbacks of Nan Beild. The snow meant it wasn’t 100% rideable but it was a nice bit of trail regardless.
Nan Beild following this was as good as ever- the switchbacks exhilarating, the rocky flowy singletrack after it superb fun before a silly blast over smooth singletrack to the valley floor. There’s a reason why I’ve done this most of the last 5 years.
Ben Vorlich’s main advantage for me is that it’s so close to Edinburgh so when my wife went away for Easter and the forecast was good (exceptional, even) I couldn’t resist the opportunity to go and catch up with friends in the city and tack this on to the end. Snow on the tops made for exciting trails (as you’ll see in the video!) but Vorlich is excellent even when it’s not covered in white.
It mixes steep, flowing, gentle and technical superbly so you get a ride that covers all the bases, and on top of this it’s a very easy hill to get up with the majority of it being rideable. The fact that this is an especially scenic part of the country on a day like this is a bonus.
I fancied a big day out with a mountain in it that was between Edinburgh and Ayr (roughly). A proper day out. This loop took in the Rob Roy Way by Aberfoyle, singletrack and fireroad bashing in Queen Elizabeth Country Park, Ben Venue itself and a load of the locals trails around Go Ape.
It’s a big day out. Despite only being in the region of 30 miles there is a reasonable amount of climbing, getting on for 5000ft, and was it worth it? Well, that depends. I’d not tell anyone to ride up Ben Venue and descent the south western descent. It’s not entirely rideable, and not worth the unrideable bits for the reward of the bits that go. The south eastern descent, the way I climbed, would be infinitely more rideable but the last 150m would be on fireroad. The Rob Roy Way ended in a load of felled trees and bog and an hour fumbling around to get on the path. Regardless the sunshine, lack of wind and sunburn in early April made this a great day.
The good weather continued in early spring and having consulted the oracle that is Sanny I decided to have an explore around Braithwaite and the Newlands Valley. Previous rides in this area had been a complete failure but once pointed in the right direction it’s proved to be a gold mine this year for good trails. Whiteless is accessed from the Braithwaite side, climbing Sail, Crag and Wandope before a low tech but flowy, enjoyable trail down Whiteless and to Buttermere. This ride was a real highlight of the year- as the weather was so good we spent hours and hours on the hill and really dragged the ride out. I’d recommend this to anyone.
This was described to me as “worth the price of admission”. What an understatement. If I’d done this with friends rather than alone it probably would have been ride of the year. I got up there the same way we’d reached Whiteless the week before- up Sail and Crag but at the top turned north to descend a little beford climbing Hopegill Head. At the top a fell runner training for the Grisedale Horseshoe the following week had a chat with me. He said going off Grisedale via Hobcarton was the best way and that he didn’t know anyone personally that’d managed to get down the main path down Grisedale.
Forewarned I decided to have a look before making up my mind. While steep the lure of the main descent was too alluring. It’s wild- very steep and tech to start, wheels scrabbling and sliding before opening up into very fast rocky flowy singletrack along the ridge. I’d say if you’re a good rider this should definitely be on your to do list.
For some reason riding the Old Man had never really occurred to me. But then a route cropped up, and the weather was good, and there was company and, well, it just sort of happened. We’d originally planned to go up via Stephenson’s Ground, part of a route I used to do regularly before they graded the Walna Scar Road, but it was late in the day before we arrived so it was best to just crack on. So we climed the gravel road then skirted around the back of the mountain over Buck Pike.
From the top of Buck Pike there’s an interesting and difficult descent through a mass of boulders before the final climb to the summit of the Old Man. We descended late in the day, long after the walkers had gone, and it was superb. The top third is very tricky, with a few bits that need to be walked, but as you descent into the copper mine area it turns surreal with large banks and berms swooping through old cables, railway lines, buildings and walls.
I’m sure a few of you will have seen an advert of Saracen bikes earlier this year that looked like this-
Well, I was one of a few who asked on here to find out where this trail was. It just looked so appealing. Turns out it’s on the western side of Helvellyn, down Birk Side, and that going up and down this is, by some way, the fastest way to get to the top of Helvellyn. We got to the top in around an hour and a half from memory. It’s also a good balance between the mega-tech Dollywagon descent and the slightly tame Sticks Pass descent. It’s very, very fast at the top before getting more and more technical until you reach the section in the advert, then it settles down into smooth, fast singletrack.
Definitely recommended, but I think the top way to do this would be up from Glenridding, down this, back up Fairfield and down the Grizedale descent after Dollywagon. That’d be a belting big day out.
While this has cropped up fairly regularly in previous Year in Mountains posts my best riding mates hadn’t ridden it before. So on a glorious bank holiday Monday we pulled up, first in the car park, raring to go. Only to find our driver had left his helmet behind. While he drove to Helensburgh to the nearest open bike shop we pinned down a parking spot for a large van with three bikes for a total of 3 hours. Many uncomfortable conversations with other drivers ensued…
This led to a late start up the hill, which worked nicely as we had glorious sunlight and quiet trails on the way back down. Ben Lomond was as good as every – entertainment from start to finish with limited hike a bike and a mass of punctures. We were all smiles until we got back and found the van had broken down…
Our mate Pete rode this a few years ago for a feature in a magazine and it made it look lovely. However turning up in a rain shower at 2pm after chasing around shops for a new brake hose having slashed one the previous day and some other parts we weren’t keen. And after an hour’s pushing we were even less keen- Pete’s defence was that he wrote the article 3 years ago and trails change but for it to change from “good enough to go in a mag” to “90% unrideable bog and bouldery shite” in that time seems drastic. I have a feeling the mag put the wrong route on their website and that the best descent of this is to the south, not east into Glen Nevis like we did. Regardless we have learnt the lesson on your behalf- don’t bother.
We spent two days in Torridon in the camper. Unfortunately they were hideously wet, but having gone all that way we weren’t prepared to slack off. I’d brought some low level routes with me fortunately and so we did a ride around the bottom of Ben Damph and the main descent of the Achnashellach loop.
What can be said about Torridon that hasn’t been said before? All of it is superb- all rideable, all grippy, all flowy with technical sections. And the setting is stunning. If you can go up here you really must. I just hope the weather’s better for you!Afterwards we headed south and stopped off at the Clachaig Inn in Glencoe. Previously this has been a real highlight for us but this time they were awful, to the point where I feel like it’s worth mentioning that it’s no longer worth a visit. Not sure if the management’s changed but it was rotten- food, attitude, service, the lot.
I last rode this in around 2010 or 2011 and didn’t get on with it at all. On a hardtail, having bonked, after a long ride over I just wasn’t feeling it. But it turns out with fresh legs, an open mind and the need to ride something lower level to dodge the storms it’s actually really very good. The trail was like a river for the most part which did render some features unrideable as the mossy rock becomes exceptionally greasy but with the advent of dropper posts and the knowledge that some of the rises in the trail were coming this route pieces itself together really nicely.
All the rain had helped the green come out and we were fortunate to get a break in the weather resulting in the perfect finish to our trip to the west coast. I know a few people on here have been underwhelmed by the Ciaran Path when they’ve ridden it for the first time- I’d urge you to go back and have another go, it will all make sense.
I’ve spent the last few years pondering whether or not this would be a good ride or not. Well, it turns out it is. I was up in the Lakes for the Birkett Trophy sailing race and on the Saturday there wasn’t much wind and the sun was out so when the race finished I hotfooted it up to Blencathra. Circling around the north side of it to summit from the north west leads you onto a steep, slatey gravelly, loose descent that’s really exhilarating. It’s over in a flash but it really is good.
There’s a steep steppy section after this (which earns a few cheers from walkers even if you don’t ride it all!) and then the trail returns via the way you came- up a flowy singletrack gulley that’ll try and have your rear mech off.
I’m not sure if this counts but suspect that those that like looking at the rest of the photos would find this interesting as well. In July my wife and I ventured out on our first cycle tour together for 6 years, from Oban to Mallaig then round the Hebrides. Our previous one had been a bit of a disaster- we toured the Danube valley through Austria during the worst flooding for decades and woke up one morning to find people being rescued from 1st floor windows in boats.
This turned out to be almost as testing for my wife- she hated how hilly Skye was for riding, but was much happier when we reached the flatter roads of Harris (sort of) and the Uists (very flat!). We were lucky that the weather was glorious after our first day (when we bailed for a hotel with little or no persuasion from the train guard at Mallaig). The head wind wasn’t so strong as it could have been, the people welcoming and the whisky good. If you do have a roadie streak in you I’d do it. It was tiring though, Skye was hillier than expected and I was hauling a trailer with all of our camping gear, cooking gear, my clothes, bike spares etc as my wife isn’t a regular enough cyclist to hack taking much more than her own clothes. But, well, just look at it!
Who’d’ve thunk that October was nice? Normally my former cycling club goes to the Lakes in November but with one now a teacher in Denmark and his half term falling in October we had to shuffle it forward. Excellent weather meant we could do something big and of the options offered to them we went for the classic Skiddaw/Ullock Pike/Carlside loop. Our mate Oli bought Pippa the dog and for the first time we split to try different scree slopes off the summit of Skiddaw. One goes steep and straight along the face of the scree slope while one goes down the shoulder, switchbacking tightly and regularly. Both are fun and if the steeper one doesn’t appeal to you the other will not be a disappointment.
From there the descent is long and rewarding to just about the base of the ridge from Ullock Pike, before we duck left and down a wildly fast bit of singletrack with brakes stinking to the Ravenstone Hotel. Following this the climb back through Dodd Wood to Carlside is brutal and exhausting but the top came just as everyone was about to bonk. Some work has been done to the Carlside descent and the steepest section is now a set of switchbacks that take a real knack to get around- by the time you’ve done them all everything falls into place. Loads of fun.
And so to the last hill of the year. I had hoped to stick in one more in a trip to Loch Tay at the end of November but the morning of the ride dawned with white out conditions on the upper slopes and so the ride was replaced with a low level walk and a trip to a tea room. You can’t win them all.
Considering what happened last time I tried riding around here with this group I’m impressed they came again- previously we’d climbed for an hour to then carry our bike down a cliff face. But having spent more time in this wonderful area this year the wonderful descent from Sail back down towards Stoneycroft looked too good to miss when I climbed it last back in the spring. And it turned out that was right- carved into a precipitous slope this traverse is exhilarating without being too technical, meaning it’d suit a lot of riders. We then climbed and descended Stile End which while extremely easy (it’s just a grassy slope) is like a natural jump track with booter after booter all the way to the bottom.
This lump of hills around the Newlands Valley really is excellent.
There we have it. 16 great trips, 12 good friends and a brilliant year of riding bikes in hills. Thanks to all of them for joining me on these rides, as well as their own adventures.
Only one outtake this year though, other than my crash in the video- looks like we’ve had a relatively safe year!
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