I’m driving from Lincoln to Manchester tomorrow for a meeting which I have managed to schedule to allow me a shortish ride on my way home (I have a new to me Spitfire to test out properly).

Had planned on doing a there and back over Cut gate from Langsett but wondered whether this would be a bog fest?

What would make a good alternative if that’s a no go?

Cut gate will be far too wet, I’d avoid. A loop that includes The Beast, Hagg Farm, and Lockerbrook generally holds up well to the rain, Lockerbrook can be muddy but it doesn’t suffer in terms of erosion like Cut Gate does. Have a look at Keeper of the Peak on twitter for some up to date conditions reports 🙂

A loop that includes The Beast, Hagg Farm, and Lockerbrook generally holds up well to the rain

These tend to be defaults when I get the opportunity to ride this neck of the woods. I have only done Cut gate once and loved it hence considering it this time but I know it can get rather wet.

I need to arrange more Manchester meetings for the summer. There’s something great about being paid to ride my bike.

Beast, Potato Alley, Lockerbrook and Hagg Farm were damp but fast on Saturday (not sure how much rain they’ve had since but they’re all pretty hardy in the face of wet weather).

Depending on how short a ride you want, park up on Ladybower somewhere. Grind up the Screaming Mile, down Hagg Farm, up The Beast, down Potato Alley, up and down Lockerbrook, and then spin back to the car. Could extend it by heading up to WLT and down the Cutthroat Bridge descent.

Back via Chapel and stop in Castelton?
Broken road, mam Nick, ‘toboggan run’, hollins cross, bridleway to Castelton (will be muddy, ends in rocks/stream)
Repeat Broken Road, then Cave Dale, which is always wet anyway!
?

cut gate wasn’t too bad at the weekend, i’ve seen it in a lot worse states and it’s getting to the point where it’s rideable with out causing more damage

Up screaming mile & up the beast! What kind of wrongness is this?

surely the only reason to go up the beast is to turn around to go back down?

Where’s the screaming mile?

Screaming Mile is from the top of Hagg Farm/Lockerbrook, heading North and comes out at the hairpin and five bar gate just up from Fairholmes.

I would go from Hope up to The Beast, to ride down the beast, and then there are a few options after that depending on how much time you’ve got.

gravity-slave – Member
Screaming Mile is from the top of Hagg Farm/Lockerbrook, heading North and comes out at the hairpin and five bar gate just up from Fairholmes.

Thought that was just called Lockerbrook and The Screaming Mile was the long smoothish descent if you head across the moor top from the top of Hagg Farm that leads down to the little car park near the cattle grid?

thepodge – Member
Up screaming mile & up the beast! What kind of wrongness is this?

I actually like to ride up from Hope, down The Beast, push back up and then ride down Potato Alley, but the OP was after a short ride.

I did the
Hayfield-Edale Cross-Jacobs Ladder-Chapel Gate-Rushup-Roych Clough- South Head-Hayfield
loop yesterday and despite the torrents of water running down all the trails, I had no problems at all with mud.
Roych was brilliant – all the rain (and ramblers hooves) is causing the surface to get washed out back down to the bedrock 🙂

I’ve heard several names for the descent north from Lockerbrook Fm, usually Gores Wood or The Screaming Mile. Strava has several segments along this track including the above and Lockerbrook. However there’s also the ascent from the car park by the cattle grid which gets called “The Screaming Mile” – as a descent it’s called (on Strava) Hagg Side Descent.

If you want shorter, have you tried blacka moor? Two and a half excellent, fairly single-tracky descents and a beast of a technical ascent. Alternatively, just go and play at Hollins cross (just south of edale) for a bit. 4 worthy descents (3 from Hollins cross and one from just west of Hollins cross) but mostly pushing to get back up (well, I can’t ascend them).