PA was always our route as kids, the beast was unknown – then mythical – and once ridden, forgettable. If you can’t clear it, Tha dint grow up riding steel ‘arrdtails int Peak.

I like the beast. It flatters an average rider like me 🙂

Beast for sure.

Should add, probably obvious but FS bikes transformed PA as well as lockerbrook for me. So much fun if you can avoid puncturing.

Beast,

Because its difficult on a hardtail, and totally different on a modern fs bike, I remember the first time on a fs coming round the first corner into the steps and crapping myself as as theres then a line choice rather than having time to pick through it on a hardtail. Propper sense of achievement if you clear it with any sort of pace. whereas potato alley is a bit dull after the first run.

Spud alley – has more flow. Both are ace though.

I’ve never really liked Potato ally, it feels to “point and go” and doesn’t require much thought, it’s more about getting sore bingo wings and hanging on till the bottom.

Fluffy kittens does make you think as you potter down it (at least on a hardtail) trying to pick the best line etc. I’m looking forward to trying it on my floppy bike once my ankle is fixed.

Did we do potato alley on the slow Pootle last week ?

Both pootle groups did potato alley. As much as I prefer the beast, potato alley was the right choice for the pootle.

Which one is potato alley?

Probably that bit I walked then…….

Guessing it was the bit down to the road where we stopped to reunite someone with their Garmin – looks like good fun I will look forward to having another go on it.

My leg was killing as it was the first ride out after crashing the road bike and a bloody rock flew up halfway down and whacked my other shin.

We climber up jaggers clough to a cross roads. We then split into two groups but both went the same way. That track which finished with a decent covered in small loose rocks is potato alley. We then went down the road and crossed the A57.

Does that help?

I prefer the Beast. But it needs to be ridden flat out, not minced down……Hora 😀

Never mind excuses – you WALKED Potato Alley??? 😯 😉

Yes it was the bit with the lost Garmin

We climber up jaggers clough to a cross roads. We then split into two groups but both went the same way. That track which finished with a decent covered in small loose rocks is potato alley. We then went down the road and crossed the A57.

Does that help?

That’s the bit I was thinking of – defo gonna go back for another go at that.

Never mind excuses – you WALKED Potato Alley???

Not excuses, explanations 😉 😀

Yeah yeah Popocatapetl where wereyou on Pats 456? 😉 😀

Never knew that track was called potato alley think the beast is way better and when you could ride them on Enduro bikes getting up the Beast was hard work riding up PA was a piece of cake.

i still can’t work out where the screaming mile is

if i remember it right, potato alley is just down to going fast enough that the bike floats over the baby’s heads (i have only ever ridden it on a HT with 80m forks and it was years ago)

I’ve ridden the beast on the same hardtail (crashed and still have the scars) and on a FS. It’s far more interesting and much more satisfying than potato alley, albeit far easier on a modern FS than on a late 90s HT.

Does this mean I’m agreeing with Hora 😕

i still can’t work out where the screaming mile is

I think it’s the track which comes down by the car park next to the cattle grid on the road down to Fairholmes. If you go right at the top, it follows a grassy thing that emerges at the top of the Hagg Farm descent.

http://www.streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?X=418045&Y=388480&A=Y&Z=120

Looking at the map though, it’s only a km long… a kind of rubbish descent but a splendidly unpleasant climb with few or no redeeming technical features.

Neither. A cheeky that brings you out near the bottom of The Beast is far more fun 😉

Ah – that bugger of a climb with the water bars. Up from the car park. I know the one.

BadlyWiredDog – Member

i still can’t work out where the screaming mile is

I think it’s the track which comes down by the car park next to the cattle grid on the road down to Fairholmes. If you go right at the top, it follows a grassy thing that emerges at the top of the Hagg Farm descent.

http://www.streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?X=418045&Y=388480&A=Y&Z=120

Looking at the map though, it’s only a km long… a kind of rubbish descent but a splendidly unpleasant climb with few or no redeeming technical features. Was this not the old ‘screaming mile’, as it got resurfaced a few years ago so stopped screaming?
The screaming mile title then passed to the Lockerbrook descent. Which isn’t much of a screamer either, but is at least a mile.

I get sooo confused by the names…

I think some people used to call dropping down towards the reservoir “Hagg Side Descent”, and the one towards the A57, “Hagg Farm Descent”

As evidence I show you this video:

(Sorry I shouldn’t laugh at the their misfortune, but it certainly made me chuckle 😉 )

Well I rode down then walked up and down half of potato alley for the previously mentioned garmin! Thanks again. 🙂
Having ridden both potato alley and the beast, I find both have their pros and cons, i.e. distance versus challenge. (Sits on fence on this one!)

The Beast for me…..though I’d much rather ride Narnia 😉

Bit damp that there narnia at the mo

smaca – we call that route the son of the beast

the long climb up on that broken road about half a mile up the reservoir on the right hand side we call the son of a bitch!

Haven’t ridden Potato Alley, but did ride the Beast for the first time last week. Quite fun in a ‘pick your way down on a hardtail’ way, and I wasn’t that much slower then my riding mates on their FS bikes (although admittedly none of us were proper quick). Was easier than the mythology made it out to be (although my view might be coloured by my experience riding the Nevis Red on my hardtail in the summer).

The old screaming mile is now the whimpering mile, nice warm up after the cafe 🙂

The Beast for me…..though I’d much rather ride Narnia

The problem is I don’t know what people are talking about. Which one is Narnia? The FP with the ghetto camping spot/broken buildings half way down? If so, I agree. Love that.

Re Beast vs Potato. I’m gonna go with Potato alley, by a whisker. There’s a real art to riding it fast and when you get it right it’s pretty satisfying! I’ve had a couple of surreal moments on PA where I feel ‘at one’ with the bike and feel like I’m operating on a higher plane (Although Strava says quite a lot of other people are on this plane). The Beast is OK as a basic technical challenge but I don’t think it gets especially better with speed. All IMO of course.

What about going up? I actually think PA is a harder climb than the beast. It’s so steep and loose in places. I’ve never cleaned either, but one day…! 🙄

Was this not the old ‘screaming mile’, as it got resurfaced a few years ago so stopped screaming?
The screaming mile title then passed to the Lockerbrook descent. Which isn’t much of a screamer either, but is at least a mile.

No, get with the programme. We renamed the original Screaming Mile the Concrete Switchbacks, which in turn were renamed the Beast while the Beast became Potato Alley though some call it the New Screaming Mile. Meanwhile Fluffy Kittens retained its original name, though some still call it the Beast or more correctly Potato Alley. I go by more prosaic names generally, the wet sloppy descent that drops down towards Aston for example. Or the nasty slabbed climb hop towards Whinstone Lee Tor etc. 🙄

ps: Is Narnia what we call Mordor?

Not ridden The Beast but Potato Alley is where I learned that speed and commitment is safer than slow and cautious.

For that reason there will always be a place in my heart for Potato Alley.

It’ll all be much better when DCC have smoothed them out with some nice tarmac shavings – then it’ll be properly quick. 😀

Paul – that’s not even worth joking about!

😀

Wheres Narnia? Through the woods inbetween the two?

I love a good objective thread like this. Here we go…

1. Beast (AKA Fluffy Kitten) is a bit better than Potato Alley
2. The cheeky off-piste between the two is better than either.

3. and if you’ve invested all that altitude in clibing up to Hope Cross, then why not do the job properly and go down (best of the lot) [EDIT] that one that Hora got flamed for mentioning 😆 [/EDIT]