Return of the Macc-Fest. Sun Dec 16th. Pootle Content

well in that case id say that i got there just before you guys then, they were ( as they always are) going up and down, up and down, up and down the sections (so they had done it at least once before you even got there), when i saw them descending it , there certainly were no rangers about, nor did they look like they had been told off to get off the area….dont think ive ever seen a ranger down there mind, glad he give em a telling off though, motorised engines on that sort of terrain do it no good at all, i bet the farmer would be fuming if they went through his field too (hes a reet grumpy barsteward even with walkers/cyclists)

You must have been the random who went through our group at the quarry at the end of danebower hollow then?

One of our lads tried to ride it – was it Graham? Whoever it was went hub deep and straight over the bars 😆

Sound like my regular route

My only differance are that I take the singletrack through the forest, and at 3 shires head I do a loop, going over the bridge and climbing up the right/east side. Before looping around Knotbury farm and come back to 3 shires down the cheeky path from the west (directly inline with the bridge). Then continue up Cut thorn as you did.

Fantastic area and a great route.

I was under the impression that both track across the river were entirely legal for all users

we saw them at about 1. I had a little ‘chat’ with them

Listen here, I am the Assistant-Keeper of The Peaks and I know when I am right. A footpath is mine to ride when I like but no one else can discuss its general location even if it is indicated on a OS map.

😆 8)

nob

Nbt,

I know that the track up to around Cut Thorn is legal, as is the track round Turn edge is.

The one I am unsure of, is the path that comes from East, from the T junction down the rocky path to the metal gate at 3 shires. GR SK012686 to SK009685.

I can’t tell if the map marks it as a “path” or a “footpath”

If anyone knows, please do tell

OS map shows it as a footpath along a walled lane. Legally then it’s a footpath, but as the OS maps says, what shows in the map is not definitive. I know I’ve followed a published route down it before now, albeit several years ago. Personally speaking, the fact that it’s a walled lane tells me it should be a bridleway as it use to be used by carts

nob

Notice how I hold podge in higher regard 😉

My recollection is that it depends where you join it. I think it is all ‘legal’ from SK014683 but part fp from SK015688.

The latter is the better riding.

Cheers Nbt,

and Higgo

podge loves you too hora :op

Podge loves NO ONE. Hes a killer Cyborg created in a Sheffield factory just before they were closed down.

AFAIK – all those descents/climbs to the bridge are all legal for mtber’s? ive done them for years, i cant see how one would be and not the other, but i could be wrong of course! theres a bit around the back of the quarry thats a FP so im told, that eventually leads to the descent parallel to the bridge, whether or not theres a legal way to get to that descent i dont know, but the descent itself is legal.

NBT – ahhhhh yeah! there was only a group of 5 or so of you? i assumed it wasnt the pootle as id seen loads of you before?? i would have stopped but i just thought it was a random group of guys out lol, i did say hi mind! where were the rest of the pootlers then? cos they werent down 3 shires and thats where i went next?

and NBT yep sounds like the same little section, i could well imagine going otb there, it full of rocks pointing upwards hidden in the bog now lol

infact thorlz i know where ya mean – if its any consolation i didnt know it was a f/p if it is, ive done that lots of times, not at this time of year mind as that little section is horrible in the winter getting to the descent parellel to the bridge

cleaning that section that runs down to the bridge (the parallel) is pretty good, its by far the techiest of the descents in 3 shires! great rocky steep droppy fun!

higgo – Member
My recollection is that it depends where you join it. I think it is all ‘legal’ from SK014683 but part fp from SK015688.

The latter is the better riding.

forget everything ive just said – higgo is right, it is legal from his first SK014683 and the second one SK015688 IS some footpath, remember seeing a lad up there once on the SK015688 who’d had a bollocking off some walkers for being on it lol, i missed them that time though….i wouldnt worry about that, its a pretty safe route, its not overly cheeky i dont find, and the ground/terrain isnt the sort that would get demolished by bikes anyways, ie its quite open widish tracks not muddy as such

Oscillate Wildly – Member

bunnyhop – do you mean you’ve never seen them on the field side of 3 shires in 13 years or any of the descents/climbs into 3 shires? I’ve never seen them in any area around the 3 shires. However it’s been a while since we last rode there.

Was saying to pook, that the farmer wouldn’t be too pleased with the mxers, as he had young cattle in the field.

They did squeeze past all of us when we were climbing out, up the sandy rocky path, which was unnerving because of the steep drop onto the left hand side. I don’t suppose they understand how difficult riding up stuff like that is without horse power.

that farmer is a reet grumpy barsteward, make no mistake if he’d have seen them he would have gone MENTAL

yeah they do that all the time, often just blast up past me on the way up flicking big **** off rocks into your shins/bikes….

though i must say sometimes ive stopped and chatted and they’ve let me nail the climb to stop me losing momentum, and being quite nice/friendly.. you get used to it, i do genuinely see them most times i go so thats nothing new, just doing that other bit IS new though so maybe they will be told to stay off that from now on (though i doubt they will)

if walkers think mtb’ers have no respect for land/weather/erosion/trashing the countryside then god knows what they must think of these mx’ers, seriously they have chewed up parts of 3 shires so badly in the last 4-5 years they have had to resurface it in places (i must say though some times the erosion they caused was beneficial on the rocky stuff though lol, just not on the muddy/boggy bits, cant have it all ways though i guess)

I feel I should elaborate on my ‘chat’. It was quite interesting really and went some way to explain their motivation.

It was, firstly, all very amicable.

I rode alongside them and they were all quite friendly – they’d stopped to let us all through so fair play to them. I figured that as they’d done us a favour, I’d do the same and warned them that the walker up the field ahead was a ranger and he’d probably turn them round as I thought they were on a bridleway. For the record, I wasn’t having a go – just advising them that if they didn’t want grief they’d probably best not go up the way they were going.

Rider one turned to his mate and asked quite honestly if it was a legal trail they were on, and he looked at his map and (unconvincingly) said it was. His justification being that there were no signs at the bottom saying otherwise.

I didn’t know, so said as much – just saying I was letting them know there was a ranger ahead and from what I knew, it was a bridleway.

He checked his map again and said “yeah it is legal on this map” so fair play to him; if he wasn’t playing dumb, the information he had showed that it was a legal right of way. As I say, I think he knew he was taking the michael – but there you go.

As bunnyhop says, the field was full of cattle and was just a grassy bog, so I don’t see how much fun they’d have had going up it anyway. I don’t think they made it that far though.

After that we all had a brief chat about how the rights of MXers were being entirely stripped and how they will soon have nowhere to go. One of them quite fairly suggested they “they’ll be after you next”. My worry is that he is right, and they will. He then suggested that back in the day all the paths round that way were dug in for carts and that that had been forgotten when the walkers became the big players in countryside access. Fair comment. We all agreed that Scotland has it right.

As I say, all very amicable. They wished us all a good ride, and waved us on our way.

They did come through our group a bit later looking rather hacked off “Did he get you?” I asked. “Yep” came the reply.

NBT is correct. The rocky section from the east effectively parallel with the bridge is marked as footpath on the OS maps. The track from Brook Farm (SK014683 I assume – don’t have an OS map with me at the moment) is bridleway I think (certainly legal for bikes) until it crosses the stream and reaches the rocky parallel track. In effect there is a dead-end legal route from Brook Farm until it reaches the footpath (rocky track).

The only explanation for this can be the vagaries of the rights of way mapping exercise that highway authorities were required to carry out under the National Parks and Access of the Countryside Act 1949.

The rocky track and its continuation to SK015688 is in Derbyshire whereas the track down from Brook Farm is in Staffordshire (I think). Basically the Staffordshire ROW team recorded their track as bridleway whereas Derbyshire recorded the full length of the track/path from the bridge to SK015688 as footpath. The section from the junction with the Brook Farm bridleway to SK015688 may genuinely be footpath and Derbyshire probably just recorded the full linear route as footpath.

However, I think the rocky track almost certainly was a bridleway and has been incorrectly recorded by Derbyshire. There would have been absolutely no reason to have a dead-end bridleway from Brook House. There would have been no need to build a bridge over the river at 3 shires for pedestrians and I assume it is a packhorse bridge. Historically the horse route would most likely have been down the sandy descent, across the bridge and along the rocky track.

In any event it’s a cracking piece of trail. The descent from Brook House wasnt’t too bad yesterday even after some MXers had been up it.

We must have left 3 Shires just before you arrived as we met 4 MXers as we rode the track south from the bridge to do the Brook House loop. We waved them through and they seemed friendly. I guess we were watching the trials riders/riding the extra loop when you came through.

Oh and cheers Jules for not saving me some cake. 🙂 I was absolutely spent by the time we met you from trying to keep up with my younger, ex-Marine, firefighter, xc racing champion brother in law on his super lightweight 29er. I had to walk all the way up Quiet Lane. 🙁

that farmer is a reet grumpy barsteward

Isn’t he?

But…. his wife is lovely.
I was on a group ride once and she was trying (and failing) to move some particularly awkward cattle about. We stopped and helped her by stopping where she asked us too and sort of funnelling the cattle in the right direction. She was a pleasure to help; very polite, thankful and cheery.

Thought you were going to say that you would hit it, lol

Pook – they do seem nice guys It’s the same guys I see every week, I see themway further over on the buxton route, It’s part of their white peak loop, same guys every Sunday…you were right they are telling you porkys, they know they are not suppose be on there, as you climb back out the long sandy climb towards a54 when you get to the gate to get to the road, there’s a big red and white lollipop sign saying no motorized vehicles…….they smoothed it out a few years back to try and stop mxers having any need to go down it, as I said it was a brilliant descent about 3 years back and wayyyyyyyyyyyy more rocky, with nice drops on it to, but it became inaccessible to walkers due to the amount of damage the mxers had done….I understand they are just like us and want to ride where they enjoy, but the fact is motorized vehicles like that will damage it alot more than a push bike and walkers…

I don’t think a lot of them ride with number plates on show anyways , so not sure how theyd get done…they will be back next week I’m.sure

Interesting paulmc

It does seem strange that all 4 descents arent the same class in terms of accessx I certainly use them as the same, the techy rocky one is the best one for sure, I love the others personally.as climbs but It’s,all good you can link in loads of riding from 3 shires, great place!