Some mates are thinking of riding round the classic stuff over on Winter Hill. Ice Crean run, Dog Kennels, off the back of the Mast, SAN Marino and then over to the reservoirs and White Coppice.

Is it going to be worth the hour drive fir them or are large areas still closed off, too badly burnt/damaged to ride

cheers

Carlos

The Iron Man was cut short on Sunday due to the fires still present around the Winter Hill / Belmont area but I am not 100% positive wether they are still closed. I assume there will be a website detailing road closures around said area.

AFAIK all access up Rivi is closed until the 28th of this month.

Keep an eye on the Lancashire Fire and Rescue FB page

Latest update (7 hours ago):
“There are three fire engines from Lancashire and one from Manchester at the Winter Hill incident. Every morning our Air Support Unit will be on scene to carry out thermal mapping of the site.”

So basically they’re using a drone and thermal imaging to identify the remaining hotspots.

Even when it re-opens, I wouldn’t want to go near the Belmont side of Winter Hill for a few months.

You won’t get anywhere near most of that for at least another week or two, as all the paths are still closed off so the firefighters can get on with the job. The bushfires on the top may be out, but apparently there’s hotspots all over where deep down in the peat its still burning away at hundreds of degrees!

Great Hill, Healey Nab, White Coppice, Roddlesworth, over to Darwen Tower – that’s all fine, but strike Winter Hill off the list for the moment ..

I’d go elsewhere, for a while, plenty of other rides in the South Pennines can be done that don’t involve Winter Hill

Thanks for the replies, I thought as much, so will let them know.

Carlos

Don’t write it off. We rode Rivi on Monday night. As you can’t get up on Winter Hill or the Pike, which is our default, we went the other way and rode through the woods round the reservoirs, out to Healey Nab and White Coppice.

It was ace! As we always head up and do the Ice Cream Run/San Marino etc we just don’t ride the lower stuff. I’d forgotten how much fun stuff there is to be had. Loads of cheeky Singletrack through the woods

Binners – Its not our back garden and they’re looking at the classic loop with a couple of bits that they know added on. Cheeky in the woods sounds fun, but hunting them out and knowing where they run too is local knowledge, which is limited within the group have. (Tonnes of fun stuff in Macc Forest, which is our back garden,  without really leaving it. But you need to know where it is and how to link it up to get the most out of it or you just end up riding round in circles)

I’ve passed on the comments to the group and a link to the thread, so I’ll let them make their minds up.

Carlos

Fair play Carlos. As Esme said (hi Esme!) I think it’ll be a while before Rivi is all open and rideable again. It was pretty sad seeing it the other night, the moors all blackened 🙁

If you were going to head up this way, theres plenty of other good stuff to be had round Darwen or Ramsbottom and over the valley at Cragg and Lee quarry

Yes plenty of places where you can park up just 30-35 minutes drive from Rivington and ride stuff that matches or beats it.

Park at Belmont or Darwen to do Darwen, Great Hill, Roddlesworth

Ramsbottom/Bury for Holcombe, Scout Moor, Cragg & Lee Quarry and Whitworth

Ogden Reservoir, Newhey, for riding all over Littleborough, Blackstone Edge, Todmorden / Stoodley Pike, or Marsden

Thanks for the pointers on other stuff around there. I’ll get the map out and look to link some new stuff up with what I already know for future rides round there.

Oh, and they’ve decided on Llangollen as an alternative for tomorrow.

Carlos

“Oh, and they’ve decided on Llangollen as an alternative for tomorrow.”
Mountain blaze near Llangollen

They’re not having much luck, are they?

Latest update from Lancashire Fire and Rescue:
There are four fire appliances in total working at Winter Hill today and this number is likely to remain the same over the weekend. We will be working to contain and monitor the deep seated hot spot areas.

And from yesterday:
We’ve just had reports of walkers up at Winter Hill and people with disposable BBQ’s. We still have crews working at this incident so please help us by taking note of the exclusion zone still in place and not having BBQs in this dry environment. Thank you

“Oh, and they’ve decided on Llangollen as an alternative for tomorrow.”
Mountain blaze near Llangollen

They’re not having much luck, are they?

Lucky for them the proposed loop is all South of the A5

In case you were wondering . . . Rivi still closed 🙁

Re-opened today!!!
(although they’re still removing closure signs)