Whitwick / Coalville / NW Leicestershire Riders

Sounds an eventful ride, hope you are resting up muddy so you can make the peaks on the 16th.

Bike is now fully built, looks a beast and I can’t wait to get out now, what is the plan for this coming Wednesday? (keen much)

It was eventful in the sense that it began in the rain, continued in the rain, and ended in the rain. There were quite a lot of smiles on the faces of the punters in the Curzon. We couldn’t actually drink inside because I had already left a puddle whilst being served. And no, I hadn’t pissed myself before anyone pipes up.

Next Wednesday 7pm Rag n Mop car park as far as I’m concerned…..

P.S. Excellent TV programme tonight on Beeb 2 at 9pm if you’re a bit of a nerd like me. It’s called ‘Cold War, Hot Jets’ and is about military jets – Vulcans, Victors, Lightnings, Hunters, Migs etc

Tomorrow (Sunday) morning’s looking nice.
A Swithland bimble is on the cards – anyone else out and about that way tomorrow?

Did you get out Rascal?

I did a local loop in the afternoon, fantastic conditions and a first ride on the new steed.

However, Danny will be upset to hear that someone has taken it upon themselves to totally ruin the descent down Bardon by putting a barbedwire fence up in between the top and the already existing gate 🙄

F*****g killjoys

Barbed wire fence on the singletrack bit after you’ve gone by the side of the building?

If so, I am well effed off!

Is there a stile in it or way of getting over the fence, if not I reckon I can email the Council as that would be blocking a RoW. If there is a stile in it, then they’ve succeeded in ruining yet another of the few decent bits we could ride on. Well done landowners.

I’m hoping there is no stile, the proper line of the footpath on the OS maps is where we ride, so unless they have re-routed the FP (unlikely), they will have to put a stile in at least………

It has a small gap between two posts big enough for walkers to fit through but it totally takes any flow out of that short blast to the original stile.

Seems utterly unnecessary to be honest and could have been nasty if riding it at night without knowing about it.

Bugger.

They’ve done their homework, then.

And it’s aimed squarely at us.

I’m going to make the effort to ride it as much as possible – even if it is not quite as good as before…………….

Agreed

I really don’t see the problem to be honest, it is one of the least cut-up routes I biked yesterday, and due to the quite significant hill there are never too many issues with drainage and mud 🙂

Same old unnecessary negativity.

How far apart are the posts?

I was just wondering if the next time I am ‘walking’ up there and I just happened to ‘lean’ against each post in turn, might they get a bit wider apart near the top? Maybe about 30 inches apart?

What with me being 30 stone and all, I’ll need a prolonged ‘lean’ against the posts to get my breath back having ‘walked’ ‘up’ that hill………

Is that the grassy bit with a few big rocks that I stopped to admire at close quarters a few weeks back?

Does seem totally unnecessary to put a fence in the middle, if anything I’d have thought it’ll cause more damage by funnelling everyone through a narrow gap. Waste of the landowners money while making life more difficult for everyone else…

Unfortunately the posts seem set well enough to withstand a prolonged lean.

Can’t remember the distance other than to say that you can see the original fence from the new one.

There are other options available though 😉

Do you mean the decent that runs parallel with the service road?

Jez.

Yes, by all accounts that is the one.

It just reaffirms my intention to ride it more often. They try to get rid of me, I go there more often.

Every time someone does something like this I think the result should be the exact opposite of what their narrow minds intend.

It will probably prompt me to seek out some more cheeky stuff on the hill as well.

Sorry for militancy, but when the only object is to deny use of a right of way to riders, then I think narrow mindedness needs to be challenged.

Bang on the money Danny

A sunday scouting trip is in order 😀

Im coming wednesday so we should investigate more i think. Ive biked down there loads of times and not seen any walkers. I dont know what they are trying to achieve. Its not as if its getting ruined by the likes of us.

Yes, we’ll ride it anyway.

I’ve gleaned a fair amount on RoW laws and the practicalities of their enforcement on here.

STW on access[/url]

The above is a good start, it has a couple of sister articles by a rights of way officer as well.

Hopefully we will never need to actually tap into any of this, but you never know…….

Danny

Is it the Peaks trip this weekend?
If so, what day, what route and do you know who’s up for it?
Day and distance will be a deciding factor for me.

Tomorrow very doubtful – again. Enjoy tomorrow chaps 🙂

Maybe see you on the w/end!

Right – I probably need to sort the Peaks day out properly, so here goes……

I’d like to be starting the ride as close to 9-30am as possible on Saturday morning (16th November). We will start in the Heatherdene Car Park near Ladybower. This car park is on the right of the main road after you pass through Bamford going north on the A6013. It is about 600 yards after you pass by the Yorkshire Bridge Inn.

The ride will take in five main climbs and descents – each of about 180m vertical gain/loss. Not an epic, but not a pushover either. We will take in some absolute classics.

The only real question I have is:

Do people want to meet up close to home at about 8am and drive up in convoy, or do you just want to meet at Heatherdene at about 9-15am?

Miles approx?
Not sure how much I had win the tank at the mo.

It’s about 19 miles if memory serves.

Four out of the five climbs are rideable (by me, not some mountain goat). The last is a push.

Bring plenty of grub and some high calorie stuff – the pace will not be too fearsome – I like to have plenty left in my legs for the downhills.

Go on – you know you want to………………

Guys,

Are you riding tomorrow night?

7pm Man Within Compass (Rag n Mop) car park 🙂

It’s going to be nice and chilly tonight, can’t wait.

It’ll be difficult to know what is frozen breath and what is the dry ice rolling off of your new bike(!)

I saw the pic on the ‘post your bike’ thread – very nice, reminds me a bit of some kind of stealth bomber.

Hope you have dried out from last week! Looks alot better for tonight, see you all later

Looks like I’ll have to give it a miss tonight chaps. The knee is still not good and having spoken to a couple of people who have had similar in the past it sounds like I shouldn’t aggravate it so it takes longer to recover. Just to make it worse I’m also stuck at work. 🙁

I’ll probably have to give Saturday a miss too, which is pretty annoying as the route sounds fantastic.

Just checked the bike pic Scandal – looks great, good colour choice 🙂

Have a great ride tonight, hopefully I’ll be back in action soon!

Cheers chaps, I like the stealth bommer comparison.

Get better soon mate, see how you feel Sat 😉

Just put my wet shoes on the radiator, Ooops!

Oh and muddy, could you turn up tonight anyway so I can borrow a rear light again 😳

Aye up. Whats your route?

Hmm, you’re not from round here, are you? 😉

Short version is a few classic bits around Ladybower but I’ll have to leave it up to Danny to provide the long version…

And thanks Scandal. Still hoping to make Sat but we’ll see, will try to get a short ride in on Friday to see how it is then. Hope you had a good blast and managed without the spare light!

what sort of time do you anticipate finishing? assuming no mishaps!

Scandal.

Type ‘Jack Reading playing in the peaks’ into google and the vimeo link should be there.

The bits we will ride are after he’s talked a bit – but you can always behold his skills in the woods beforehand as well!

Ah I know your route. Why not do the beast instead of potato alley? You can still cut hard left at the bottom of the beast which brings you out at the foot of Potato alley.

At circa 3.00 in the vid- that bit is **** now. I never knew there could be mud on that hard grit-packed trail 🙁

Hi hora.

The route can best be described as Ladybower Inn to Derwent Edge, Bridge End to Hagg Farm. Wooler Knoll. Blackley Hey. Rowlee Farm, Lockerbrook. Back over Whinstone Lee Tor to Ladybower (five ups, five downs).

The decision not to ride the Beast is purely because I prefer potato alley, and you don’t have to ride any distance on the A57 or push back up the Hagg Farm switchbacks.

If there is a group consensus for the Beast, then we’ll ride it – very democratic are we!

I know you are a forum ‘veteran’ and a Peaks local(?) so we might see you out and about on Saturday. I’ll be the one at the back sweating and generally slowing everyone down……….

You will 🙂 I’m dropping a wheel off at your meeting point with one of you. We’ll cross paths.

Me, fat, GSOH, own Rockshoxs.

You will I’m dropping a wheel off at your meeting point with one of you. We’ll cross paths.

Maybe, but not certain yet. I have to get back mid afternoon, hence my question earlier in the thread about anticipated finish time.

Danny – any thoughts on finish time?

Phil56 – Ah, I thought your question related to last night’s ride – too many sub-threads methinks.

I would anticipate being done by 3pm latest – this gives us an extra hour and a half before it gets dark if there are any issues, but it represents a fairly easy pace with food stops etc.

I’m not anticipating too many heroics on the climbs from myself (I was in bits last night for some reason), and would rather ride without too much time pressure.

Thought we had lost you at one point.

OK, a couple of us from South Leics will join for the first part of the ride if that’s OK, but we’ll probably bail out about 1pm due to domestic commitments.

Hora – we’ll be be there if you want to bring Petes wheel

Coolio. I will have a fetching moustache

Can you bring me one? A moustache that is.