Here’s a link[/url] to a mates video from his ride ‘ Woody’s :-)

At present, as far as I’m aware, it’s only open on Friday to Sunday but it’s worth a day there, also no cafe at present so bring your own pasty :wink:

I’ve got a nice XC ride from north of Penzance across Penwith Moor to Witch croft, down on the SW Coastal path along to Cape Cornwall & back about 25 miles.

Can send you a GPX file if you like, email in profile :-)

Looks amazing mate, enjoy :-)

Come on Big Bloke where’s your picture!!!! :lol: :roll:

I hope you’ve cleaned up your garage before taking the shot :wink:

Looking to get out tomorrow somewhere for a ride but at present Haldon Forest, Exeter is going to be closed all day.

Just waiting to hear whether Cardinham in Cornwall is also closed, if it is then might have to ride local instead.

I worked for 33 years until I was made redundant last October as the office was closing. Took the redundancy, my lump sum & also took my works pension early at age 55.

I’m almost 8 years in remission from Cancer & this type of thing concentrates the mind as to what is important in life, I decided that I would have a stress free retirement & do not intend at present to get another job.

I’m currently on just below half pay but my pension covers the running cost of the house & food. It is easy to find cost cutting measures to ensure that you don’t waste money, plus I now have a 7 day weekend in which to enjoy riding my bike, I can even pick & choose which day(s) to go riding rather than having to go out on Saturday or Sunday.

To coin a phrase life is too short & we need to make the most of our time here. If you can afford it then go for it, we are a long time dead :-)

Truly inspirational Mark, you never cease to amaze me with your sheer determination to not let things get in your way 8O

Happy to donate to a great cause to hopefully beat Cancer :-)

CB 7 years in remission

A few places to bivi on Dartmoor IMHO

1 – Bellever forest – there is a car park & you can bivi in the trees near the river, plus there is a toilet & Postbridge is nearby for food etc.

2 – Foggintor Quarry – Park at Princetown & ride down the disused railway line towards Kings tor/Burrator – Foggintor quarry is on the right near North Hessary Tor TV mast. It will be sheltered in there & close to water.

Had a good year for cycling:

Rides: 176
Total: 5,233 miles
Time: 546hrs
Elevation: 444,274ft

Got into a distance challenge with a mate & I topped out with 152 miles in 11.5 hrs riding.

Made redundant in November & decided to retire, looking to better my 2016 stats in 2017 :-) now I have more cycling time.

As someone who had Cancer I understand your feelings towards this issue. I am now 7 years in remission & I am grateful for every single day I have had since I was diagnosed. I appreciate the second chance I have been given & I never waste any of the extra time I now have.

In my case I went through the highs & lows of the Cancer depression rollercoaster, one minute happy as Larry the next uncontrollable tears of sadness which wasn’t triggered by anything in particular. I struggled with this for a long time & my mood swings were hard for those closest to me.

Part of my recovery was found on here when I too asked for help & the STW massive didn’t disappoint. I was contacted by other STW’ers who had also had been effected by Cancer in one way or another. I now have a support network who I can call on if I have a relapse or need to talk to someone outside of my immediate family.

I suppose what I am trying to say is that we all deal with Cancer in different ways & that sometimes we need someone who we can talk openly to about our fears & hopes. If you need someone to talk to or help my email in in my profile.

Not sure whether this is unusual enough for you on Dartmoor?

Took some mates for a tour of West to East Dartmoor starting at Princetown & crossing over to Bellever, Grimspound, Hameldown, Jay’s Grave, Bowerman’s Nose, Manaton, Water lunch at the ‘Hound of the Basket Meals’ van then back via Hameldown, Warren House Inn for a lemonade :wink: Bellever, Whiteworks & back to Princetown. Was 45 miles & 4,700ft of climbing – Link to Strava route – could be interesting in Winter on a fat bike, we did it in the dry Summer :-)

Done & glad to help :-)

Check out the Cornwall MTB Club [/url] site & Facebook [/url] page.

Great MTB club who ride somewhere different each week, sometimes down West & other areas in Cornwall & on Dartmoor. A good way to make friends & ride some new routes in Cornwall.

Have you thought of Mauritius? Plenty of diving out there for Mrs P & last year I had 2 days guided riding with Yemaya Adventures which was great fun.

The top half of the island is flat & the bottom half is very hilly, so two contrasting rides. It’s also the first time I’ve had to stop a ride to let a troop of Monkeys to cross the trail :lol:

As said above for family friendly bike trailer riding then Lanhydrock is the place to go & yes they are now charging for parking at Lanhydrock.

For solo riding fun then I would recommend parking at Lanhydrock & riding the trails there as a warm up, then take the bridleway trail to the main road & the roundabout on the A38, across the roundabout and down to Cardinham. A quick 2 or 3 laps then back up to Lanhydrock.

Broke the tip of my thumb playing football of all things, was put in splint for 6 weeks.

A bit of physio & I was good to go after 8 weeks.

The worse part was I broke it 8 days after getting my S-works :-( so each night when I came home it was sat there in the garage laughing at me. Also when the splint came off the muscle wastage meant I couldn’t operate the shifter :-( thought I might have to go gripshift instead.

Take it easy & come back to biking when it is mended properly, if not you’ll be having trouble with it for years.

As Jam bo confirms that route is not rideable in places & would be a very tough day before 2 more days on Dartmoor.

If you are up for the challenge then good luck, personally I’d give it a miss and ride somewhere else instead.

Steven Spielberg filmed on Dartmoor at Ditsworthy Warren House near Dartmoor for ‘Warhorse’

Tim Burton was on Bodmin moor last year filming.

A recent shot of me :-)

[/url]IMG_20160513_121459277_HDR by crispybacon[/url], on Flickr[/img]

Another taken a few years ago by a fellow STWer at Mountain Mayhem

[/url]one by crispybacon[/url], on Flickr[/img]

I stayed at the Kinlochewe bunkhouse last week & never again :-(

It is very basic, with basic showers, WC’s, sinks etc.
There was no lock on the main door so anyone could enter the bunkhouse & you wouldn’t know if they were bunkhouse guests or not.
There was no locked bike store & we had to leave 25K+ worth of bikes in an open shed used as a log store – so take your own bike lock.
The food in the hotel is good but bizarrely they turn the free wifi off between 6.30 & 9pm??
Bunkhouse guests cannot have breakfast at the hotel? so we went to a cafe down the street who were very welcoming & did a superb breakfast with porridge :-)

Just thought I’d add this to the mix.

If you go to Ullapool then we stayed at the Dromnan Guest house, fantastic place & they even took their car out of the garage to store our bikes. Great rooms, great breakfast & wonderful owners :-)

A few years back I was having a great ride on Dartmoor, managed to stay upright going down the Widowmaker & generally having a ball.

Winched myself up Eylesbarrow Mine & was blatting along towards Nunns Cross enjoying the flow on flat ground, as it was a nice bright sunny day I looked across to the open moor & was soaking up the view …… BANG the next thing I know the bike had disappeared beneath me & I’m lying on my back on the ground looking up at the clear blue sky :-(

To this day I have no idea what went wrong or why I crashed on flat ground luckily the only injury was to my pride :-(

A member of our club had this experience with Canyon:

Had a nightmare with canyon, cancelled my order when they changed the delivery date for a third time to late Feb ( ordered in Aug) that caused theIr system to charge me for three bikes and two bike bells luckily fraud police contacted me in middle of night to tell me my bank account and overdraft had been emptied, it took canyon a week to investigate and reimburse me, it was a total night mare, I will never give them my bank details again. :-(

You rang CFH :-)

Got lucky down the pub the other night & took a bird back home to her place.

Ended up giving her one on the kitchen table when I heard a key going in the front door lock.

“Quick” says the bird “try the back door!!”

In hindsight I should have just legged it but you don’t get an offer like that everyday :-)

Blindman goes for a job interview at a sawmill.

To test him he is given various pieces of wood & by smell alone he can tell what type of wood it is.

To try to fool him they get the secretary to lay down naked on the table in front of him.

The blindman sniffs then asks for the wood to be turned over & then sniffs again.

“Ah ha you can’t fool me” says the blindman “It’s a sh!thouse door off a trawler!!” :-)

2014 has been a great year for me after a very bad 2013.

In April I was given the all clear from Cancer after being in remission for 5 years :-) to celebrate me & 13 mates went to north Wales for a MTBing weekend where we rode CYB on the Saturday & then rode Snowdon on Sunday after getting up @ 4am to get an early start before the redsox, a 2.5 hr ride/push/hike-a-bike to the top for a 25min down – Amazing!!

I’ve done plenty of riding & have stayed injury free, one highlight was riding ‘around’ Dartmoor from my home a 109 mile ride.

Went to the otherside of the world to celebrate my wife’s 50th birthday & cycled on Rottnest Island WA, Manly NSW & then Rotorua in NZ.I met for the first time my best mates 3 x kids he has had since he emigrated to Oz in 2003, climbed Sydney harbour bridge, saw the Opera house, went to Bondi Beach, the blue mountains, stopped at Singapore on the way over & went to Raffles & San Francisco on the way back & saw the Golden Gate Bridge. The holiday of a life time & NZ is truly a beautiful place to visit.

Back home now & getting in plenty of night rides in the mild weather & taking some newbies out to show them how much fun night riding is.

My father spent 4 days in ICU in August & it was touch & go for a while, but he’s still here & looking forward to his 85th birthday. On a brighter note my Mum was 80 & has been in good health this year.

My job is still uncertain but hey I’ll cross that bridge when it comes along.

I fractured the end of my thumb playing football of all things.

My thumb was put in a splint for 6 weeks & when it came off I couldn’t use trigger shifter as the muscle was so weak. After a few weeks exercising my thumb it was good to go.

All in all I was off the bike for 8 weeks. My advice is don’t try to do too much too soon or you will put back your recovery.

On another note second ride back on the bike I crashed into a gorse bush & had to have 3 stitches in my tragus, then 2 rides later some Bint pulled out in front of me & I rode into her passengers door !!!

I’ll be on a red S-works stumpjumper ht with 6 other guys doing the 35 miles wearing an orange T-shirt ;-)

My T-shirt & chip was sent to me in the post, but as you’ve entered late – Oo ‘ere missus – then you’ll need to get to the start early say 8am if you wonna get away in the first group after 8.30.

Should be a fun ride with lots of other people raising funds for a great cause.

I’ve done it for the last 4 years & signed up again for this year, I’ll be riding a HT.

I’ve seen guys on CX bikes do the route & a MTB is kinder on the body on the rough stuff but there is also a fair amount of road miles so a CX would be better on that.

It’s not a race so IMHO take your MTB unless its a 45lb DH rig :wink:

You could try the Cornwall MTB club facebook page – Cornwall MTB club[/url]– they have a few guys who live down that way & maybe able to help :-)

Old Police Station Cafe top grub & great service just get in before the blue rinse coach turns up :-) or The Hound of the Basket meals van @ Houndtor car park ;-) hth

Not bivvied up there but it depends on what they are firing.

I was riding south of Burrator once & I could clearly hear them firing on the ranges north/west of Princetown – Christ only knows what they were lobbing around up there :-( if they are live firing then expect to have a sleepless night or try to bivvy somewhere else Belliver woods, Burrator??

I have a Princetown/Burrator loop on a word doc which is a fun ride including the Widowmaker & another superb descent drop me an email (addy in profile) if you want me to send it to you.

Weather is looking soooo good for the weekend Dartmoor should be dry & fast :-)

If you want some routes then pm me – addy in profile – I’ve got a variety of routes for Dartmoor in GPX format.

When are you guys coming down as I maybe up for a spot of guiding :-)

If you go north of Tavistock the Granite Way is a nice traffic free cycle path with great views of Dartmoor, not too challenging & you can always detour to Meldon reservoir for a bimble. You can start from Okehampton or Sourton or Bridestowe. A ride around Burrator reservoir near Yelverton is nice but there maybe traffic too on the road. Tavistock Woodlands is nice, off road trails, tree surfing, great walks in the Tamar valley :-)

Thanks for the support & i hope that everyone takes care in the sunny weather B-)

You can ride in Kings Wood & there are a few downhill runs to find, link it up with a ride into St Awful & pick up the clay trails to Eden :-) PS you could cough* ride the SW Coastal path* cough to Par & back but I wouldn’t condone such shenanigans ;-)

a friend of mine runs this bunkhouse called Base Lodge its clean, cheap & in Minehead so great for a pubs/restaurants etc and the guy is a MTBer too and can suggest routes if necessary.

I’ve stayed there a few times & its a great place to stay for a weekends riding.