Day One in the Peak District

Four intrepid souls gathered at the Cave for a weekend of fun in the Peak District, Saturday 29th August 2009. Not long after 0800 Gollum, Mick, Jeff and Tim set off for the Vale of Edale. Once in the area it was decided that checking in the campsite first was a good idea. With the overflow campsite in Edale looking chocka we pointed the van towards Whitmore Lea Farm.

(Ed - the hill you see in the pics behind Mick and the van is 600 metres high and typical of this area! The Pennine Way runs along its baseline)

Now for £3 a head we didn’t expect too many facilities and we weren’t disappointed. The shower was the river and the toilet was a mile walk away. A pitch was found with a bit of shelter from the wind, but Tim had borrowed the flower power pop up tent and it failed miserably to withstand the 30mph winds and was easily flattened. After giving up on the tents we all piled back in the van to the start point of the ride at Ladybower Reservoir.

The ride started with a nice flat bimble North past Upper Derwent Reservoir and Howden Reservoir. Being a traffic free zone we all ambled along quietly until the local bus service tried to run us all off the road, so much for no traffic. We soon arrived at the Slippery Stones ford crossing and that would be the end of the flat stuff for a while.

After conquering the initial steep rocky climb it was onto a narrow singletrack on the edge of a huge drop, but fortunately the wind was blowing us into the hill rather than off it.  After a long slow climb up Cut Gate End we then got to sample the delights of Cut Gate path. What a fantastic fast rocky river bed to blast along. Infinite line choices with a few boggy bits to catch you out.

Then at Mickleden Edge we took the right hand fork and got to blast down another wide fast descent until Mick somehow burped his skinny front tyre down to about 5psi. Now for the joys of tubeless. A quick blast of CO2 and we were on our way again. Job done.

We then followed the trail back around Hingcliff Common until we could retrace our steps back across Cut Gate. So what was a scream coming down was now making a couple of the group scream going back up it. But it did make for a tough technical climb.

Back at the Slippery Stone we stayed on the East side of the reservoirs until we were opposite the car park. With 20 hard miles in the legs and a full Sunday ride to come the last loop of the ride was chopped off after Tim mentioned that he had done it before. He mentioned words like “really steep” and “push uphill” and that was enough to call it a day.

A quick pack up of the van and everyone was soon back at the campsite looking forward to the showers!!

here's Jeff's GPS Trace pics from both days here