Time to break out the Freeride Claw for some ’shore movie action, link sent to me by Dave “Freeride” Lees

http://www.koreus.com/media/descente-vtt.html

And I think there’s more of the same trail (and some other stuff) here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXqcB9jfh_g

The trail (or the riders? Not sure which) seem to be called Cumulative Trauma. And that’s about all I know about them at the moment.

So, apparently, says the countryside code. Maybe I should carry copies of it and pin it to the windows of cars like this, yes you, YT56 MXE, come on, engage brain next time??? I thank you.

Sunny, deserted, dry, warm, cheeky trails. Not the sort of thing you can look forward to on the average weekend in the Peaks when the whole place is over-run by climbers (ok), happy walkers (ok), angry walkers (ok since you can mock them), morons wandering out of tea shops not looking before stepping into the road (not ok), and eejits driving far too big 4×4s (need culling).

But it is the sort of thing you can find if you go off on a Thursday evening for some dirt action around Ladybower reservoir. Normally prime hunting ground for the greater crested Gimp„¢ and their Santa Cruz / Whyte / Bike du Jour laden roof-rack, the place is deserted outside of official visiting hours and we like to take advantage of it.

So it was that we headed up for an aperitif up to Lockerbrook to shake out the cobwebs, or in Dave’s case, a nose-full of snot and from there on to the main event, the Edge of Insanity (again, worth a „¢). Steep, fast and in places fairly difficult it’s a lot of fun, as you’ll see from the pictures once I’ve worked out how to put more than one at a time up. Anyway the point is that of course it’s a totally cheeky trail especially with the uber-cheeky extension sprue, and just not the sort of thing you’d want to go about doing at weekends. In fact normally you’d probably get bludgeoned by a National Front Trust or parks warden using either an unspecified blunt instrument or the full force of the law (whichever was handiest) for riding it but on a Thursday evening, it was amazing. Views to Sheffield in one direction, and far across the Peaks to the other with some sweet trails and even the oppotunity to practice some knarly rock sections (where Dave faceplanted losing 2 kitkats and an orange).

The real point I suppose is that I can’t work out why there are so few people around in the middle of the week. Sure people have jobs and bills to pay but where are all the tourists, people who work there, people who got off work early and went out to the hills for some frolicing, unemployed people, retired people… none of them are there, they all wait till the weekend when everyone else goes and make it an overcrowded mele of frustration and traffic jams, why not spread it out just a bit? It’s a lot nicer that way.

Jo B broke his arm a few weeks ago and as part of his rehabilitation therapy was advised to fix hundreds of inner-tubes, a small selection are shown here. It’s a bit futile as he’s an avid convert to tubeless tyres but if it gets him back on the trails quicker I guess it’s worth it….

He also shared the valuable information that latex is hard to get out of a cat’s fur so be careful out there people.