A short cautionary tale for anyone indulging in X-treme offroad activities in the woods, someone will be along eventually to scrape you up andpack you off to hospital, but it might take longer than you think.

Last Sunday I was out with the normal riding crowd in Wharncliffe and on the first downhill run, dictated by tradition to be the Nemba course, I came round a corner and had to stop suddenly for what was obviously a victim of a serious stack lying on the ground. One of his friends was holding his ankle together (broken tib and fib just above the ankle) while the other had dialled 999 and, being not entirely familiar with the area, was trying to describe where they were to the operator.

Dave the crash victim has a leg splint applied.

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Here it is, we’ve been waiting for one of these for a long time. The latest and greatest upgrade you can make to a mountain bike (as long as there are no sheep around)… Reuben the trail hound.

He has no trouble keeping up, actually normally he forces his way past and mocks our feeble attempts to go fast off road, then rubs it in by launching off 10ft drops with ease (we’re trying to discourage that one).

We’ve only had him a few weeks after getting him from Rotherham Dog Rescue but he is getting the hang of riding already and has already found several new trails. With a bit more practice I think he’ll out-run us too.

Even though theres only an hour in it, the clocks changing makes everything seem different from yesterday with longer shadows and brighter light.

On the left, sadly fascinated by our own shadows under Stanage.

Making the most of the sunshine we took a little spin around Blacka Moor, the recent cow invasion (conservation apparently) has lead it to smell more like a farmyard and given some of the new trails a bumpy surface but it was the dog poo on my front tyre and then helment that won out as the new fragrance of the day.

here’s Jon roosting for the camera in the cow free section

It’s wet, it’s muddy, it’s rubbish outside and I haven’t ridden since Sunday so I thought I’d fix the website and put up some photos we took when the weather was nice. 12th of April in fact, over at Blacka with Dave.

And in a fit of photo-posting enthusiasm here’s some more, from the week before that, up somewhere near Ladybower / Edge of insanity.

The biggest since the dam burst in 1864 they say, and I can believe it. We noticed something wrong when the river at the back of work, normally 12ft down the wall, was lapping at the top… then it kept coming right on in. We did our best to rig up a dam with the builders rubble which we normally curse for littering the yard. It seems to be doing the trick although some was coming through, just hope it holds overnight now. We thought we were at about the lowest point of the river but the Foundry climbing wall and other people along the road have got it worse and the only way out of Brightside post office is by helicopter. Whatever idiot developer thought an underground carpark in the new flats was a good idea is not going to be popular. Lots of very damp sounding car alarms going off. Clicky make biggy on the pictures.

The River Don at the back of work, normally its a 12ft drop to the water.

Attempts to keep the water out of work.

The Foundry becomes a flood with the Don (normally along the back) re-routing through the car park and into the road.

The Foundary carpark.

The bridge at Corporation st, floating trees knocked down the wall.

Corporation Street bridge looking from upstream…

…and again

The Riverside becomes the river.

New Flats come with a swimming pool.

Theres a car under there.

Rutland Road cross roads.

Paddling, futile.

Wickes on high ground.

Car chaos.

Stuck truck full of cattle.

Fairfied Inn under.

River runs through B&Q.

The weir at Hillsborough corner.

Nice in the sun, last Tuesday. This Tuesday we went to Totley moor and Heckler Dave had a huge crash, I think he’s still picking bits out of his shorts and putting them back together but he’ll be ok soon.

last August we mentioned that we’d been told by the Forestry Commission that we couldn’t use Whancliffe woods to hold a round of the Midlands XC series this summer, infact they wern’t going to allow any more events in the woods at all after complaints from walkers, its to busy and it disturbs the wildlife. After quite a bit of discussion and lobbying from other parties we left it be after being told that “we don’t use Wharncliffe for racing anymore ( apart from a one off charity event).”

Guess what- its not a one off theres another one ! Excellent so some downhillers can have a piss up and ride around in fancy dress (in aid of charity of course) whenever they want but no organised events please. Why wern’t they told to use Sherwood Pines like the rest of us?

I don’t think that this will suprise many people, Forestry are rapidly going down in peoples estimations with irratic trail support and extortionate licence uplift fee and capitalising on other peoples hard work.

outraged of Hillsborough