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.

After seeing the preview (post below somewhere) of the new Collective movie in Wharncliffe we thought we should go and check the trail out. One word: awesome. Big drops, big berms and massive piles of rocks, it must have taken months to build and a lot of heaving materials around. It looks nowhere near finished yet either, the main line kind of finishes half way down and there are a few more in progress. I think we’ll be going back there.

The picture’s Wharncliffe, from a couple of weeks ago, but not the new stuff.

Looking around the t’interweb today I came across an article on the MBUK site about The Collective filming Steve Peat in Wharncliffe, we like Wharncliffe but it’s almost getting boring now with articles in any magazine owned by Future Publishing having regular “Pro Rider Simon Richardson in Wharncliffe” features or “Pro Rider Will Longden in Wharncliffe” features.

Now it seems even The Collective want a piece of Wharncliffe action, which unfortunately means us having to buy yet another movie so we can see how our local trails are meant to be ridden. Hopefully it’s a bit more exciting than the samples on the MBUK site (click here) – 40mb each of a cameraman standing around and Steve Peat riding past in the background, not very exciting and I don’t recommend spending any significant amount of your life downloading them. I do feel the need for a quick Phreeride session to check them out in real life though…

when riding out with your mates do not spontaneously break into song.

*all these recommendations are based on real and actual events, (we couldn’t make these up if we wanted to).

Bec went for a ride around Rivelin and Stanage with her new camera phone and came back with some decent pictures, technology seems to be moving on faster than I can blink. I wasn’t there as I’ve hurt my back and picked up a cold, at the same time, bah.

Well we’ve been meaning to launch a new version of the site since probably about this time last year, but loads of trivial stuff kept getting the way (like trying to earn a living, stuff like that). So finally it is here, and now I just have to think of something to write.

Maybe I’ll start with bus drivers, a strange subject to start with but I have just been all but run off the road yet again by one of these morons. Most people in Sheffield seem to drive pretty considerately compared to the hordes of BMW X5 owners we used to get down in Surrey, maybe it’s something to do with Sheffield having more uninsured drivers than anywhere else and they don’t want to get caught, but anyway… bus drivers. The worst ones drive the huge double-decker school buses marked BRIGHT BUS and painted, yes, bright colours and presumably they think that this means you can see them coming a mile off and leap out of the road, and leap you must, because they are not stopping, not for anything, and certainly not for anything so trivial as avoiding crushing me beneath their mighty wheels.

I’ve even managed to catch up with bus drivers for a bug-eyed, out-of-breath rant a few times. Yes they may be specially fitted with Rolls Royce engines to churn their way up the steep hills but no-one, not even the bus drivers, can escape the traffic lights in Sheffield specially timed to turn red, well, all the time (more on this another day I think). Most of the time they feign ignorance, “Sorry mate didn’t realise you were still there” as if they’ve forgotten they’re driving a 40-ft turbo-charged lump of metal around, maybe it’s true, I mean surely they are not deliberately trying to run me off the road?

I don’t think there’s much hope for me though. They even managed to smash head on into each other a couple of weeks back, what hope is there for a mere cyclist if they can’t spot a double decker at 10 yards? I think I’ll just keep leaping.