I spent last weekend hurling myself down mountains, and complaining because i’m not fit enough to ride back up them. It was awesome.
As I wander through life’s experiences, a little (quite sad) part of my brain clocks the ones that are of remote interest and ill make sure i get as many photos etc to write a post. I thought this was perfect, i could post a picture of me, arms in the air at the top of a mountin….beautiful scenery, ranges of other mountains in the background Headline: The Lakes – Conquered! Unfortunately my (complete lack of) fitness chopped this idea quite short.
Friday: After a long drive up there was only a limited amount of light left in the day for riding. We dumped our kit and headed out to the Altura Trail over in the Whinlatter forest. This was, quite possibly, the best and most technical singletrack i’ve ever ridden. It was only a 6 mile loop but the interesting terrain easily made up for the short distance.
View from half way up the hill, Whinlatter
The trail starts technical with a short burst of flowing singletrack but quickly levels out into a climb that snakes back and forth towards the summit. Once at the top it changes back into more flowy technical terrain. By this point the wind and snow had go up and sticking to the narrow paths that had been cut into the hill proved to be an interesting if perrilous challenge. The ups and downs grow as you fly the the forest helping you to pick up speed. Snaking down the hill the track turns into more of a slalom with huge berms and less obsticals allowing for some propper speed. This was easily my favorite part of the course, especially whilst still in the forest. As you come out the woods, the distance between berms grows allowing room for a selection of singles, doubles and even some tripples. Unfortunately, all the fun does come with a certain risk involved and on the last switchback of the course….
Idiot
….Yep you guessed it, more injuries. Idiot.
Saturday’s plan was to hike (definitely hike i my case, i can’t climb hills on a bike for toffee) up to the top of Helvelen and enjoy the downhill on offer from Britains highest legal access point. As it was there was too much snow still on the top and common sense told us to leave that one for another day. Instead a 30 mile epic was planned and we set off to enjoy a collection of the ups and downs that were on offer surrounding Ambleside.
I’d love to discuss the route, but unfortunately i was far too busy catching my breath and pushing my bike up hills to really take in where we were! Safe to say it was an awesome ride, intersecting some of the North Face trail which was awesome. Lots of ladder sections, and well made man-crafted trail. Genius, not as extreme as the Altura, but genius no-the-less.
Cue photos:
