Words by Stunt, Pics by Slim
Crew: EL Pres, Slim, Butty, Mr I, Stunt
Pub: PTD, Dunc
Route: Rainbow bridge, middlewood way, vale, pott shrigley, bakestondale road, bakestondale moor, bowstones, park moor, park furtlings, lower track to brickworks, Poachers
Conditions: Breezy, dry trails with some muddy bits, wet later
Stats: Another stat free night
Notes:
Small crew, several on “b” bikes – mostly in various shades of orange/red hardtail variety
After what feels like weeks of heading up Buxton road, this weeks route planned to explore the hopefully not soggy northerly moors.
Butty met on the MW way, quick check of the Vale revealed “no room at the Inn” due to large brewery tour in later.
Mild March air leads to some delayering at the start of the Moor, which is thankfully mostly dry and fairly firm apart from the usual wet hollows. Yellow eyes in the distance show the flock taking very early avoidance as we hike a bike over the high stiles.
The old road across the tops appears to have been traversed by a humungus vehicle – the tyre tracks must have been 2 feet deep and almost as wide, the old brick dam across the stream near the upper fence now two piles of rubble!
No decent line left across the swamp at the top – muddy shoes all round.
No sign of deer on Park Moor, descent running well with the biggest of the ruts of yesteryear filling in nicely. One broken pipe near the bottom could have caused a nasty moment though.
Butty takes us into the wooded wonders and shows us a rooty downhill singletrack with a bombhole of doom (optional) at the bottom – dry and great!
Back out the way we came and across the moors, time marches on, and so does the weather, with the doomladen radar map finally delivering its promise some two hours later than expected.
Rapid thrash back to the warmth of the Poachers, beating the Nancies in again 🙂
Smugness not appreciated by the early NB arrivals with stuck seatpost, and then mr broken carbon wheel!
Butty delivers tool bottle cage for Mr I – more orders could be forthcoming.
El Pres finds he has a screw loose (well his spec’s do) and impersonates Jack Duckworth 🙂
PTD makes the northerly trip two weeks in a row, with news of welsh adventure to come 🙂
Conversation soon spirals out of control despite (relatively) modest imbibement.