The anatomy of a good ride

Yes, another cycling thread.

So, what makes a good ride? Well... this:

Every ride starts with a gentle warm up. Starting from the fall lane/binn lane/mount road/carrs road roundabout in Marsden (alt 650ft), this gentle warm up takes the form of mount road.



That picture is taken from most of the way up, at 1050ft alt. Another half mile of tarmac to The Great Western pub, and then there's a trail that leads up behind it:



That's the bottom of the trail, alt 1170ft. Climbing up the hill, we meet the pennine way at the crest of the ridge, and turn north along it.



Gratuitous arty picture of the aluminium steed. Climb up the rest of the hill to the OS triangulation point, alt 1455ft. From there there's views west:



South:


East:


and North:

 

Carrying on along the pennine way the next notable bit is the rock garden:



Doable on full sus, unpleasant on a hardtail and sadistic on a rigid. Once clear of the rock garden, the pennine way turns into a bit of newly laid gravel track which offers no real interest for riding, other than to get to the next section of real trail:



Welcome to Pack Horse Road. This used to be a major route between Marsden and rochdale. Now it's a little-used bridlepath. Alt 1420ft. The top section is superb flowing singletrack. The ruts are not too bad through here, and even start to help...



This section allows some rather imprudent speed to be carried, using the walls of the rut as berms. This carries down to the next stream, (alt 1200ft) and then there's a short climb, before continuing to barrel downwards. The trail gets wider, but the ruts get fiercer. Pick your line carefully.

Then the terrain starts to level out, but the trail doesn't. Through the peaty soil it gets more than a little bumpy:



Another stream crossing follows, and then you start to realise that you're running out of horizontal with a lot of vertical height left to lose. A somewhat "technical" descent follows:



It's about 20-25% grade and the loose gravelly surface makes grip scarce. Good balance and good brakes, otherwise you're walking this section.



Postcard anyone? This rather picturesque bridge shows the importance that the trail once had, but now it's a hidden spot, well out of sight of the roads. Alt 720ft

The road from Hey Green to Marsden is not far off, and quickly brings you to Tunnel End. Could this be other than a Yorkshire canal?



The canal towpath brings you back to the station in Marsden, and it's a quick ride past the Marsden stocks to the roundabout it started from.

That's a pleasant hour and a half after work ride.

 

god i miss the uk sometimes, nice pics there, (as always), looks like it could bite back a bit on a cold and windy day though.

 

Gives me Verigo just looking at the pictures, nice though, looks like a typical Autumn afternoon !

 

damnit isaac, us southerners are going to have to get a convoy going in your direction sometime soon.
cheers


julian.

 

Absolutely glorious Isaac, my idea of heaven. Many thanks.

 

This was my planned route for the bike-off, although I realise that some people may not want to do the 500ft road climb. There are alternate and longer routes that take in some of the same sections, which will make up good weekend daytime rides.

 

Very atmospheric shots Isaac, makes me miss the wildernesses of Scotland keenly, but isn't there an issue with bikes rutting up footpaths, or is much of it on hard surfaces?

Jeff

 

Of course those photos must be fake because England is overpopulated and full of roads and hideous new housing estates .

 

Michael - you have just revealed the "secret" behind living on the edge of a national park...

 

the pictures represent the secenery where I live too...you just can't beat it...

so much for suburbia...

 

you're incredibly lucky Isaac. I have to ride my bike for three hours + to get to any decent scenery, its pancake flat round here... (and I'd be too knackered after the journey to appreciate it!!)

I intend to move in the next couple of years, and I'd love to have something like that on my doorstep - you just can't beat it.

It reminded me too of Weardale where Mr Cat lives.

I imagine the heather is soon to change colour ? (I love the autumn colours)

 

Isaac, your pictures and scenery are just gorgeous. Makes me want to get a MTB and join you on a bike-off one day.

 

Often an area where bikes are treated unfairly IMHO.

There was a piece of research done about 8 years ago, independantly by a university. The research was comissioned by MBUK (mountain biking UK).

The university was asked to measure damage made to land by a) a horse crossing over a piece of land b) a pedestrian/hiker c) a mountain biker.

To cut a long story short in terms of land damage, the order of damage is shown below:

1) horse
2) pedestrian
3) mountain bike

Of course other factors need to be taken into account when looking at damage to the landscape, for example quantities of each user. IME that would look more like this

1) pedestrian
2) mountain biker
3) horse

In terms of hobbyists creating damage, the greatest form of damage is done by motorised vehicles such as 4x4 and motocross. These vehicles are pretty restricted in the land that they can travel on of course.

Cheers
Chris

 

Despite that, I'm not going to say there is no impact. Of course there is. There's an element of responsible riding (not locking wheels up, etc), and maybe putting some time in to volunteer to maintain the trails.

However, I believe that more lasting damage would be done by driving in my car to an air-conditioned gym to get some exercise...

 

I'll try and be organised enough to take my camera up onto The Ridgeway in order to present Wiltshire's wares

 

Well there's a surprise
(Without wishing to appear too cynical though)

I'm afraid I consider any "independent" research conducted on behalf of a interest group to be pretty worthless.

I'd agree with your second set of ratings though. They pretty much accord with my observations of quite a bit of walking in Scotland.

Jeff

 

IME the XC/Trail riding bike riders are a pretty conscientious bunch. Our biggest problem on local Ridgeway are the seriously deep ruts created by 4x4's. You often cant ride in them because they are too deep and narrow to pedal and if you do and need to turn you cant escape up and out so you end up on your a*se.

If you venture up onto the edges you're liable to serious injury in circumstances that seem risk free... ...until you slip off the edge of the ridge.

 

A universities reputation is (I'd suspect) more important to them than that.

Ive done a little digging, and here is another independant study that shows that bicycles arent dont make the significant amounts of damage that they are often unfairly accused of:


"Wilson and Seney: Hooves and feet erode more than wheels
In 1994, John Wilson and Joseph Seney of Montana State University published "Erosional Impacts of Hikers, Horses, Motorcycles and Off-Road Bicycles on Mountain Trails in Montana." (12) The study tracked 100 passages by each of the four groups over control plots on two trails in national forests. For some of the passages, the researchers pre-wetted the trail with a fixed quantity of water using a rainfall simulator. The researchers measured sediment runoff, which correlates with erosion.

Wilson and Seney found no statistically significant difference between measured bicycling and hiking effects. They did find that horses caused the most erosion of the trails, and that motorcycles traveling up wetted trails caused significant impact. They also concluded, "Horses and hikers (hooves and feet) make more sediment available than wheels (motorcycles and off-road bicycles) on prewetted trails and that horses make more sediment available on dry plots as well." (p.74) Wilson and Seney suggested that precipitation will cause erosion even without human travel and this factor may significantly outweigh the effects of travel. Trail design, construction, and maintenance may be much more important factors in controlling erosion. "



Chris

 

The good thing about living in only an Outstanding Area Of Natural Beauty, and not a National Park is that we get no tourists!

Within 3 miles of my house I've got 60km of specially prepared trails and downhills, plus the Long Mynd, and 3/4 hour away is Coed Y Brenin...
I'm definitely glad to be out of London - there I'd drive for over an hour to get to Leith Hill, or the Ridgeway both of which were dribbling with folks..