Fanylion Mountain Bike Team
Official site of the Fanylion Mountain Bike Team. Includes mountain bike ride guides, gear reviews, bike maintenance, team reports and rider profiles of the Fanylion Racing Team.
Kinder Scout
September 01, 2007, England
Kinder Surprised.
I wasn’t going to write a report as two riders (one only true Lion btw) doesn’t really constitute a “ride report” and nor does one days' riding, but then again, out of sheer disgust to all those who failed to turn up missing a cracking day and due to the fact I had to cancel a cottage with cake, I thought well, sod it.
Kinder Scout is well known as on the 4th of April 1932 it saw some 400 ramblers "take action to open up the fine country at present denied us." The battle that took place with a handful of gamekeepers later resulted in 4 ramblers being imprisoned after returning to Hayfield triumphant. That day caused national outcry and the “right to roam” campaign was started. Today though we can roam relatively where we want but on arriving in Hayfield at 9.34am to be precise, no other Lions had roamed from their beds to greet myself and One Eye (Beard). Normally allsorts of weird 5hit takes place but not today. No FaffTM, no arse showing, no streaking, no High Fives, no strange references to mammals and no farting were encountered. Not good. Anyway, with the weather changeable and Kinder shrouded in mist, we set off taking in tarmac up Kinder Road then taking in a slightly rough bridleway/grassy moor to Oaken Clough gaining height to 450 m skirting Kinder Reservoir and then up and up to the foot of Kinder Scout itself. Trail conditions were good, no ramblers were about so we made steady progress with One Eye getting used to his new creaking 2008 Stumpjumper. I like – wowy, wowy, wooo waaa.
Hitting the top of the famous Jacobs Ladder I found the place riddled with ramblers. Two of them stop, look at me, and then proclaim “You'RE not riding down that are you?” Whether they meant “You can’t ride it” or “There are too many ramblers coming up and if you fall off you will look a clown” I just didn’t understand where they were coming from and as I didn’t want a repeat of 1932, I inched down until I passed most of them, waited a second, and then ripped it down with One Eye going over the bars. Ramblers - 1 Mountain Bikers - 0. Coming off Jacobs Ladder and dropping down into Upper Booth was truly immense, loose baby-head boulders, rock steps, classic views and with a cow thrown in made it a sketchy descent and thoroughly testing. I like.
Summer is over.
At this point and even though I had studied the OS Map, we got slightly lost at Upper Booth and endured a “hike a bike” moment up from 232m up to 517m to Mam Tor where I am sure One Eye thought what the hell he was doing “hiking a bike” rather than riding it at times. On reaching Mam Tor it was worth the effort as the weather perked up but with a tinge of autumn in the air we picked up grassy but fast Rushup Edge. Merging back onto bridleway once more gave us some decent descents to South Head with 4 ½ miles to go and having ridden with Dr Shortbread to South Head before, I just knew that the finale was why it was worth tackling this route clockwise. Catching up with some fell runners who gladly opened the gate(s) for us and overtaking a couple of chaps on hardtails made the descent even more of a corker. Swoopy, fast and slightly Alpine like. High Fives all round as we drop back into Hayfield.
Well there you have it. Saturday's ride was good, approx 4 ½ hours of damn good riding and all I can say a return with the pride is in order.
Sunday – well the weather was pish. 1 hour riding from Derbyshire Bridge up to the Cat & Fiddle in November-like conditions and then only to ride back to the car, pack up, go home and wash loads of wet stuff was grim.
Not long now till the clocks go back so please try and get some riding in. What a thought that is.
She must be good with plough,
Team Starkey.
OUT.
Riders present
Starkey
One Eye
Enjoyment level
Choco Doooby!