Mountain Bike Ride
Trainee#2, The Youth, Oz
“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.” wrote French philosopher Albert Camus and there can be few better places to embrace autumn than a forest in the Lake District. Camus, with his philosophical notions of absurdity would surely have approved of a two hundred mile round trip to ride a bike up a hill and down again a few times. On a less abstract note, three men and three bikes will fit inside a Ford Mondeo although the one sat next to the pile of wheels will moan at every turn. Whinlatter forest beckoned and we answered.
Cloudy but windless, slightly cool but mercifully dry, Trainee#2, The Youth, Oz and myself rebuilt our bikes in the busy car park, other cyclists milling about, starting or finishing rides. In an entirely predictable fashion, we did The Quercus blue route as a warm up, returned to polish off the Altura red north loop, slogged up and down the south red loop and went to the cafe. Such a brief description does not do the day's riding any justice.
The blue was a nice introduction to for The Youth and Trainee#2 to lose their Whinlatter virginities, starting downhill it curves sweetly, instant pleasure straight out of the box, mellowing the ascent which comes later. A few gentle berms and small jumps keep things interesting and most of the climbs are on zig-zags, so never feel too desperate. It comes as a surprise to be suddenly back in the car park, ready to tackle the red route. Retracing our tyre prints along the start shared with the blue route, we are soon wending our way along tracks slightly less amenable than the friendly blue but no less fun. And then it starts going uphill, starting with Bob's Traverse, a narrow track cut in the side of a hill, an airy drop to the right, pause for a breather and obligatory pictures at Luchini's View before (and never has a section been so aptly named) The Slog. Things keep going up after The Slog but more interestingly, returning to the man-made tracks. Our newbies were having the time of their lives, especially when gravity became our friend, flying down the tracks with increasing confidence. The last sections of the north loop are awesome, zig zagging between the forest and fellside, huge berms and bigger drops to the bottom of the valley, four happy men regrouped on the road, realising why Whinlatter is worth the two hundred mile round trip.
The south loop is essentially a long ascent to the top a hill, followed by an equally lengthy descent, basically some zig-zags, a fireroad, some more zig-zags, another fireroad, a few more zig-zags and we pop out, panting and perspiring, on the rocky crown. More pictures, then we flowed downhill, carving the berms, pumping the jumps, taking phat air, being totally rad and gnarly - in our minds anyway. The Youth tried to squeeze out some extra speed by smacking his testicles against the stem, which kept us amused for a few minutes but ultimately watching him writhe in agony was nowhere near as much fun as riding bikes downhill. A few bits of north shore signal we are on the penultimate section and soon it is all over and we’re riding back through the arch and returning to the car park for a quick game of bike Tetris before the cafe.
Not even fifteen miles ridden but we stayed dry and uninjured (apart from clashing cojones), had a grand day and, despite the cyclists in the car park, barely saw another rider all day.
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