Rail 2 Trail

Dave has been talking about the maze of trails in Wharncliffe for a while. Gnarly, Flowing and Steep seemed to be the most common descriptions. Sounded pretty good, so at 8am on what was to be the hottest weekend of the year, I was stowing my bike on the train to Sheffeild.

After being repeatedly hunted down by a tram on the road ride out to Wharnecliffe, Dave's plan was to ride the excellent DH tracks he allready knew about, and try and discover a few more singletracks threading down the hillside. Boyo was up to speed on the trails he had already unearthed.

 

Dave amongst the Bluebells on the first downhill of the day.

Foot out. Loamy, shady, singletrack was so nice compared to the the baking sun of the 'out in the open' trails.

 Dave heads out of the shade onto the sun baked singeltrack.

Dave '100% Rage' powers through.

Hardtail was fun pinging around the DH tracks, allthough I will admit I was yearning for suspension at times.

'We should get some sweet photos at the top of Fast Track' he said. He was right. Was cool to see Dave pinned on what are now his local trails.

Some guys mentioned a 'kind of alpine singletrack' further along the ridge. Despite the trail being on the side of a 100 meter hill, it did have a bit of an alpine feel.

Berms amidst the ferns. The only things this trail was missing the 1000m height loss and those weird black squirrels you see in the Alps.

After 'Alpine Trail' we headed for one of the steeper trails. Steep summed it up well. Not sure how I would have coped with the roots if it had been wet.

Pre ride texts confirmed it was worth bringing pads along. After a few run ins with trees I was glad for them.

Dave on one of the steepest sections. Steepness combined with inconvenient rocks made it a real challenge even at slow speed. Not sure I would be brave enough to hit these trails at speed, even with a full on DH bike.

We finished things off on the sweetest flowiest bit of trail. Dave called it the definition of singeltrail. Mild heat stroke not pictured.

Was nice to finish things on a more relaxed trail. Not sure what is with the ragefull expression here.

And refresh...

And all for the price of a off peak return. It was really cool to see the trails that Dave had discovered, and indeed uncover a few more. Despite the record temperatures it was an ace day of riding, especially with the lack of a drive home allowing for a few post ride pints of Moonshine and a quick snooze on the train.