Spring-ish

Went for a ride. Without intent. In a mellow sort of way. Learned that the Ragley doesn't really do mellow, it needs thrashing. And that it's something like spring out there. Quite nice really. And I took that bloody photo again, but with a different bike...

 

 Predictable...

The view the other way for once with waterproof feet wondering what they're for.

Home trails.

Dry...

I could get used to this you know, really I could. Though a bit less rubble would be nice.

Mucho wetness...

There's a tipping point to riding in the rain. When things get silly. And no matter what you do. Or wear. Or which trails you ride. You will get absolutely. Brutally. Completely. Soaked. With a capital 'S'. So you might as well enjoy it. And that was Sunday.

It might look suspiciously like a stream, but this is actually the tarmac track from Mellor Hall - I think - over towards the church. Nice.

 

And this here's the top of the Shooting Cabin, erm, about 50 metres of foot-deep water. Full pedallo mode on.

Silly and grin out loud funny. Bring on the winter.

Two weeks...

Two weeks - mostly - off the bike. Resting. Feeding ducks. Dosing myself with weird supplements to make it feel as if I'm doing something about it. Just broken by my own stupidity, which is arguably better than being broken by someone else's stupidity, but has the flipside of removing any possible get out clauses.

Bikes sulking and stropping in the bike cave. Bike shoes skulking unseen. Chain lube getting dusty.

Mornings watching RHR dropping daily, frustratingly, slowly, like a stone through treacle - 50-ish - 48, 47, 46, 44, 43, 43, 42, 41. Which is almost normal.

So this evening, the Pace got dragged out, lubed up, lit up, pumped up and loved. Local shop ride, old people, new people and familiar trails, grippy in that slightly damp grit way. Up Chunal, cruising, then onto the Shooting Cabin backwards. Clean across the bridge, then swing right and wide, cruise the first step then through the scrabbly loose stuff, gently through the ruts then wide, left and soft-pedally up the loose climb.

And yeah, to cut to the nub of it, better. Or at least close to it. Just lovely to be back on a bike, the speed, the movement, watching the sun slowly sinking. All the familiar sensations I've missed - the chattering speed of loose, rocky descents; burning legs on friendly climbs; a half creditable attempt on the Middle Moor steps - I'll nail it one day and soon - and a fuss-free clean of the bottom of William Clough.

And the kick is back - fierce and bright and sharp. I can't stop smiling.

Bike building...

Odd but positive week. One of naming things Earthsea style. Finding that I now own one 2010 Bontrager Race X-Lite rear road wheel and one 2007 Bontrager X-Lite front wheel. And a new bike.

It's one in, one out around here, so the 'vento got debuilt and its assorted gizzards, bits and pieces went off to the transplant bank. I love the process of building bikes. There's something lovely about starting off with a frame and a pile of assorted parts and watching them morph steadily into a living, breathing animal. The precision of bolting things together. Adjustments. Clicks. A blend of exactness and feel.

And then the first ride and that odd mix of novelty and familiarity. And, oh, blimey, it does that really well. Like the first time you sleep with someone. But probably best not to sleep with a bike.

What's it like? A steamroller downhill making implacable progress with a funny mix of roll-over lateral stiffness and roll-round flexibility. Slack and solid and muscular. And a steamroller uphill, tolerating appalling line choices to clean the bulk of Middle Moor in reverse - no, I didn't get up the steps, but I will -  and beguilingly accurate as in 'I'll just ride this narrow rut ridge because I can' sort of way.

And on the flat, a stroppy, surly, uninterested teenager moping along with its hands in its pockets and whining quietly to anyone who'll listen.

Like it.

Night runnings.

I'd forgotten how much I like running. Took off to Hayfield tonight towing a sinking sun behind me. Kit - headtorch, Walshes, gloves and a burnt orange soft shell. Eased gently up 20 Trees, familiar bike trails feeling strangely different without the roundy roundy stuff, awkward lines easy on foot, engine just turning over. Struggling to remember to use stiles rather than gates.

Then onto the top and things suddenly click. Legs start to feel like running legs and lose their awkward heaviness. Stunning views across to Kinder in the setting sun, deep tranches of old snow clinging to its flanks still, but the ground's firm and refridgerated, the slow thaw seems to have been kind to the trails, no sudden melt, just a gradual release of moisture that's dried gently by the wind.

Anyway... round the corner and the best view on earth. Along the secret singletrack towards Kinder Res', complete with reflex guilt twinges that don't need to be there, then round, down, and back up the other side towards Jacobs as the sun sets and a gentle, rolling plunge back into Hayfield with Manchester's lights glowing warmly in the distance.

A final detour up and over the camp site descent in a pool of Petzl's finest light and a warm, happy, tired-legged return to the car. Nice for a change.

Motivation 2: Rivers of mud...

Riding trails that were streams. On memory. Up to the cranks. Up to the knees. In water. Watching erosion in action as the torrent carved living channels through the grit and piled soil against water-bars.

Every puddle a memory test and a leap of faith. Hub deep? Face deep? Weight back with gritted teeth. The endless pause before. the. bottom. of. the puddle and solidity and relief.

Ridiculous comedy laughing, bubbling up like water and washing away a residue of reluctance. And all the better for knowing how many people would be wrapped up warm and dry inside.

A perfect Sunday.

Autumn

It's fantastic out right now. Enough recent rain to damp down dried-out loose trails and hold them together but not so much that things are draggy and sludgy. The Shooting Cabin is a primo ribbon of white, quarzite sandpaper dotted with currant bun gritstone boulders and improbably fast and grippy.

Crested the climb last night to see folded alp-style summits layered across the skyline in the last of the evening sun and just stood and gawped. No rushing, no hammering, just a steady, smooth cruise into the light then down the not quite legal narrow singletrack that clings to gorse-smothered hillside above Kinder Reservoir then dives down into William Clough with the light dying all the while.

Then lights on and up behind the quarry and onto Chinley Churn. Tired legs still spinning away with a life of their own. Picking through puddles and rocks, following familiar lines under the water, diving directly over the ever-changing rock step then. Stop. Gawp. Huge hanging moon filling the sky like a cartoon still. Breathtaking.

Chilly now with cold hands, colder for being dunked along with the rest of my body in a Jon-sized puddle on top of Middle Moor. Rail the descent, tip-toe through the walk-through garden, then the dive down Highgate Lane into Hayfield, fly in and don't touch the brakes on the narrow singletrack for rushing gorse-lined speed.

All that's left is the trundle back home, salivating tragically at the thought of fish and chips and tea. And the reality is at least as good as the imagining. Summer? It's over-rated...

A sea of purple heather.

My favourite place in the world is a sea of purple heather lapping gently against the dry-stone walls above Little Hayfield. Locally it's known as the Shooting Cabin, a twisting snake of smooth, fast and sometimes rubbled moorland singletrack that links the fierce, sporadic, petrol-fuelled rushing of the Glossop to Chapel road to epic views of Kinder Scout and the Downfall and burning, red-charcoaled sunsets.

It's a lovely piece of trail that changes through the year. From dry, loose and sketchy in summer when the surface falls apart and before the debris has been hurled sideways by passing wheels, to the gritty sludge fest of winter. And, last January, I think, briefly, a diamond white toboggan run of unexpectedly gritty fresh snow tamped down just enough for bike tyres to hiss sizzling hot along the surface and slide gently along the fine line between grip and slip.

It's the place I go when I need to reaffirm my faith in the world. The place I've only ever really shared with a handfull of people, who I knew would 'get it'. A place where I know every rock and line like an old friend.

Rode it the other day. In a slow, troubled sort of way. Legs not quite firing. Brain as sluggish as a winter Peak trail. Bike feeling badly set up and out of sorts. Cruised the flat-out 'just pedal' ribboned smoothness to the ford, then, rode the steps and balked at the crossing through line indecision, thinking too hard.

Slow, cautious pedal-strokes then the five or six hard ones that take you over the lip onto the flat, smooth plateau section where, in proper late summer style, the line has smoothed and flattened and twists through clumps of heather and petrified grit mud ridges. But I didn't notice that. Because I was gawping, meerkat style, at the purpleness of the heather. Funny how views can just sneak up unannounced then smack you in the face.

And I rode the rest of the trail - the fast, furious, loose descent to the road - slowly and gently, soaking in the views and the details, noticing the small steps I'd normally scream past in a cloud of dust or a spray of sludge, scanning the smooth line that's formed through the looseness. And than, at the bottom, I rode the narrow bridge on auto-pilot, with no bouncing handlebar ends on wood and just the right gear for the kick off the end and up to the track.

So many times. And people. And days. Thinking too hard in a place where often I don't think at all. And just do. Miles? God only knows. Time? Enough to remember. Heart rate? Yes, it was beating. Just.