Gisburn Forest

We planned a day at Gisburn Forest, first time I have been there, but Dean and Dave have visited a couple of times, but before the completed Red Trail was finished.

The car park was full when we arrived at 09.30, we got the last two spaces, itb was in bad condition after the winter weather, but lots of riders setting out to do the trails, in fact there were quite a few traffic jams.

Lots of riders riding big heavy downhill bikes, way to big and burly for the trail riding on offer.

The trail is excellent, it just seems to on and on, long sections of twisty singletrack, fire road climbs, rock gardens, super high berms and lots of mud.

The trail builders have excelled themselves, it’s a superb ride, great scenery and features, including a quarry and a rock slab drop if you want!

The tril took us the best part of three hours to complete, quite a bit of waiting at the jam points.

We will definitely be back there, through perhaps on a weekday. It’s a fantastic resource for Lancashire, all it needs is a better infrastructure at the car park, a café and shop would bring it up the standard of the best.

Of all the trail centres I have ridden Gisburn comes second only to Glentress.

17th January 2010

We all got back together for the first time today, except fro Rob who s away to Australia on Wednesday.

The trails are all still very icy, the path from the iron lamp to the mast road was passable and from there we went to have a look at the decent off the sharp end of Winter Hill. It was a bit better than thought it would be, just about ridable keeping away from the track. The ice was very think on Belmont Rood. Back to the Pigeon Tower through the gardens and along the side of the lake back to Horwich. Enough for a cold day.

Winter Video

Having seen last week a fantstic video from Ed Oxley, I was inspired to have a go myself. So on Saturday morning I went up to Winter Hill via Walker Fold and took a few sequences. There are certianly some tricks involved to end up with someting resonably interesting, very short action sequences and to be as close as possible to the camera. I would like to music, but its a minefield of performing rights etc. Here it IS

Winter Comes To Middlebrook Valley Trail

No blogs for a while, got to get back into it. Not stopped riding though, managed 3750 miles in 2009 and looking forward to lots of riding in 2010.

The snow has come and made it difficult and interesting at the same time, managed to continue with the daily commute through the snow, though it is taking a lot longer than normal. the scenery however is fantastic, transformed: no mud and the bike is as clean as a whistle.

Here are some PHOTOS of the trail in winter.