Mary Townley Loop

The mary townley loop signs

The mary townley loop is my long distance local loop, i live 10 miles from it and ride it from my house, its a cracking ride and i should do it more often. Today i set off with a chilled out way of thinking, i wasnt going to try beat any records, i just wanted to ride it and have fun taking pictures along the way. I join the route on Rooley moor road and usually do it anticlockwise so i dont need to ride any of it twice and also making it into a big loop from my home. The weather today was ace really nice skys, it had been pretty cold the night before so the ground was frozen solid, the trails were riding pretty fast. The loop itself comes in at around 47 miles but with me riding from home i put in well over 60, it basically climbs and decents from valleys all the way round making the total ascent of the route 6500 feet. There are plenty of killer technical climbs, fast rocky decents, moorlands, quite country roads and stunning scenery on it which is why i love it. I took plenty of pics so check them out.

just before joining the mtl on rooley moor road

nice singletrack decent after the climb from healey dell

watergrove res, theres a town under that lake

looking over littleborough

ice on the railings at summit

nice trails leading all the way round stoodley pike

decending down to hebden bridge

after the killer climb from hebden bridge

decent down to gorple res

widdop rocks, excellent views from here

just after long causeway heading up to the windmills

mary townley memorial stone after a slog up a grass climb

sunset over holcombe hill from back at rooley moor road

It took me 7 hours to do the ride with 40 mins or so of standing around taking pics which isnt bad seeing as i was taking it easy. I love this ride every time i do it

gps reading

Criffel

Premiere inn  lodges had a deal on so i booked a room for £19 in carlisle with Liz. We drove up sat night and watch tv with a few beers. The next day we planned to do a walk up a mountain just across the border into scotland called Criffel, its just south from Dumfries close to one of the 7 stanes bike trails maybe. We parked in a car park next to ardwall farm which lyes beside loch kindar, the weather was cloudy but with no rain forcast it was going to be a good day. From the carpark we walked through a gate along a landrover track and took the next right leading past the farm. This path then takes you along side craigrockall burn to the edge of the forest line which looks like its in the process of being felled at the moment, from here you hop over a fence and your straight into boggy land, luckily for us it was frozen solid. The path leads steeply up to the summit cairn and trig point where the views are ace across the solway firth to the northern lakes and to the west of the rugged south scottish coastline. Although the mountain isnt high at just under 1900 feet it was steep going from the start and really is hard for a 4 mile walk. Well worth it for the views alone. On the drive back we stopped of at the remains of an abbey which was pretty cool to look at

Path near the start

the summit

view to the lakes

view out to sea

view back to the start

new abbeys abbey remains

Friday is the best day to have off work

rooly moor road

Was meeting mike and stu at 12 on the horseshoe round holcombe hill, so set off at 10 over rooley moor road to get an extra few miles in. Although i went for a ride tuesday night this was my first ride since the starthpuffer than included hills. It was a cracking day, ground frozen solid and the sun was warming me as if it was spring. So over rooley moor taking pictures all the way, down into irwell vale and up robin hoods well, over holcombe moor to pilgrims cross and dropped down to the horse shoe and met mike and stu near the maggot farm. We headed past the strawberry duck and over the a666 and onto darwin moor, Mike had never been to the tower so we made our way over to it, the roof is still missing from the last storm blowing it off. Down into tockholes and back on the wevaers way, through turton and back to affetside. Weather was brilliant managed just under 50 miles before i arrived back home.

scout moor

mike on the weavers way

me, darwin moor

darwin tower

mike and stu

gps recording

3rd time lucky at the Strathpuffer

My 3rd time at the strathpuffer, the 2 before both ended in failure 1st one due to a mechanical and 2nd due to being lazy and weak. Me and Shaun had taken it upon ourselfs to ride paired and give it our best crack. We took the van, a caravan a spare bike each, lots of clothes and our own mechanic/chef (Mike).
The fire road was covered in ice, rumours were going round that ice tyres werent needed, i disagreed so sent Mike out on a lap the night before, he came back agreeing with me so we put our ice tyres on. Shaun was doing the run and the 1st lap, he came through after the run in the top 20 and sped up the fire road climb as i went back to the caravan to change into my cycling gear. At the 25 minute mark i was at the start finish line waiting ready to race, everyone was taking bets on who was going to come through after the 1st lap in 1st, a few names were mentioned Alex glasgow or one of the square wheel riders, I heard cheers as the 1st rider came down the final decent only to see Shaun coming through in 1st with a massive lead over everyone else in our category.

                                            Waiting for shaun on the 1st lap

                                             Shaun coming through in 1st

Wicked we swapped the chip over and shot off, I was in 1st and was going to give it my best shot. The ice tyres were the best decision ever it was so slippy and the grip i was getting on the ice was unreal. My lap went well and i came back to the finish line in 38 minutes still in 1st place overall. We kept on gaining time on 2nd place and soon had a 25 min gap on them.We decided to slow down as we didnt want to blow up from trying to hard.

                                            Giving it hell up the fire road

The ice was slowly melting on the course but we kept our ice tyres on they werent to draggy and really helped on the icy parts. Mike was busy all the time, making food, force feeding me, making drinks and also doing bike maintance, he washed the bikes every lap and was changing pads, gear cables ect, on one lap he even swapped my wheels over to my top fuel swapped the cassette fitted a light bracket seatpost mudguard and then set the brake calipers and the gears up in the 30 minute rest i had, the guys a hero.
I had a few bad spots in the race like you do in these kind of crazy races mainly due to me not wanting to eat or drink but managed to keep my times from going over the hour which kept me happy. We lapped 2nd place half way through the race and carried on gaining time on them. Shaun and mike got interviewed by privateer magazine in the early hours of the morning while i was on a lap so that should be good to have read of when its out.
I finished the last lap just 30 seconds after the 24 hours with it being our 30th lap, we had won i was well happy, did a interview for the tv straight after the race and was so tired cant even remeber what i said. Really enjoyed it and got loads of prizes to.

                                                   Just finshed the last lap

                                           Team cooksons on the podium

Proper hard race, wore through 12 sets of brake pads, 3 gear cables, snapped a seat collar, broke a seatpost, blew a damper in a fork and lost a few studs out the ice tyres between us. gps recorded 96 miles each and well over 10,000 feet of climbing. Will i be back next year? I dont know im stupid enough to be.

Last ride before strathpuffer

Headed out at 9 with shaun for a road ride, with a 60 miles in mind with plenty of hills. Went over to ramsbottom up lumbcarr road and over the tops to haslingden, through rawtenstall, waterfoot, bacup and over the big climb to todmorden. Flew into Hebden bridge with a tailwind, usually we would head up cragg vale but i got a book before xmas with the 100 best road climb in the uk in, and one was just down the road from where we were. It was pretty hard to find i used my gps to get us to it which included a extra big climb before it to luddenden. The climb wasnt as bad as i though it was going to be it was just long with hairpin corners being the steep bits (around 25% gradients).

                                                  Top of the climb

We dropped down into sowerby bridge and headed over to ripponden on the a58,  up the big climb to Blackstone edge with a killer head wind all the way, back through Rochdale, Heywood and finishing at home. Just over 60 miles with 4300 feet of climbing.

Time to take it easy now and rest before Strathpuffer.

Winter hill, Darwin moor, Holcombe moor

Set of at 11 ish over to Bolton to meet Amy so she could take me on her cheeky trails over to winter hill, it was snowing hard and sticking so i put alot of warm clothes on. The snow wasnt to deep and it wasnt to hard to make progress, soon enough we had got through smithills and riding on the moors to the top.

There was ice under the snow, and a walker warn us at the top of the decent about it so the fast bit turned out to be a slow mince down, but i did stop to take a picture or 2 on the way.

At the bottom i left Amy as she was heading off to a friends. I headed up the road and over Darwin moor. The climb up is hard and i had to walk a bit of it as my wheels couldnt get traction. Once at the top though it was back to easy riding.

Onto the weavers way all the way to the strawberry duck, then did the big climb up through crowthorn and round the holcombe horseshoe took the left onto the climb onto the moors to pilgrims cross, putting power down on the climb my bike did something weird and made a noise from the rear end. turns out ive snapped the hubshell in half, the spokes did a good job of holding it together and i made a smooth and gently escape of the moors back to my house. Cut the ride short abit because of this i was hoping to add in scout moor as well.

Good start to the year on the bike

Chilled out new years day and rested. My plan on the 2nd was to do the mary townley loop on the mountain bike but this went out the window when i woke up at 9.45. A quick txt to Amy and a road ride was organised to Todmorden to watch the cross race there, we went via Blacstone edge in fact the ride was pretty much the same ride i did new years eve. The cross race was cold but burger and chips kept me warm as i watched it. came back with 55 mile on the clock.

                                               some guy coming up blackstone edge

                                                 Dave in the cross race

Today i went on the hit the north preview ride and did a couple of laps of that followed by cake and a massive hot chocolate in prestwich, i then headed out with damian and amy over to bolton and then through there local trails to the strawberry duck for tea, which was packed and had no food left so the rose and crown in edgworth got our hard earned cash. I managed to get Amy to do one more hour of riding and we headed up round holcombe hill in the dark and then back home. 45 miles of mostly off road riding covered.

                                                     Amys extreme downhilling

                                                     Nightime round holcombe

Ending the year on the road bike

New years eve meant half day at work so me and Shaun headed out for a quick blast on the road bikes, from whitefield over to Rochdale, up Blackstone edge, down Cragg vale, through Hebden bridge to todmorden, up and over the big climb to Bacup back through Rawtenstall dropping down to Shauns house in Stubbins and i finshed off by going over affetside, through Radcliffe to Whitefield. Not far off 60 mile in 3 hours 20. excellent finsh to the year.

I dont have a clue how far ive rode this year, i only started recording my rides in july on the gps and i still never recorded small ride under 10 miles and never took my gps on some races or events but what ive recorded so far adds up to 2800 miles with 233300 feet of climbing. Will make more of an effort this year to record everything.