Not had any updates on the site recently so to make up for it here are two at once!

Pump track 18th November
The pump track has been looking a little neglected recently so me and Shane headed down on Tuesday afternoon and cleared the leafs of the track and sorted the drainage. But we also decided to give the jumps a make over. And have started to alter the jump line, the plan being to move the first take off a couple of feet further up the hill and generally make the whole set bigger and safer. We removed the old Bowling green roller from the first table and whole load of other rubbish (half a bed). We got the first take off rebuilt in the new position although it still needs a little bit of work to shape it just right. I will get some pictures soon. Hopefully we can organise some more digging down there, leave a comment if you can lend and hand with the aim being to re-dig the lot bigger and better than before as the ground is nice and soft at the moment (think of the positives).

Anyway back to the riding, after we had cleared the layer of leaves that was covering over half the pump track it improved things, even making it possible to put some of the more technical lines together into full laps.We only left about 40mins of light at the end of the day to do some riding and take pictures but i am pleased with the results. Shane brought his mini pump track bike down for its first test run see if you can spot it.

08′11′18 Pump Track JI+ST, 12 Pictures by James

Pump track 15th November

I hadn’t been riding with Jeff in quite some time so i suggested that we meet up one night at the pump track, having not been down there for quite some time it was interesting to say the least. Even trying to complete full laps was a difficult enough task, all good practice for the summer though. We did our normal mixture of riding and sitting on the bikes and talking.

But after a couple of failed laps the technique started to come back to us, even with the leaves and damp ground trying to do the best to stop it. The main problem was leaves sticking to the tyres and frames creating loads of rub. The bmx was suffering a lot with this so after i while i ditched the bmx and we took it in turns riding Jeff’s bike.

We got some good pictures of us riding the bank berms which was covered in a layer of leaves making for both interesting riding and pictures, i suppose those two are linked. Anyway get out and ride!

08′11′15 Pump Track JI+JK, 7 Pictures by Jeff

http://monkeyspoon.com/image-gallery/images-2008?album=3&gallery=83

So back in mid September, James, Matt A and myself (Jeff) went for a ride of the EPIC loop. Heading up through Aston we did a bit of drain maintenance, unblocking the hole under the wall which was causing the steam to run down the path again, building on the previous work of a group known as Ride The Peak.

After lunch at top of the woods on HopeX DH we did one continuous run down which we all enjoyed. We pushed up the other side complaining about the dangerous and boring new surface that has been put down on the section up to the Snake, as a result of work on the bridge.

Sessioning Hagg Tor was great fun, we did about 3 runs each of the top section and got some nice pics. A slightly new line has appeared on the second to last corner on the top section, cutting back left just after the corner gives a faster line and better angle onto the next corner with the dropping tree that covers the exit.

Next we headed onto Gores DH, where we all set off from the usual spot, Irwin leading, and me sneaking out in front of Matt. I was doing well, good speed, clearing a few short rock downslopes with a slight hop, slightly manualling the two stream before the forest. I then tried to pull up off the lip of a piece of wood buried in the track, I landed in a slight dip and was forced towards the front of the bike, off balance, going fast and expecting to go down I braked, which was possibly my downfall… literally. I went down to the left, landing on my side and sliding along the bank and track. A quick check, nothing broken, my arm and leg pads doing a good job, my initial injuries being grazing on my hip and elbow and my left lower leg muscle was stiff, I think it must have taken a hit while tensed. This made getting to the bottom of the track ‘interesting’. We called off going up Grindle Clough to Whinstone Lee Tor and just headed home, which was quite painful on the uphill sections. I was walking with a limp for a week and not fully recover for two weeks, still at least it wasn’t a long term injury.

08-09-16 HopeX+HaggTor+Gores JI+MA+JK, 12 Pictures by Jeff and Matt

The latest wallpaper, Irwin at the pump track from May of this year (this session), you can download it from the Wallpapers page.

The Chapel Gate track page helmet camera run is now available for download.

The helmet camera is shane following Irwin, let us know what you think.
08-10-05 Chapel Gate HeadCam Mid

After a late start a group of us met up at Bamford Pump track last Saturday. To start of with there was just myself, Jeff and Josh who had borrowed a bike from a mate at work,which was ideal for the pump track. It was a fully rigid frame that was pimped out to the max. Although at first glance the frame didn’t look overly impressive as it had the paint removed. But once you look at the components you could see it wasn’t a cheap bike! Chris king headset, Raceface handlebars, Thompson seatpost and stem i could go on but it might will make you cry.

After a short while we were joined by Jonny who had ridden over on his brothers bike, as his orange was “dirty” from the coast to coast. After we all had a good giggle at Jonnys bike we did some more riding. Then Jack turned up and i have to admit at this point it did kinda turn into the Jack and Jonny show with both of them pulling various bank tricks.

So after a while we got a bit bored so we all headed over to Grindleford to ride Joe’s pump track. With all of us not having riding the now completed pump track it took us a while to even complete a lap. This wasn’t helped by a small amount of standing water but i quickly found a spade head and cleared the worst of it. Josh and Jack quickly found a strange gap jump with various attempts and some hard landing later they headed back to trying to complete laps of the pump track. Joes pump track is much more technical and tighter than Bamford so there were a couple of falls and bails from almost everyone. With Jack and Jonny, who was now back on the orange styling up the berm gap jump everyone was enjoying themselves i think the sun might have even come out at one point.

After being on the hartails or in my case the BMX me and Josh felt it was time we got the big bikes out. Josh had previous told me about a partially technical section he and Joe had ridden and i was keen to go try it out. So we headed over to the other side of Grindleford near the station to investigate and it was technical that was for sure. But after we had only done a couple of runs everyone was starting to feel a bit tired so we called it a day.

08-09-13 BamfordPT+JoesPT+Grindlefordi JI+JK+JW+JC+JR+MA 30 Pictures by Jeff & MattA.