On Saturday morning we went to Whinlatter Forest Park to do some man-made trails. We did the North and South Loops which were interesting to say the least! I found both trails to be made from some very slippery slate rock which my tyres didn't seem to take a liking too. These conditions meant I was slipping around a hell of a lot. It's great fun when you can use it to get that perfect drift through a corner but I had trouble staying on the trail at other points. I think we rode both trails in a respectable time. Unfortunately after the ride I was in a fairly positive mindset and I was fooling around in the car park as you do, when I tried to ride up a pretty steep verge. I didn't carry enough speed and fell backward onto the gravel car park. Importantly there was no damage to the bike but I had taken some skin off just below the knee cap. This made me be unhappy and the damn thing wouldn't stop bleeding!
Later on after some lunch we went up to an old 'disused quarry' or so it said on the map. This was just above the camp site but was still a bit of a job to get to. The problem I was having was that the grassy tracks which you need to ride to get there really bog down and don't allow you to roll. This meant I was constantly worn out. When we got to the top we realized there was not much to do there apart from ride down a few sketchy lines through the rocks. We rode back down a farmer’s track which was rocky and you could really 'get loose'. We rode back to the site.
On Sunday we went on a medium length Loop up round some of the peaks which can be seen from the site. We took a bridle way all the way along the hills allowing us to appreciate some awesome scenery and ride some fast loose descents. This ride really finished me off for the weekend. We both rode back to the site on the roads and chilled out for the rest of the day. Later on after dinner we headed down to Lake Ullswater to chill out. We got a nice fire going by the side of the lake which was pretty relaxing. The great thing with where we made the fire was that when we needed to put it out we just practically kicked it into the lake :)
Monday had come so fast and it was time to leave. I don't think there could have been a better weekend to go away. From my parents’ recollection, the weather was terrible at home. "We had torrential rain, thunder, lightning, you name it" said my parents.
I really enjoyed being in the lakes. I feel the riding is great there. It just takes even more fitness for the big mountain style of riding because the place is so vast. You feel like you've only just scratched the surface of the trails which are there!
