Gisburn Forest – Playing Out
Sunday’s Road Trip
A few weeks ago there had been good intentions expressed by around 8 riders from work. When the end of last week came, it was clear that 4 hardcore, reliable chaps would be making the trip. On Saturday, following a disappointing performance by his football team, one of those chaps drowned his sorrows and his chances of riding on Sunday along with them. So…. I picked up Chris on Sunday morning and we met Russ an hour later at the car park where the Gisburn Forest rides start!
We three musketeers set off and by 2/3 of the way up the first climb it was clear that I was the unfit one. Chugging a fruit bar immediately we’d set off to make sure I didn’t go hypo (curse you, Diabetes) didn’t help, as my stomach closed around it and threatened to have me hurling whilst I waited for my heart rate to return to normal within a mile or so of setting off! However, things got better and over the next 3-and-a-bit hours I had a bloody great time. Russ bailed halfway round because he needed to travel to London that night, so Chris and I completed the Red Route loop with just each other for company.
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- Two of the Three Musketeers
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- One of Two Places You Can Get A Phone Signal
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- Chris, Cover Model For My (Unpublished) Bochure!
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- Demanding Descents and Silly Singletrack
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- Tea after a hard ride is always so much tastier!
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- Start At Green, Follow To Red… (click to expand)
Best & Worst Bits
There are some long, hard climbs in the forest. It’s not nice that the route begins with a long, hard (for me) climb and I can remember wondering if I was going to enjoy the day. However, those climbs give way to brilliant lengths of singletrack! Over Winter 2009/10 there’s been a fair amount of trail-building and it shows: the Red Route deviations from the main loops are fantastic fun. My Focus Fat Boy hardtail and Chris’ ancient fixed rig coped with the terrain, but a short travel full-bouncer might have made things a little easier. In fact, some of the funniest moments were simply listening to the sounds Chris involuntarily made on some of the less-expected drop-offs!
I fell twice. Both times, it was because I was going too slowly, not too quick. Lesson learned. I bailed on two drop-offs, with a squeal of brakes and an unrepeatable exclamation along the lines of “I’m not going off that ****ing thing!”. However, the whole day was brilliant and we swept along the vast majority of the route with silly grins on our faces, no doubt catching flies in our teeth – in fact, I’m sure Chris had one stuck in his throat when we finished. The cuppa from the butty van in the car park sorted that out though!
If you get a chance to spend a day there, do it! Tell ’em Phill sent you 🙂
A map on MapMyRide is here, too:
