Lee Quarry, trial by Quarrymen.
Lee Quarry, Bacup….a dissused quarry doing nothing, with lots of steep banks and loose rocks, what could we do with that they thought? As part of the Pennine Lancashire Adrenalin Gateway, they turned part of it into mtb course and a really intersting one too. A visit was well over due after numerous friends have waxed lyrical about the place. Time to pack the motor and get ourselves over there quick smart. Sunday saw the arrival of Team Pickle at Bacup.
After parking on the road ‘Future Park’ OL13 0BB you can see the place looming over you on the valley edge, we did start wondering how to get up there though as it wasn’t immediately obvious. We unpacked the bikes, kitted up and started pedalling. It wasn’t so bad, one road past the houses on the left leadsyou into the place, the excitement of visiting a new riding spot was pulling us ever onwards round the next corner, no the next one and then the next one. As we approached the start of the ride we could see some guys with ‘BIG’ bikes doing laps on a set of jumps across a small valley, this looks very interesting I’m thinking! After pondering our direction we soon realised that a red arrow was the route to follow, so follow we did, a double track up into the quarry.
We saw all sorts of interesting stuff, large banks of waste rock, singletrack in the distance and numerous ‘trials’ areas, would sir like a broken scaphoid bone or a dislocated shoulder? It wasn’t long before the double track became a little more interesting with some singletrack down some huge steep berms and into the first red/black split. The red was a sweet steep section of singletrack into a big berm and some large flagstones leading to a really steep hill. The black variant gave us some excellent slabbed drops into the same flagstones.
A further section of singletrack leads to another set of huge banked berms leading into a set of tabletops followed by a hip jump. All rollable but given some welly responeded with some very satisfying ‘heart in throat’ airtime. This spits you out into a brilliant skills area. Woodwork only inches off the ground is an excellent way to get your eye in and improve your confidence on this type of challenge. Just remember, look where you want to go! We played around here for some time repeating all the stuff we didn’t get over and over again.
The red arrows sent us off into the Quarry again with some tame dbl track leading to a more xc orientated section of the route. It took us up to the lip of the quarry looking down into the holes blasted out of the hillside. This leads to the biggest choice in the route, a second red/black split, buy this time there’s more in it. The red contours round the hillside on some engaging single track slowly winding it’s way back to the start and the big jumps we’d seen on the way in.
The black is more of a test of bike and rider, lots of broken rock sections on the side of some really steep hills certainly gave me pause for thought. This drops steeply to the quarry floor with the finish being a choice between three different options, hard, a countour round the hill on large slabs, harder being a steep descent on smaller slabs and hardest being a steep descent on skinny slabs and wood – bottled on this occasion. This then takes you on a meandering course of rocky singletrack which certainly makes you think before heading up the side of the quarry to join the red prior to it’s final descent to the jumps/start.
The final part of the route takes in the table top, medium double and flatish hip jump. This then leads into a section of singeltrack that leads you through some lovely twists and turns in long grass. There’s a final optional uber jump which isn’t something I will be attempting anytime soon.
Overall a great place to visit, the loop is short but packed with features, there’s obviously room for development and exploration. The only issue we had was the lack of signage, it was unclear where to go on a number of occasions, but don’t let that stop you haveing a real blast!
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