Cragg Quarry trail – mini review

Cragg Quarry trail, the mini review – the latest addittion to the Adrenalin Gateway project, I believe, is completed and being ridden.

How to get there;

Cragg Quarry can be accessed from either:

Lee Quarry, on the Red section at the furthes point out where a path joins the trail from teh left, go up the trail and follow towards a yellow burnt out landrover. From there head along the ridgeline with the landy at your back following an indistict path. As this approaches a wall/fence trend left going uphill. This will pop you out onto the Mary Towney Loop (Pennine bridleway section.) Ride this down hill, stay left and inside 5 mins you will be at the start of the trail.

Travel time 20-40mins depending on fitness.

Park on Cowpe Road and cycle up Rooley Moor Road and turn right at the top on to the Mary Towney loop Pennine Bridleway. Ride this down hill and stay left and inside 5 mins you will be at the start of the trail.

Travel time 10-20mins depending on fitness.

The Riding.

The line is flowing singletrack which moves up and down the terrain. It varies in width from abotu 18inches to about 2m wide in places. There’s loads of nicely banked berms and pumps with a few bigger jumps dropped in towards the end. I found that I rode it with my seat down so I could feel as confident as possible on the down’s. This did mean it was a real workout, I spent a lot of time stood up on my pedals punding up the ups. You can ride this trail in your saddle no problems but it will pay dividends to get stood up and work the trial. The signage is still a little basic, look out for pink arrows spray painted onto the trail and rocks, saying that there’s few places to get lost so no real worries.

The first time I rode the line I was a little dissapointed, in this day of big payback flowing trails I think we get lazy. This isn’t a winch up and blaze down type of trail rather one that rewards the more you put in. It wasn’t until I rode it the second time that it started to make sense. The more you push, pump and work the terrain the more flow you will keep and the less you will need to pedal. My better half put it nicely comparing it to a giant pump track. You’re going to be working hard on this trail. The more familiar it becomes the quicker you’ll be able to ride it and the more it makes sense. The first time I rode it with my saddle up I found some of the downs a little intimidating due to not being able to move around on my ride as much as I was used to. The second time I put the saddle down, stood up to pedal but got much more speed and flow by being able to move around on the bike so much more. With the saddle down I had to work proper hard, a real anerobic workout! The best section is, as ever, saved for last, you gain a high point and from there you get to put you’re new found trail mojo into practice. A few nice jumps and some faster flowing sections reward the confident rider with a blazing ride back to the start with more than enough grin to get you going on the outward loop again!

Conclusion.

A really good trail to practice your riding skills on and a great addittion to the area. Visit Lee Quarry, add this on and you can get a whole day out. Alternatively visit Cragg Quarry trail and blaze around as many times as your legs can stand it, you decide.

Cragg Quarry, Bacup from Tim Royle on Vimeo.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, June 13th, 2010 at 5:02 pm. It is filed under All, Bike, Mountain Biking, Reviews and tagged with Cragg Quarry, cycling, lee quarry, Manchester, mountain biking, mtb, review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.