The best technical descent ever, near Bolton too!

Last Saturday My mate Dave and I went to ride the Rivington Pike Loop, which is just west of Bolton. Dave got the route we took from the Internet from a guy that claimed it was the best technical descent ever. Well a claim like that was enough to convince us to have a go at it.

Here we are at the base near the start of the off road section of the route. The ride would take us around 20 miles over mostly exposed terrain. Note the odd units on the sign.
From here you can see the two peaks that we were to eventually climb up.

This muddy bridle path is typical of most of the off road terrain that we encountered. There were quite a few horse riders around as well as a few cyclists and ramblers. I'm sure we also encountered just about every type of animal poo you could find on the hills as well. You name it we either saw it, rode though it or stepped in it!

This shows a TV mast along with mobile phone masts near to the top of one of the hills we climbed. Before we started off from the cars Dave realised he had forgotten to pack his waterproof/wind breaker, which wasn't so bad as fortunately it was quite sunny today. However as he was getting dressed he realised he had also forgotten to pack his cycling shorts! He accidentally packed his swimming trunks instead!! He went out with his trunks and a couple of T-shirts, while I had my two thermal layers and a windbreaker and my well padded cycling shorts. I suppose I was being a wimp and he was going hardcore cycling with swimming trunks.

This is the view down a winding road, which was great fun to go down really quickly, and even more fun (for me) to cycle back up on the return route.

Here's Dave at the top of the first hill. We had lunch here sheltering behind the rocks against the very windy conditions. As soon as we moved away from the rocks you could feel the icy wind trying to blow you over. Having lunch here was great for the views, but not so great as we started to cool down and the only way from here was down the exposed hill.

When we saw the other hill from here I thought wouldn't it be funny if we were meant to be at the other one instead of here. As it turns out we did take a wrong turn from the unclear directions and were actually up the wrong hill! Never mind I'm sure we needed the extra exercise, and it was fun to make it up this hill as well.

About half way down the first hill, here's Dave about to 'drop' off on the descent. Dave was consistently much faster on the downhill sections. He summed it up as he was mostly waiting for me at the bottom of hills while I was mostly waiting for him at the top of hills.

Dave at the top of the second hill where there was a small single castle turret. We had to cycle on a steady slope around the hill, as the direct route up the hill was much to steep and up some stone steps. I think he's also managed to produce a dog from his swimming trunks. Needless to say that it was bloody windy up here too. We did have some spectacular views over Bolton and the surrounding countryside.

A very strange gatehouse that we saw about half way down the second descent. Unfortunately it was all boarded up. From here we came across the main part of the technical descent. It mostly consisted of the remains of a narrow rocky creek riverbed without the water, i.e. full of small and large rocks to ride over and test our suspensions. It was fun and quite satisfying to ride down but also quite hard on the arms. Not quite the best technical descent ever, but good fun all the same.

At the top of a small wooded area we came across a small flowing river and still pool of water. Very picturesque and calming, and sheltered from the wind as well.

As usual we were both caked in mud at the end but very happy too. The course felt like much more up hill cycling than down hill, which suited me fine, probably due to the longer steep ascents. Another fine day cycling, and even better was that I only fell off once, and I was going uphill at the time so it wasn't at speed. Nothing as bad as the last time I was out with Dave and did a face plant!

On the Sunday we went to see the new indoor ski slope near the Trafford Centre. It was quite impressive and I can't wait to have a go on my snowboard the next time I'm here.