What a brilliant weekend. So many different people on so many different bikes riding for so many different reasons and all happy they took the time to explore trails on the Calder Divide.

‘Community’ is an often used word but when an event like ours in memory of a friend and in aid of a local hospice can attract so many different riders and can count on the generosity of businesses in the valley then the thing we call ‘community’ really does mean something.

So thanks to Ed Oxley and brant of HebTroCo for believing in us, Steve Bate for his energy, Jon at RESTRAP, Katie at VOCATION, Anna and Ian at Blazing Saddles for the years of support, Chris and Laus of Moi Outside, Rob and Philip on the farm who always greet visitors with a smile and Alex of Crust n Crumb who delivered the goods at the camp site.

Every event has a person who works tirelessly to get jobs done. We were lucky to have THREE. Helen for seeing the big picture and being there on all the bikepacking trips over the last 20 years that have evolved into this event. Melanie and Victoria in Event HQ who worked long hours on Saturday and Sunday to deliver plate after plate of food. More than this each of them took the time to chat to riders and ask that most basic of questions: ‘how do you feel’?

Adrian

 

Riders times

Ruairi O’Driscoll

Male FKT on the 150 mile ‘black’ mtb - 14 hours and 40 minutes

Nicky Shaw

Female FKT on the 150 mile ‘black’ mtb - 16 hours 22 minutes

John Allen

Male FKT on the 172 mile ‘red’ gravel / mtb route - 17 hours 26 minutes

 
 
 
 
 
 

INspirational bit

 

“I have fled my country and gone to the heather.”

Emily Bronte

Wuthering Heights (1847)

 

“And the moors were always there and never without their promise.”

J.B.Priestley

Bright Days (1944)

 

“Water, that strong white stuff, can here be seen at its origins. It wells from the rock, and flows away. For unnumbered years it has welled from the rock and flowed away. It does nothing, absolutely nothing, but be itself.”

Nan Shepherd

The Living Mountain (1977)