You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
Walked and run around Fernilee a few times lately and been a lot of mrbers out and about but I can’t find much about it. Heading out there later this week for a bit of an explore - seems like a few downhill trails that spit out onto the main track alongside the reservoir itself. Anything else I should look out for or other top tips?
It's a secret right. Well not anymore, it's packed, BPD I call it now.
The game keeper and ranger are some of the worst jobsworth gammon ****s I've ever encountered, wouldn't piss on them if they were on fire.
Get on the heatmap and OS map and the main lines should be obvious. All footpaths so potential for argy bargy at the weekend, some parts of the Peak no one is arsed - this isn't one of them.
It's a nice spot, has a different feel to other parts of the Peak nearby. Most stuff is toward the bottom Erwood end for descending the valley sides, at least as far as I have ridden.
Yep, its all footpaths, and the walkers are mostly militant.
Ride up the street till you come to a gate on the left for a Footpath. There's a wee sign on it that says no cycling, have a little chuckle at that and push your bike through. If you go straight on and down there's a great big of singletrack that passes a little chapel like building down on your right, follow the singletrack all the way down and you get to some lovely off camber stuff down to just behind errwood Hall, go left here climb a little bit and then you've got a belter of a run to the right back to the road with loads of water bars to jump.
Going back to that gate if you head immediately left and go round the side of the hill you'll get to the top of some built runs, jumps and drops heading down into the forest.
Useful to know of the option to go left (uphill for a while?) - I always do the off camber single track. Saw a guy come from where you describe with a chainsaw in his backpack! "Clearing a tree"...
There must be other ways to the top of those runs, I always see VW vans on the bumpy carpark at the bottom of the street, maybe there's a straight forward run up through the woods.
There's also a few runs in the woods on the other side of the road. I've not had time to explore properly there so have a look and report back, there's certainly a few segments on Strava.
you’ve got a belter of a run to the right back to the road with loads of water bars to jump.
Hmmm, not a belter IMO - really boring is how I'd describe it.
The rest is good though
There’s also a few runs in the woods on the other side of the road
I've been down one of the runs on the other side, it was decent, a bit slimy/slippery, needs a few goes at it to get the flow of it.
There’s loads of hand cut DH tracks that you access by riding up the street from the main car park. Similar style to the cheeky stuff at Macc forest and on Win Hill above Ladybower. Best way to find them is to tag along with a local. If you don’t know anyone then most have been Strava’d. Just do a segment explore of the area with the slider set to flat / downhill. Some brilliant stuff up there and a very active community of trail builders.
I’d try and stay off the footpaths though. As mentioned previously the land manger is a nob and the local fat dog walkers can be aggressive. Not somewhere I’d go for an XC loop really.
Similar style to the cheeky stuff at Macc forest and on Win Hill above Ladybower
Yep. Pretty steep and technical in places. Can be tricky for noobs, lads & lasses used to hard pack trail centre type riding, especially when wet, needs full commitment.
very active community of trail builders
Buxton crew. Some of them are pretty famous in the MTB social media world.
fat dog walkers can be aggressive
It attracts towny tosspots (due to the very close car parking), the type of people who thankfully don't stray too far away from their beloved SUV's. They think they can lay down the law like it's their back garden. Soon as the weather gets colder they crawl back under the stones they came out from. Having said that some wreckheads brought unwanted police attention, due to their fire pit gathering, to a new set of well hidden trails, that subsequently had most of the features ripped out. Cheers ****s!
There's a few on the Fernilee side that don't go anywhere near FP's and tip out on the main fire road, so don't bother anybody. It's only the lower Fernilee sections, there's two busy double wide FP's, one alongside the reser and one above, where joggers and dog shitters are in summer. All the other paths barely see any traffic all year round! There is a fire break push-up next to the most popular trail Stummpy.
It's not unlike Macc Forest in that the official/well known routes, like the water bar one mentioned above (it's just a hill bomb) are shite compared to the good stuff!
I'm local to Goyt Valley and ride there at least once a week. It's an awesome place but some of it is very techy. The cheecky trails are regulary maintained and new features added which can catch you out!
I once got confronted by a very aggressive person walking his dog who physically tried to stop me from riding past. Granted I was on the FP that runs paralel to Fernilee. I stopped, moved aside for him to walk past and he went mental! He even claimed to be a copper... (He clearly wasn't, or if he was he was very uneducated on the whole access rights stuff). Most people are pleasant though.
Still love the place
I’m local to Goyt Valley and ride there at least once a week.
Same here, generally on the CX using the gravel tracks. I've walked a few of the cheeky trails just to check them out and if you do it absolute crack of dawn the FP down from Derbyshire Bridge along the eastern flank is a nice run although it doesn't flow that well. Needs bone dry weather too, some of it gets quite swampy.
It's such a shame that the owner and game keepers (plus many of the visitors) are all such knobs cos the area would be amazing as a trail centre. Wouldn't need much work to put in a Leeds Urban Bike Park style set of trails using the natural features of the valley.
It was really quiet during the first couple of weeks of lockdown and then people started ignoring the Car Parks Closed signage and barriers and before long it was rammed. Then they re-opened the road up to Derbyshire Bridge and within a week the laybys up there were full of litter and discarded BBQs and shit.
The MTBers are usually the most responsible users of the entire valley - FP riding notwithstanding they at least keep the place clean and they're pretty discreet.
All the bollix around footpaths and access really gets my goat. Unless there are local bye-laws specific to a given footpath, then there is nothing to prevent a cyclist using it. At best the landowner could raise a civil prosecution for trespass. But this would only relate to whether or not the cyclist was causing a nuisance to the landowner. As a footpath is a public highway, a cyclist passing along it in a reasonable fashion has as much right to be there as a walker. If he/she was digging it up or using it to disrupt the landowner's activities then that could be construed as unreasonable behaviour.
There's a good article on it here - https://www.cyclinguk.org/article/campaigns-guide/cycling-on-footpath-trespass
I've read that link before. It's very useful to know!
The MTBers are usually the most responsible users of the entire valley – FP riding notwithstanding they at least keep the place clean and they’re pretty discreet.
Exactly no litter or bike poo on any of the trails or the areas around them.
Pretty ****ing rich being cast as villains round there given what goes on. Was a gang of teenagers who had the police over the Errwood side for their mini rave in the fire break next to the FP. They dug a massive fire pit and left a mess on a par with Durdle Door, that was spread up and down a very discreet neighbouring trail.
The trails, which are out of the way, can't be seen and don't cross any other rights of way took the blame and were smashed up a couple of weeks after. All for the sake of a one-off unrelated lockdown contravention. The proper raves up that way don't even happen so much anymore!
I’m local to Goyt Valley and ride there at least once a week.
Yep same love the place.
Dans Le Gaz and the new line off Temple probably the steepest of the old stuff. There's a new section right over Errwood Hall way, which I've not ridden yet. It looks steeper and is on a bit of hillside I've been eyeing up for a while! Will make going up Foxlow Edge and bombing down more worth it than a straight point and shoot.