I grabbed at a small window of opportunity this evening when mum had invited Lily to go to the theatre in Lancaster – to see The Jungle Book. I thought I’d throw the MTB in the car and belt up to Grizedale for a quick dash round the North Face Loop there. With an off-road triathlon coming up at Coniston on Sunday that includes a lap of the loop, I was keep to suss out just how much technical stuff there was to decide how to set up the bike.
The loop itself is rife with fast firetrack int he forest – almost disappointingly so in the first 4k or so – but gradually the gnarly, fun singletrack sections kick in more frequently as the ten mile lap matures. The loop also seems to have a good number of boraded sections over boggier bits that seem fun at first (but I couldn’t imagine them on a frosty day!).
On balance I decided it’s a route for rigid forks and very hard tyres (if anyone’s interested). Tyres could be slightly softer if it wasn’t a race on Sunday – where I will be needing to avoid punctures at the cost of hand comfort.
The midges there at 8:30 when I left were killers. Little gits.
View in Google Earth here.