Archives: Wharncliffe

Our in house Pinner and recent entry in to the Elite Catagory, James ‘Swinny’ Swinden has spent the past couple of days training and riding with the Steve Peat Syndicate. He’s been accepted on to the squad and will be receiving all the support and impetus being part of such a well organised team will bring. Watch out for Swinny at all the nationals this year and for reports of his progress.

The SPS have also been employing the talents of TiS Tog Duncan Philpott to document the new batch of riders being indoctrinated in to the team and working with Podium performace at Sheffield Hallam University. Dunc will be working extensively with the SPS over the coming season and bringing his acclaimed eye and lens to bear. The above photo is the first example of this union shot by Dunc over at Wharncliffe with Peaty and Swinny ready to drop in. Dunc’s got a new blog over on his site, keep checking in for more examples of this great work.

Watch out for more Tis on the SPS.

Nick

Last week a few of us attended a mates race down at Wharncliffe organised by the Wharncliffe trail fairy’s, otherwise known as This is Stocky B; Barnsley’s s36 answer to This is Sheffield. The track was a fresh dreamer built just the week before,  named rather nicely as ‘Snatch Grab’, and was very different to the Wharny norm, and certainly different from the trail fairy duo’s usual creations as they actually used a shovel on this, not just a rake.

Craig Evans

There was a fantastic turn out of people sectioning the track, but it was very disappointing that a fair few riders bitched out of putting a timed run down. The track was technical and was certainly claiming some victims with Saturday lad cracking out another double shoulder dislocation, Rowdy Ricky Bailey breaking a big toe and Ross Phelps popping a kidney and spending a week in hospital (no joke) but this is mates racing, there should be no pressure and expectations, everyone should have had a bash!

Ruari Hallam

I personally had an awesome time, I arrived a little late and very drunk, but managed to have 2 practice runs of the beautifully loamy and rocky track. I threw up after both runs so thought I would sit it out for a while and watch Craig smash the last few turns while trying to sober up. Racing time was upon us and it was 2 quid in the prize pot and to the top for our runs. After the first run we were seeded with fastest down the hill last, just like a proper race. Craig was obviously last out of the gate and the last runs didn’t change our first run positions, so after the second run the cash was split between the top 3; Craig, Freddie Oxley and myself.

Another good Sheffield mates race, and a new ‘best trail Wharncliffe has ever seen’. Cheers.

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Cool video on a sweet track, just a shame about the EPICLY long interview at the start. Give it a skip forward for the riding!

Photo: Callum T

After a frustrating result at the University Champs on Saturday it was nice to head to Wharncliffe Woods in Sheffield on Sunday for a day in front of the video camera of George Milner and photo camera of Callum Biggin.

We had a full day of shooting. I was riding all day and after cleverly forgetting my lunch I was fortunate to find 4 SIS energy bars in my bag. These kept me going throughout the day, although not a complete answer to the replacement of real food, I definitely wouldn’t have survived without them!

I spent the whole day pushing up two of, in my opinion, the best tracks in Wharncliffe, ‘Truffle Shuffle’ – built by Gee Hallam, and ‘Super Trout’ – built by Rob Stokes. For me many of the tracks in Wharny fight the hill a bit too much and lack flow. Then when they do really go with the gradient it becomes too tight so you have to be frustratingly on the brakes. Not these tracks. As you will see from the video they are fast, flowy, jumpy, fun and with some knarly bits thrown in there!

Here is the link to the video:

Tomorrow my new Ellsworth Dare arrives which I am very excited to unveil at the first round of the British National Series this weekend along with my new Team mates for 2011 – UK Expert rider James Swindon and UK Youth rider Christian Harrison.

What a Weekend!

Sorry for the delayed post.. to be honest i still haven’t come back to reality on what actually happened…

A moggy March morning is what it all came down to.. After weeks of preparation from our very own Joe Bow and Nick Hamilton, with help from Steve Peat and plenty of others (sorry, i don’t actually know who was involved but thank you all) the race was finally upon us and ready to go..

An incredible atmosphere was buzzing around the Greno woods, as soon as sign in was completed my heart started jumping, i hadn’t been this excited by a race event in a long time.. maybe it was because i had entered my self in Pro-am for, ‘the laugh’ to see how id fair against some top riders.

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Episode 4, is all about Wharncliffe.

The Sheffield scene has seen a serious boom lately, with night time dual races, new tracks and even some plans in the pipeline from the council.

There’s a few new trails cropping up in the woods these days. Gone are the old akward and tight routes, replaced by speed and flow, just a shame there isn’t an uplift!

Hope you enjoy it!

Episode 2 has been a long time coming.

Some rare sun, along with a short session in Wharncliffe and a full day over in Jacks backyard, Saddleworth.

Look out for Episode 3 in a few weeks. With all this sun it could be time to hit the pump track and trails….

Hope you like it!