PHOTOGRAPHY MARK & SANNY
On the phone to Mark at Singletrack, I laid out the pitch: “So I have a notion that it would be a good idea to put my money where my mouth is and ride up Jacob’s Ladder in the Peak District non-stop. I’ve ridden it once before. It was hard, but I did it. I reckon my fat bike would be the weapon of choice. What do you think?”
Without even pausing for breath, Mark was in and I was committed to what is widely regarded as one of the Blue Riband challenges in British mountain biking. Rising up from the Edale Valley and bounded by Kinder Scout, Mam Tor and Rushup Edge, Jacob’s Ladder is an old packhorse route that throughout its short, but steep, journey up the steep-sided valley, is a serious technical challenge not just up but down too. A mixture of loose boulders, step-ups, deeply eroded sides, steep stone and narrow channels; it is a climb that commands respect. To even consider riding it, you have to be confident of both your technical abilities and your stamina. For many, the level of sustained effort and concentration required to successfully ride up it is simply too much to even contemplate. It is a serious undertaking upon which to stake one’s reputation. Many have tried, most have failed. And then there was me – an average rider with a strange liking for technical climbs who has discovered the frankly gobsmacking levels of traction afforded by fat bike technology. It was all going along nicely until…