WORDS & PHOTOGRAPHY BARNEY MARSH
Preston, a city nestled atop the north bank of the River Ribble, has many things going for it. It’s a city, for a start, which was a surprise to your scribe if I’m honest – I would’ve badged it as a bit of an aspirational town. There’s a surprisingly large and unexpectedly opulent train station thanks to its history as a Victorian industrial hub. There’s a football team. It boasts a surprisingly varied array of former inhabitants – according to Wikipedia these include, (in decreasing order of ‘fancy that’) Benjamin Franklin (yes, that one), Stu Bennett from the WWE and the bloke who plays the saxophone in Simply Red.
What it doesn’t boast, fairly or unfairly, is a reputation as a Mecca for mountain biking. Granted there are hills not far away, and quite good ones too. But the bridleway profile is somewhat sparse compared to next door neighbours Cumbria or (whisper it) Yorkshire, and so mountain bikers in the area tend to roam further afield in search of (purely legal, natch) kicks.