CAKES AND LADDERS

There is absolutely no point in prevaricating about this – if you’ve been mountain biking for more than, say, half an hour, it’s very likely you’ll have heard about the Peak District, Castleton, Jacob’s Ladder, et al. They have attained a lofty permanence amongst the trail pantheon that only a very few UK places can muster – even fewer of them in England.

For truly awesome riding, obviously the geography has to be perfect. Underlying the whole of the Peaks is a colossal lump (technical term) of limestone, formed when Britain was close to the equator, and the Peak District – and loads of other places besides – was actually a warm, shallow sea. Overlying great swathes of the area is astoundingly grippy, fast draining millstone grit, formed from coarse sediment laid down as the sea grew shallower. This stuff is porous, so it drains really well – but it’s more easily eroded. Over aeons, then, the Peaks split into two. To the north, there is the Dark Peak – millstone grit and wide open moorland. To the south is the White Peak, where the limestone is exposed. And straddling the divide in between the two is the small village of Castleton. It has plenty of attractions – Peveril Castle from which it gets its name, the Blue John Mines, Speedwell Cavern, and other landmarks caused by water dissolving away all that limestone to leave whopping great caves.

But we didn’t head to Castleton to stare into the abyss, however pretty it is. We came here to reacquaint ourselves with an area which has occupied such a fundamental part of my formative mountain biking history that I’d quite forgotten to ride there for more than a decade. I was very keen to find out exactly what my modern sensibilities (and my modern bike) would make of some of the challenges of the area that I used to whisper about in reverential tones. In the ’90s, there were few trails I’d attempted harder than Jacob’s Ladder or Cavedale. Let’s see what they’re like these days, eh?

The Broken Road

The A625 really doesn’t sound like a promising name for a mountain biking destination, but this particular bit of it has long been abandoned. Climbing out of Castleton, Rik, Tom and I rode past a traffic barrier, and around a corner where the reason for the road’s disuse became apparent.

Initially built in the early 1800s to provide an easier gradient for traffic than the extant Winnats Pass, what was once known as the New Road became something of a problem rather quickly – mostly as it was built across a slope of Mam Tor that has been prone to landslides for 4,000 years. In fact, the name ‘Mam Tor’ (or ‘mother hill’) derives from the plethora of mini ‘child’ hills that festoon its foot. Around the time the road was built, it was also known as ‘the shivering mountain’ because of all the landslips – so they really should’ve bloody known better.

Still, near constant repairs – and road-rebuilding after heavy rain – indicated just how bloody-minded the locals were about keeping the damn thing open. But eventually, a commendably long 160 years later in 1979, the townsfolk threw up their hands, adopted Winnats Pass once more and let the New Road fall down the hillside and into disuse.