MTB Destinations: Calderdale Connections
Posted: 9th February 2007
Calderdale had become something of an enigma for me. Just as places like Whistler, Deep Cove and Marin County carry a resonance for US mountain bikers, Calderdale has become a nexus for UK mountain biking thanks to the efforts of a mountain biking descendent of a furniture maker and a certain Brant Richards who virtually invented the MTB micro brand. What is it about the place that’s made it such a honeypot for mountainbiking? A burning question that was answered emphatically the other day, when my mate and reformed Todmorden resident suggested an afternoon recce of some of Calderdale’s finest trails.
I always think the best way to arrive anywhere is by train. You get a better feel for the landscape – you have time to sit and admire the scenery, while your bike bobs away in the train’s bike locker. That’s how I arrived at Hebden Bridge, down the deep-cut narrow valley that contains Walsden, Littleborough and Todmorden. Once past Rochdale the imposing hills and crags of the Pennines loom – a dramatic change from pan flat Manchester and beyond, Liverpool, where my journey started.
My mate greeted me off the platform and we quick doubled back to the car to stash dry gear and fettle our bikes ready for the off. Striking out through Hebden Bridge, you can see why the place is such a tourist magnet – elegant millstone grit buildings cling to the riverside and the hills, quaint pubs, coffee shops and boutiques selling new age ephemera abound – an uncharacteristically high percentage of eccentrics amble around Hebden Bridge’s square – the place has a distinctly bohemian feel.
Gazing from the train, a number of the towns along the valley had a similar feel, Todmorden, home of Singletrack magazine and Brant Richards’ On-One singlespeed empire, has its share of imposing stone buildings, though from the train seems to lack Hebden’s gentle affectedness. But it’s not coffee shops or the Chipps Chippendale factor that draws people here. It’s the huge network of trails set in a stunningly beautiful valley location that makes Calderdale a true mecca for mountain bikers.
My mate, who’s been riding the trails around here since he was a youngster, devised a 24km route taking in “the best that the Hebden Bridge area has to offer”. And the ride certainly lived up to its billing. The sheer diversity of trails in the area was a feast, and will really open the eyes of someone who’s more used to manufactured singletrack. There’s everything here - quiet tarmac lanes, fireroad through Hardcastle Crags, to ultra technical climbing up ancient packhorse routes, wonderful, deep-cut rocky singletrack descending, through to brand new Bridleway and delightful grassy, muddy green lanes on the moor tops. The weather on the day was wonderfully clear and crisp, and the trails were laced with their fair share of snow and sheet ice, adding another dimension to the technical challenge.
It can be all too easy to become trail obsessed, chewing over the finer points of surface, technical challenge, drainage, gnarliness or whatever. Read the mags and one would believe that we’ve all become expert trailbuilders. The big lesson that Hebden Bridge taught me is that there’s a lot more to mountain biking than the trail beneath your wheels. Riding in upland areas like the Pennines is a huge banquet for the senses. What would be a dull bit of fireroad in a trail centre is a sylvan delight in Hardcastle Crags, with moss encrusted rocks and fallen trees, the river gurgling in the valley floor and deer slipping silently between the trees. Elsewhere, at the summit of a lungbusting, rocky and technical singletrack ascent, you find yourself in the extraordinary village of Hepstonstall, burial place of Sylvia Plath (husband and former laureate Ted Hughes hailed from just down the valley). Quiet narrow cobbled streets, elegant, everlasting stone buildings and a haunting ruined church looking out over the valley back towards Hebden. Trail centre mountain biking will never have the sense of place that Hebden Bridge has to offer.
A ride here puts you in touch with a different kind of riding than that which is pedalled (sorry) in the magazines. A kind of riding that connects you with your environment and with those who’ve travelled these roads on foot or with packhorse in years gone by. The riding here is part physical and technical challenge, part history lesson.
In the café afterwards, sipping on hot chocolate to get some warmth back into the body, I was dumbstruck (literally) with the combination of exhaustion (3000ft of climbing in only 24km!) and the sheer variety of the riding in the area. My mate said we’d barely scratched the surface of what’s on offer in the area, and we’d be back for a longer Todmorden centred ride, come the summer and longer days. Must say that I can’t wait to be back.
As we don’t all have the luxury of a local guide, the best way to approach planning a ride in the area is by picking up a Landranger map of the area (which is known as the ‘South Pennines’ in Ordnance Survey land). Knit together any combination of the local minor roads, tracks and Bridleways and you’re almost certain to come up with a home-made corker of a ride.
There are some great web resources out there that will give you some ideas as well, including www.backbone-mtb.co.uk which features the area in great detail, including maps, galleries and head-cam video of some of the routes.
Alternatively, try out the magnificent Mary Townley loop, an all-weather adjunct to the new Pennine Bridleway, which skirts past Hebden Bridge and is at its most challenging just to the West of the town. http://www.nationaltrail.co.uk/PennineBridleway/index.asp