New member

Hi
I recently registered after stumbling over this website just surfing the net. I had just got hold of an old Alpinestars Cro-Mega Dx to restore from a work collegue and sparked off a lot of memories. I rode cross country mainly at Rivington near Bolton, Delamere Forest and Peak district Nat park on a variety of bikes my favorite being an Orange Prestige mostly XT with Specialised "Ground control" tyres, Dia-Compe brake levers and purple skewers. I raced it a few times and still think it's one of the nicest bikes ever. I owned Marin, Specialized and GT bikes before moving into Downhill and now ride an Orange 222 and ride Xc for fitness and for the direct feel you get with rigid hardtail. As I am now a 41 year old father of two it takes me back to read a lot of the comments and reminds me why I got into the sport.
I stripped the Cro-Mega to bare metal and re-sprayed it temporarily satin black, keeping most of the original parts. It's not there yet but I've ridden it a few miles and it's great fun so I may restore to original colour scheme in the future.

Hooray for the 41 year olds! Welcome to the cult.

Hurrah more over 40's please. Wellcome

Hello mate, do you still live near Rivington,. if so your probably in the same part of the country as me. Wherabouts do you ride now? I've heard theres been a lot of tracks made aropund Rivington now that the rhodedendroms have been removed.

Hi
I tend to ride more downhill locations these days, ie.. Warncliffe, Mac Forest, Foel Gasnach, Wiswell, Buckstones Quarry, Delamere, Ladybower to name a few. Been doing this for the last 2 years now but rode XC for far longer. I Used to live in Leigh and my nightly training ride on my Prestige was up to where the Reebok Stadium is now which was a nice 10 mile up and fast 10 back home. Then as a rule on Sundays I would ride to Rivi over the top and back around down around over Hunger Hill and home again. Rivington is vastly different without the bushes, it's the best thing that ever happened to the place. It has some nice XC loops great views and some pretty gnarly descents even on my D/hill bike.
I used to love the Hayfield loops near Glossop also, great riding.
I intend to ride much more XC when the bike is finished this week hopefully.
I live near Warrington now so am pretty central to all NorthWest riding locations, which is a good job really as its pretty flat here.

I've been known to dabble in DH as well, used to frequent the scousers track at nannerch a few years ago but then a lot of my DH riding mates lost interest. Theres a DH track in Whalley that I've been to a few times, wouldn't mind a trip to macc forest at soem point if you fancy being a guide?

The lads I ride with used to ride Nannerch before they bulldozed it.
You probably are nearer to Wiswell near Clitheroe
(I think it might be nearest to Sabden?). Great track nice surroundings.
I'm rubbish with directions, I tend to follow someone myself. We were talking about visiting Mac Forest in the near future , I'll let you know when we are going. My 10 year old son has just got a new Giant mtb so I hope to take him up to Rivington and do an easy loop quite soon. There are some nice riding spots in the north west but you only find out about them by getting talking to people on the trails.
There are also some amazing bikes on this site, I havent seen a picture of a Klein Attitude for years, that was the bike I always wanted but could never hope to afford. I think one day I will tho

alpinestar222":nl8xyetk said:

The lads I ride with used to ride Nannerch before they bulldozed it.
You probably are nearer to Wiswell near Clitheroe
(I think it might be nearest to Sabden?). Great track nice surroundings.

Click to expand...

Yep thats the one I meant when I said Whalley, its near enough. Love it, need to get up there but it doesn't cope with rain very well.

if you could give me a couple of weeks warning of when your going to mac forest that'd be great, but I understand thats quite some forward planning seeing as we usually arrange where we're going the night before...

Macc

I did Macc Forest with my wife a few weeks ago - my understanding is that you ride all around the outside of it, with no trails through the woods so to speak. It was evening, so I couldn't get any leaflets (so I may be wrong).

The outside loop is okay - a fair amount of rideable trail-style hills and a decently long rutted track that is either technical and scenic (if you're retro riding or fast and blurry (if you have one of those modern jobbies) - but no singletrack which would make it a perfect training trail.

We rode clockwise to get the best of the long technical decent and it probably only took an hour and fifteen.

Let me know when you're going - I'll try to hook up with you (I'm in s. manc).

Neil

I rode the Downhill section in the middle of the forest, it was quite technical but good fun and a nice bunch of people riding there.
I can't comment on the XC loop but it seemed a nice place to ride and not that hard to get to. I'll definitely be up for some retro style riding once my retro bike is ready to roll.
From the brief ride I had before I stripped it It felt very lively so it should be a blast off road.