Back in May, browsing the internet during lunch time at work, I'd seen the website for the Lee and Cragg Quarry sites. The videos were really impressive and the trails sounded, and looked sweet.
Build with involvement by Rowan Sorrell, the site features a high percentage of man made singletrack, a couple of pump tracks, some jumps, and the loops include technical features like berms, jumps and rock sections. Both quarries have a different feel, Lee has the pump tracks and more technical features, while Cragg is a short ride over the hills away and is a more technical-XC style loop.
It was a reasonable drive up to Rossendale, north of Manchester, on May 29th but the weather was good and as I drove on the small A roads to the site, the hill tops loomed over the horizon. It was fair to say I was exited to get up there.
The car park is basically the road servicing an industrial park whose construction seems to have stopped for some reason. Regardless, it's free and pretty close to the trail. As I was setting up my bike I chatted to a couple of friendly riders that had just come down the hill from their ride. They were relatively local to the trail centre and also spoke highly of the 7 stanes.
Out of the car park there's a ride up a wide access road to the start of the red loop around Lee quarry. The trail started out hardpack and gravelly, but soon became heaving stone clad, and was very rough indeed, even on the Coilair! I was glad when a decent trail surface returned after a short while.
The trail had a good mix of short climbs and short downhill sections, with solid berms that let you really carve up the corners and some surprisingly good tabletops that had me pushing back up to have another go. There were some nice drops too and I made a point of riding all of the red options about half of the way around, where it looks designed to be ridden down, then pushed back up so you can have a go on another bit of the trail.
I met two of the grumpiest riders I've had the misfortune to try to chat to at one of the pump tracks. I swiftly ignored them and had a quick play on both pump tracks, which seemed really well made although the full sus Coilair was immensely hard work in this environment.
I carried on round the back of the quarry and the heavens opened. I hadn't been out that long so I was keen to keep going. The rain slowed to a grim drizzle and I hit the main black option in the quarry. This was really rough, and for me didn't have very good flow. When this section made it to the quarry floor, the trail provided a do-able technical challenge through muddy puddles with rocky paths through them, but was not waymarked particularly well. Hard to complain when the whole section felt like less than half a kilometer though.
Heading back up out of the quarry, I was aware that I hadn't seen the start of the multi-user path that exists to link the two quarries. Met a nice guy on a Marin mount vision from ~99 who pointed me in the right direction. The path was fireroad width, gravel, and all up hill out of Lee quarry. The rain became heavier and the path I was on eventually came to a T junction.
With no signage in sight, I decided to go left, trusting my internal singletrack radar to lead me in the right direction. after a few minutes of relatively flat riding, the southerly path had looped west and became paved with bricks. The rain had really closed in and visibility was pretty bad. I saw a couple of other riders in the murk and headed more or less in their direction.
Both of these chaps were looking for Cragg quarry too so we rode together for a bit. After a while we stumbled upon a quarry, which looked like it may have been used for motocross riders. There was no obvious singletrack so I felt confident that this was not what we were looking for. My inner trail finder led me up a path to the north of the Quarry, through some huge puddles and away from my short term riding buddies who had chosen another path. I was near some massive wind turbines at this point and they were pretty noisy up close!
The path became steeper, and more boggy, and just when I thought I'd have to turn back I came out onto a more well built path that I was happy to explore.
After not long, I struck trail gold. There was some very definite singletrack, complete with arrows. Spot on! I'd found, more by luck than anything else, the Cragg quarry trails. I was really pleased as the trail was great, swoopy and twisty (technical terms!) and well drained. I suffered a nasty snakebite puncture about half way round though but fate smiled and the rain stopped so I could carry out the repairs. This made the fact that I carry a spare tube with me in my kit all the time finally worth it, but the lack of tyre levers made sure my hands had a good work out! The flim Halfords spare tube was exceedingly poor and made sure I treated my rear wheel with some respect for the rest of the day.
The views were pretty good, although not great and to be fair the trail was all of one flavour if you like, not much variation. What there was was a lot of fun though. A couple of laps would definitely have been in order if I hadn't taken so long to find it! I headed back to Lee Quarry and by this time the sun was shining once more. I met the other lost riders and pointed them in the right direction before enjoying the couple of mile high speed descent back to the first quarry. The final sections of single track were ok, and included some safe tables which would have been a lot more fun if it weren't for the cross-wind that day.
Lee and Cragg quarries make for a fun ride and sessioning sections and a couple of loops of Cragg could make a full day out. In my opinion a really epic downhill section back to the car park from the top of the red loop would make sure this trail ended on a high. The current finale hints at this, but is over too quickly for my taste. The rain made this day heavy going so I was satisfied and enjoyed some cake on the way home with not long to wait before my first trip to the 7 Stanes.