Today’s the day we kick off the KoftheP monthly giveaway – and what a cracker it is in March.

We’ve teamed up with Alliance MTB to give the lucky winner a coaching session courtesy of the team.

Alliance MTB are officially licensed Forestry Commission operators at Sherwood Pines and are now working to deliver MTB Coaching at Clumber Park in conjunction with the National Trust.

They specialise in tailored, progressive  mountain bike skills coaching and guiding. And they’re bloody good at it! I should know, I’ve had a session with @AllianceSteve and it really did make a positive difference to my riding.

All you need to do is ride, and tweet the conditions to @KoftheP to be in with a chance of winning March’s giveaway – then we’ll put you in touch with the Alliance MTB team and on the road to being a better rider!

So get riding and get tweeting. Winner announced March 31th

Keeper of the Peak simply couldn’t exist without you lot. Even though I would love it if I could spend my days visiting the Peak District’s paths, from the Roaches to the Roych, Cumberland Clough to Cut Gate to send you trail updates, I can’t. My mortgage lender (and wife) simply wouldn’t have it.

So you’re vital in helping fellow riders know where’s riding well and where perhaps needs a rest; you’re vital to protecting the Peak from unnecessary MTB damage; you’re vital to painting the good picture of mountain bikers we deserve.

And it’s not just me that’s noticed it.

To say a great big thanks to you for being Keeper of the Peak, a wonderful group of companies, shops and individuals have stumped up some goodies for you. And I’m just going to give them away.

All you need to do is send in an update on the condition of the Peak District trails you’ve ridden that day.

Each month we’ll have the latest goodie from one of the wonderful people below and at the end of the month, I’ll randomly pick a person who’s tweeted an update to @KoftheP. Simple.

All I then need to do is put the winner in touch with that month’s goodie giver. So who’s chipping in?

• Alliance Mountain Bike Coaching – http://alliancemtb.com/
• The Bike Garage, Bamford – http://www.bikegarage.co.uk/
• MTB Batteries – http://www.mtbbatteries.co.uk/
• Polaris Bikewear – http://www.polaris-bikewear.co.uk/
• Bike Rehab, Sheffield – http://www.bikerehab.co.uk/
• Vertebrate Graphics – https://www.v-publishing.co.uk/

Not a bad bunch to start with eh? Visit their pages, see what they do!

So keep an eye out. Once I’ve worked out how to write it in 140 characters, I’ll kick the first freebie off in March.

And all you need to do? Go and ride your bike, then tell me what it was like.

Cracking eh?

 

 

 

 

 

My grandad was a born and bred South Yorkshire man. He worked in the steelworks and enjoyed nothing more than a pint in the local Working Men’s Club of an evening.

As a result, one of our Christmas traditions was to have a pint in the club on Christmas Day and the inevitable round of bingo. So when it comes to Christmas, bingo is up there with crackers, turkey and mulled wine as a family tradition. And I thought I’d share it with you lot.

So who’s up for a bit of bingo? I’ve given it a @KoftheP twist as you’ll see in the ‘card’ below – and I’ve no idea how long it’ll take to get a full house, but it might be a laugh. Of course, it might be as good as a Betabuy Christmas cracker joke – but we won’t know unless we have a go will we!

I’ve got a couple of prizes for the winner too. So, eyes down!

KoftheP twitter bingo card

 

Ho ho ho

KoftheP

 

“Appalled to see the new trail flattening on the bottom section of rushup edge” @simcis to @KoftheP October 23rd, 2014

It’s exactly a year since the work on Rushup Edge first came to light.

What started out as a simple trail update tweet soon became a fully blown media campaign, spearheaded by Peak District MTB (PDMTB), @KoftheP, Ride Sheffield (RS) and PASA. The campaign was joined by the British Mountaineering Council (BMC) and Friends of the Peak (FOTP). The Peak District National Park Authority and Natural England were informed of the work and Derbyshire County Council found themselves fending off angry comments from a huge range of people.

And what has it come to after exactly 365 days of exhausting campaigning, emails, phone calls, meetings, forum posts, letters, reports, radio interviews, press releases, tweets and very little mountain biking? At this stage – nothing. We are still at square one. Rushup remains officially closed, Derbyshire County Council remain stubbornly defiant and those who use Rushup Edge – or those used to at least – remain frustrated, disappointed and ignored.

It’s unbelievable to see a Rights of Way department who once wasted £459,000 on a similar conflict steering this same course of action. Of course, for the campaigners, that raises the glimmer of hope that common sense could prevail – but it should never, never  have reached a stage where that is even considered. Who knows how much money Derbyshire County Council have wasted thus far on this whole process?

Who knows, too, whether DCC will see sense and actually work with the groups who are campaigning against their actions, realise that by engaging with them they could harness the energies spent in fighting and use them for many, many positive projects? Just as they’ve done over the border in Sheffield. Wouldn’t that be nice?

There’s still some way to go and there’s still a lot of fight in the campaigners. But, Derbyshire County Council, there is a far easier road you can take. And it isn’t along Rushup Edge.

The last 12 months….

Interested in what’s been going on over the last 12 months? Take a look.

October 2014

• Work starts
• Protest begins (picnic protest, media campaign)
• Work halts

November

• Rushup closed pending further consultation

December

• PDNPA, PDMTB, Ride Sheffield, KoftheP, the BMC invited to Derbyshire County Council to talk about plans
• Revised and annotated plans shared by DCC with campaign groups

January

• Derbyshire County Council receives official responses to plans from campaign groups
• MPs and local councillors voice their concerns to DCC
• DCC agrees to prepare a report for the Cabinet member, Highways Transport & Infrastructure.

February, March, April, May June – The impetus being with DCC; nothing happens

July

• Report shared with campaigners. Omits large number of responses and objections
• Campaigners contact cabinet members highlighting omitted responses
• Report delivered to Cabinet member
• Cabinet member authorises continuation of work based on misleading report
• Campaign groups complain to DCC using official channels

August, September – Nothing again as the ball is once again in DCC’s court

October

• Official response to complaint finds no error in DCC process or approach. This decision appears to be made, once again, on the strength of the Cabinet report prepared by DCC.

Looking out of the window here on the fringes of the Peak, you wouldn’t think it was autumn; it’s unseasonably warm, there are blue skies overhead and there’s still a bit of purple in the heather. But there’s no escaping the fact that summer is behind us and winter is on the way. Those of us who ride pre- or post- work will be well accustomed to charging lights up and packing the long sleeved tops, while everyone will have started seeing the tell tale signs of the change of seasons – the weather.

And that’s why it’s important to get your updates in to @KoftheP. It’s about making sure that you can still get out and get a good ride in without wading through knee high bogs, hike-a-biking over 10 fallen trees on an otherwise brilliant descent, or avoiding a stem-depth flood on your regular loop. Who knows? You may also discover some new places to ride from your fellow KoftheP-ers. Staffordshire??!? WHERE?!

But of course it’s about more than that. The Peak District is a fragile place, both under the tyres when the weather turns bad and also politically. If we think about where we ride, then not only will we play our part in protecting the trails we love, but we’ll also enhance the growing reputation we have for being a responsible and important voice in the area.

That can only be a good thing.

So, keep following, keep tweeting and stay involved.

See you on the hills.

KoftheP