The Pennine Bridleway is now a very long trail indeed. It will one day be much longer but for now it starts at Kirkby Stephen in Cumbria, winds its way through the Yorkshire Dales, into Lancashire and joins the Mary Townley Loop. It then continues south sort of past Oldham and into the Peak District, finally terminating at Middleton Top down near Matlock.
After the fun of racing a fatbike at a couple of races earlier this year (the second of which had a brilliant turnout of like-minded attention-seeking fatbikey folk), there didn’t appear to be any more events with a specific category for bikes with a minimum of 4 inch wide tyres.
I’d been looking forward to TwentyFour12 ever since I entered it several months ago. In spite of having never ridden at Newnham Park before (it’s a bloody long way from Manchester), I knew for certain it was going to be a rewarding and fun course to ride because so many people have told me that it is. Arriving early (for me) and in daylight, I treated myself to a practice lap a whole day before the start of the race. I think the last time I managed to ride a practice lap was at a certain race in Italy last year….
