Jack wanted to go mountain biking at Gisburn as part of his Birthday celebration. We set off early to make sure we'd find room in the car park, having to use 2 cars to get the bikes and all of us up to Gisburn. We arrived at 9am and easily found parking, there are several large car parks and the weather wasn't great so we needn't have worried about finding room.
First off we headed up to the training area and spend 15 minutes warming up, the kids did pretty well and enjoyed trying the different graded areas, Finlay was happy on Green and Blue, Jack was happy on Red and Black!!
We headed off as a family on the Blue Route and made good progress, we stayed together until I got a puncture! Thankfully I had a puncture kit, however I didn't have a pump. Someone soon stopped and lent me their pump (Many thanks!) and we continued on out way. The Blue route has a mix of single track in the trees and fire roads. Some of the bigger hills are on the Fire Roads and are a bit of a drag. Once we completed this we had a cup of tea at the cafe. Jack and me decided we wanted to do 'The 8' Red route. Finlay and Andrea thought it best to stay on the easier routes.
The first part follows the Blue route so it was pretty straight forward, we soon turned off and headed into th hills. Jack wasn't too confident to start with but soon got his head around everything and realized that he had the ability to do the route. We really enjoyed the long runs of single track, there are a few runs on the fire roads, the steep section alongside 'Hope Line' Orange Route did for me and I pushed my bike up the hill. Jack put his bike in the granny gear and rode to the top, laughing at me for being rubbish!
The further we went the more we enjoyed the ride. We passed the Whelpstone Crag Drop in (Black Line). It looked too much for us, maybe next time. We were soon at Hully Gully, Jack had been talking about this for months, however stood at the top he didn't have the confidence to do it. I told him that I'd not come all this way to bottle out and made him follow me. Soon as Jack got going he thought it was ace and really enjoyed the run, sometimes a pushy dad is needed!
We continued along the route, Jack was getting more confident and did the Black graded drop in on Swoopy, I stayed on the red route and avoided the huge drop! We headed back to the cafe and caught up with Andrea and Finlay.
We had a late lunch and then headed back into the training area, Jack got too confident jumping and had his worst accident of the day! Finlay wanted to do the Blue route one more time so we went together. My legs were getting pretty tired but I kept on pushing on.
Altogether Me and Jack did about 30kms. We all had a really good day, made it home for tea. Jack and Finlay wanted to go to Nando's so after a quick shower and change of clothes we headed out for a well earned tea!
