Lee and Crag Trails

stevegraystevegray

Good afternoon folks,

Has anyone been up to the lee and Crag Quarry trails up the top end of Manchester?

I have had a look online and watched a couple of videos and looks great, but it is a decent drive so I just wanted another opinion.

I am a reasonable standard, happy with red at Cannock and do the red and black trails at Llandegla, but I can see its quite unforgiving so didn't want to be completely out of my depth.

Cheers in advance, happy riding.

Steve

steve_sordy

I haven't been for a few years. The last I heard all funding had stopped and nobody was doing any maintenance at all. It would be great to hear that is now old news and that all is now hunky dory.

The trails themselves are, as you say, quite unforgiving; it's all sharp-edged big rocks. Many of the routes have big drops to one side, so it's not for those that have a problem with heights. Some of the trails are marked, but they might not be now. But even when it was being maintained, you had to be prepared to scout around and look for stuff that you wanted to ride. You can have some great fun there if you find the right trails for you.

Personally, I would't ride there alone. Apart from when there was an event being staged, I never saw many other riders there, two at the most on any one occasion. Have a bad fall and you could die up there.

There are no facilities there at all, so take everything that you might need.

sniper68

There was also a large landslip there a few years ago after a particularly bad spell of heavy rain and IIRC it was just left.As SS said all funding/maintenance was stopped probably 3 or 4 years ago now.

thistle_

I was last up there in October 2016 and didn't notice any big landslips but it's a quarry with sheer faces...
I've always been at weekends and there's usually a few people around in Lee Quarry but I don't recall ever seeing anyone else at Crag Quarry.

There are some waymarked bits at the start of Lee Quarry to get you up to the top but after that it's mostly exploring yourself and make it up as you go along. It was like that when I first went in 2013 - it's not really a trail centre, just somewhere to go riding. Some bits are pointy, but there's plenty of smoother gravelly tracks around there too.
I recall Crag Quarry has a couple of waymarkers at the start then you just follow the trail around as best as you can. In some places it's not that obvious which way you are supposed to go around the loop, but if there's nobody else there it doesn't matter if you're going the "wrong way".

There is a link between Lee Quarry and the Pennine Bridleway (to Crag Quarry) over the moor which had been badly eroded at the Lee Quarry end when I last went, but was still rideable. It's this blue path: https://www.openstreetmap.org/search?qu ... 8&layers=C

The "trailhead" is at Bacup (car park with burger van), but if it's easier there is a car park here: http://www.streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?x=38 ... 920,416400 and you can ride up the Pennine Bridleway.

If you're coming from the south and just want to go for a recce, you can go up to Gisburn in the morning and stop off at Bacup on the way back for a nosey.

thistle_

Bumping an old thread because I've only just got around to going back up there.

The trails are all fine, just a bit wetter and a few more potholes like most trail centres.
There's a few more waymarkers than I remember, especially around Cragg quarry but I'm now thinking that I always did it the wrong way around...
Lee Quarry seems to have a few more "trials" things up at the top plateau level, some cable drums and tables (purpose made, not fly tipping!) plus another stone puzzle thing higher up for your inner Macaskill.

The link between the two has been repaired since it was washed away a few years ago which is great. Riding down from Cragg Quarry to Lee Quarry is a blast, the slog back less so.

Last time I parked at Heeley Dell and rode around on the bridleway/byway. If you want to do it this way to make it a big day out, apparently there's now a pump track at Heeley Dell.