Category: Sheffield Bike Trails

Map – Blue Steel

Map – Cooking on Gas

Review

These two short tracks (1km / 5 min) are in a small section of woodland near Ringinglow village, and in a great location next to Houndkirk Road (bridleway from the bottom of the woods to Fox House pub), so they are a great addition at the start or end of a Peak District Ride. Both start relatively close to each other at the top of the woods, you can either access them from the bridleway and gate at the top, or by pedalling up through the woods from the car park at the bottom – the woods is criss-crossed with tracks, but these too are specifically marked for bikes only (the way up is mixed-use).

Blue Steel is probably a red route with lots of jumps where you can get some air, steep berms and it’s really fast flowing from one section to the next. Cooking on Gas is probably rated blue and has the similar features but it’s been designed so you can’t gain too much speed, so its a safer for the beginner, but it’s a little boring for me.

Conclusion

I regularly ride this way into the Peak District, and I’ve ridden Blue Steel countless times – I wish it was longer – well worth a visit!

There’s now three bike tracks in Sheffield to complement the mega off road trails you can find just outside the city in the Peak District. I’m riding and reviewing them all – my opinion as a XC mountain biker (ad sometimes road cyclist) might be different from your experience!

Map

 

Review

Parkwood Springs is location about a mile out of the city centre set in a parkland. It’s easy to access with a car park, but at 10am on a Saturday morning the car park was locked which was a bit odd. Having parked in the few spaces outside one of the gates, I unloaded the bike and headed into the park.

The first thing I noticed was that the initial signage wasn’t obvious, and in a couple of other places it wasn’t as obvious as it could be which was the bike track and which were the footpaths – a small thing but could be dangerous for pedestrian and bikers. Some areas did have markers of which section of the bike track you were up to. After eventually getting on the right trail, it was a blast, there’s a short climb to the top of the park which then swoops down some concreted paved berms which I guess will make it great for being an all weather track.

There were a a couple of optional sections but neither were particularly difficult riding. After heading further down there were some nice fast sections with some opportunity to jump if you get enough speed up, and a few technical sections over some rocks.

The trail comes down to a view looking over towards the west of the city.

The second half is generally is climbing back up some switchback but pretty quick and enjoyable. Finally there’s a section along the edge of the woods by the playing fields before returning to the car park, past the paved pump track.

It was only a couple of kilometers, so I took another run round the track to try the other optional sections.

Conclusion

Short and sweet, great fun for a quick ride if you live nearby, and want to practice this kind of riding but I probably wouldn’t go back, despite only being 2 or 3 miles from my house. Probably between blue and red in terms of technicality.