Scraped ourselves from our beds after a minor sleeping in incident (slept through 5 alarms!), and decided on full board pants under the overalls when we saw the weather tipping it down outside.
Instant traffic...just add water
On the road by 8am heading for Tallington first, its based in the middle of a caravan/ adventure holiday park, surface was dendex which isn’t our favourite, the slopes long and appears to be purpose built as there be no hills for miles around. Carrot rating of a three overall. Not the best but the whole site as a location looks like its got alot to do.
Swadlincote was next, friendly staff, really enthusiastic. Bizarre way of getting to the lift by sliding down a winding dendex path to the bottom which was more than a little bit tricky on not much sleep, and could probably do with some better maintanence. The same could be said for the lift which was pretty narrow and saw more than one of us slipping off the edge living up to our names by hopping up the side of the slope. The slope itself had a good gradient and is a fair length permasnow , well maintained with fast riding. The site also has a luge style run around the slope that looks like fun (no time for us though). Carrot rating of 4.
Heads up! Small electrical fire in the front of the car, turns out if you run a sat nav and a laptop from one cigarette lighter bad things will happen! “Jackrabbit fire safety – Knowledge through stupidity”.
Quick JR photo shoot
Got a call from our guys in Carlisle after this to tell us the slope was underwater… normally this would seem like a challenge but they’d gone and closed the thing as well, so that took a 50 point option out of the game for us.
After Swadlincote we headed for Birmingham Centre and the Ackers slope. Its tucked away at the end of an endless little track with some hardcore speedbumps that sent our kit flying a few times. Guess the local boy racers used to have some funtimes around here. Slope was a dendex and a pretty average length but had a nice little lump at the bottom for jumping off. More friendly staff who were really into the rally. Rate it 2 Carrots but we’d probably give it three if we were located in Birmingham as its a tricky one to get to.
ACKERS
From Birmingham we headed to Telford. More Dendex but amazingfly nice to ride! Guessing some upkeep really pays off with this stuff. Lift up was cool as well, managed to spare the groin injuries for a change and we all got down with zero spills. Rate it four purely for the feel good factor. A really easy going slope.
SCRAM TIME
Switch of drivers then shot up the motorway to Runcorn where landscape gave way to a more destitute urban sprawl compared to the swanky villages we’d piled through earlier. The guy at the slope was pretty sweet and gave us some little certificates as well as taking a team shot so spot on for that. Slope itself was yet more dendex with a bar tow which are a real strain on the arms after a few goes. The riding itself wasn’t the worst and there were some slalom poles left out to play with on the way down. Carroty goodness of two for this slope, it would of been one without the friendly welcome.
Another heads up, the mileometer just ticked over to 1,000…. it doesn’t go higher than this so we’re back to 1, another 600 to pile on tomorrow!
Ski Stoke
Right now we’ve just hit two more slopes, Ski Stoke which was really nice dendex. Excellent lift which was zero effort to use. Group opinion was that this is how dendex is meant to be! Slight prob with Andy’s binding as the high back came off and we had no way of fixing it! Overall rating for this slope was a four.
After this we shot across to Kidsgrove and arrived to total blackness as they were just opening up. This slope is ran as a club and the two members that we met were great! Andys board was taken off to a workshop and two bolts bodged together to hold the high back in place. Meanwhile we all took a couple of runs mindless of the sprinklers that were running to dampen the slope. After several face plants into sprinklers we picked up Andys board and headed off,gutted that we didn’t have time for a cup of tea with the nice people and all slightly cleaner than we have been since we started! Rating has to be a four and half, great people and a great vibe.
Kidsgrove using Play grass (lovely people there, offering a cuppa!)
Right now we’re going to try and hit a few more slopes and end up in Castleford Xscape hopefully in time to ride with a few other friends who have road tripped to meet up there from London and Carlisle.
