Wharncliffe Woods    Back to: Wharncliffe Woods Feature      Home
Singletrack
North of Sheffield and close to the M1, Wharncliffe Woods is ideally placed for a quick sortie by car for half the country. It has three way-marked routes, the black route is the only one we're interested in though. Ten miles long and taking in some superb downhills it's well worth doing on the day. But why go to Wharncliffe when the real Peaks rides are only a few miles away? Well, in a word, Technical Singletrack. OK so that's at least two words, but the Peaks is really a bit short of the kind of way steep, perfect singletrack that makes sense of the whole Freeride thing. Wharncliffe woods has got it in spades. And it's the spades of the local riders (Including Steve Peat) that built a lot of it.
To reach the best of the Singletrack, follow the Black route until you're on a pebble-dashed section of double-track, shortly after the sign for Wharncliffe Moor. Look off to the left and you'll see the top of a downhill course disappearing in to the darkness of the woods.
Chickens Running
Drop down the earth chute between the rocks and you're at the top of a multi-lane downhill course that will seriously challenge your riding skills. With hand built banked turns and exposed rocky outcrops that stretch your skill and nerve to the limit. There are one or two rock gardens down here that will have the average cross country rider off and carrying. But if you look carefully, there are chicken runs around some of the worst cliff faces. Difficult enough in themselves you have to side-wind across the deeply rutted main course to get at them. A little over half way down is a rock blockade that can't be ridden without maximum conviction and a heap of travel. With no easy route in sight we carried the section, losing maximum style points and minimum flesh and bone. Easier in it's lower reaches the course traverses the hillside off-camber before a choice of two steep drops on to the forest road below. The second is the lower and we took this as our nerves were fried from the manic descending. Before the excitement has worn off, turn right along the forest road and a few hundred yards on the right is the road back to the top. Loose and stony in places, this 1 in 3 is ride-able in cross country mode, but it will hurt, a lot. I rode it with two rest breaks the first time around. 
May the trail be with you
Then, as luck would have it I met up with an old friend Bill, who had changed styles, sporting a black full face helmet and all over Dainese body armour. Bill and his mate 'Beef' had me seriously out-gunned: six inch travel Santa Cruz Bullits with Hope disks and Triple clamp Bombers. Bill knows the woods well and made me an offer I couldn't refuse, 'Ride with us on the dark side of the trail'. Bill's face was well hidden in his black helmet, his voice and breath rasped slightly with the sucking sound of a deep sea diver. I put it down to a free-riders lack of fitness and pushed up the hill with them.
Only a little further along on the same side is a small gap in the undergrowth (easily missed) that leads to one of the best descents I've done in years. If you like the steep part at the top of Coed y Brenin's Hermon descent, you'll love this! Take a moment to lower that saddle and get ready to abrade the seat off your shorts on this lovely buffed wall of a trail. Best advice is to be smooth and relaxed whilst a little voice in your head screams 'BRAKE NOW OR DIE!' on the day the trail condition was perfect with a little dust lying on hard as concrete packed soil. With just a little too much rear lock the back end would slide under control, without steering you in to a tree. This is one long steep descent. Small ruts have developed in places and it's essential to let go of the front brake for a split second when crossing them. Two thirds of the way down the trail rolls over a solid slab of rock about twenty feet long that really floated my boat! And there's more where this came from. Check out every trailhead you see. Along this hillside are some of the scariest and best trails you'll find in England.
Drop off or cliff?
Further around the black route is a real corker with jumps that would surely break my bike in two, woops and a wall of a berm that spits you out on to a rutted finish. Take care one of the drops on here is best skirted around if you're not good for a six foot fall. My dark and dangerous companion whiled away the tedious hill pushes tempting me with tales of downhilling in Morzine. I felt my will slipping as Bill reasonably pointed out my predilection for the steepest trails and compromised bike geometry. By the end of the day I could tell he felt he'd won me over. 'The transformation has already begun' he cackled before popping off to meet the Emperor for tea and cakes, oh and take over the mountain bike universe for evil ends of course'
Wharncliffe Information
There are no facilities in the car park area at the woods. Nearest pub and shop are turn right out of the car park, about 2 miles to Grenoside.
Total distance for Black Route 16K (10 miles) Outdoor Leisure No.1 (E) The Peak District - Dark Peak Area. Note: The car park at the very East edge of the wood is just barely off the edge of this map. Also the old nunmber 1 is single-sided and so doesn't include it at all. The grid references and links below show the tops of the downhill trails, these all run West down the West facing hillside, towards the North/South railway cutting.
Access By Rail
Unfortunately the nearest station is Sheffield which would mean riding through the city.
Access By Road
See Where is Wharncliffe Woods.
Directions to Downhills
The OS map is not much help as most of the forest singletrack is un-marked. Follow the way-marked black route and look out for the trails according to the advice in this feature. It's also pretty easy to get to the downhills without using the black route singletrack. Go right out of the car park, then take the next three forest road right turns. Then you're on the forest road with the downhills leading off to the left. Once you have found the first downhill (a wide path between rocky banks) 100 yards further on is 'Steve Peat's' downhill. Another 100 yards, look for a gap on the left brings you to a lovely singletrack with a really steep drop part-way down. 100 yards further (see a pattern here?) be careful not to miss the gap of the fourth and best of the singletracks. Steep but rideable.
Telegraph road
A cool flattish singletrack runs along the side of the hill and communicates with the final downhill you want to ride. To find it drop down the first of the downhills (between the rocky banks remember?) then turn left once you are under the national grid pylons and follow what turns in to a lovely little singletrack. When you get to the end keep going on the forest road, look to your left and you'll see the ruts of the 'North Shore' trail on your left. Walk up this to get a good look at it before riding down!
Directions back to the car park
From the 'Steve Peat Downhill' end, just take every left turn on the fire roads to get back to the car park.
From the 'North Shore Trail' end, follow the Black Route markers uphill.
From the bottom of the 'North Shore Trail' go left and take the steeper climbing, leftmost forest road until you see black route markers pointing right. Follow back to car park (a bit of a climb!).