![\"2022-06-11--westend.png-web.png\"](\"\/uploads\/blog\/pictures\/2022-06-11--westend.png-web.png\")
<\/p>\nTwo of Nicky\u2019s Summer Series TT\u2019s in two and a half days are hard work (for me) and, together with the previous week\u2019s Slow Warts outing, they bring an over familiarity with the Alport valley region. The Warts crossed the valley once then, the Way out West crossed it twice and the Rowlee Zig-Zag descended halfway down into the valley to an obscure and small cairn which doesn\u2019t seem to signify anything except CP 3. There, we had fought our way up Alport Grain<\/u> from CP 2 so that might count as a multi-crossing of the \u201cAlport\u201d valley, albeit a miniature version of it.<\/p>\n
Despite becoming familiar with the Alport valley, it is always spectacular and deserves its wow factor description particularly when standing on either edge looking up and down it. Would it be too much to describe is as the Dark Peak\u2019s Grand Canyon? Possibly, but, at only about a dozen or so miles from Sheffield, it\u2019s arguably the nearest we\u2019ve got. In crossing it twice, however, in the WOW time trial from the Westend, it begins to lose a bit of its charm. The descent into the valley, apparently, passes near to a memorial stone (for scouts) close to the river; this is not the more well-known Scout Memorial Stone half way up the side of the valley which was the first CP of the WOW. The Slow Warts, however, who took the decision to avoid the enjoyment of the double crossing, did go to the riverside scout memorial, see the track. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Slow Warts\u2019 track to the other scout memorial by the river, thanks to Clive<\/em><\/p>\n We were released from the steep straight climb after CP 1 using a rising semi-contour to the forest fire break (CP 2) for a fairly pleasant descent to the river crossing and on to the sheepfold (CP 3). Then, it was more steep climbing first through the branch strewn forest and then through some deep bilberry (Will it be a good crop this year?) to reach the edge for a belt down the path whilst searching for the best point to cut the corner to the \u201cbig\u201d track to the finish. A superb outing for both the Slow Warts and the Slow Racing Warts.<\/p>\n Our Rowlee Zig Zag Summer Series had more climbs (four compared with WOW three) but with less height gain and a lot of tussocks and deep bilberry with a few rocks thrown in for good measure. The route which was discussed both before and after the time trial, is, I suspect, still not fully optimised so there seemed to be a few variations considered with some being used and others not. Like all elite athletes, we\u2019re looking for fractional or marginal gains to give us the extra yard, but then we may trip over a tussock or fall down a small hole and theory is trumped by practice! Oh well, we can still spend many hours talking about routes. However, the (legal) short cut through the woods near Lockerbrook Farm has the added incentive of negotiating an electric fence. I\u2019ve never tried it but would a quick shock to the system result in an increase in speed, are there any volunteers? <\/p>\n Leaving the gate out of the forest (CP 1) there was a pleasant descent to CP 2, a gate in the wall, before a mildly unpleasant (!) climb, on hands and knees, to the edge of the Alport valley. Check points take many forms and the next one was described in some detail, \u201cSmall ruined section of wall next to two trees and the stream\u201d plus in the race notes, \u201cpurple and yellow ribbons on one of the trees at the wall\u201d. The only quibble I have with the otherwise comprehensive description, is that the purple and yellow ribbons looked like an old, battered and faded (well used?) DPFR vest, similar to my 46-year-old one. Describing the vest as ribbons seemed to be a bit of an insult to the summer vest and it might be fairer to describe it as \u201ca very well-worn and distinguished DPFR vest\u201d.<\/p>\n Such quibbles aside, Alport Grain was tackled via a thorn rich trod of sorts to the more runnable (10 yards running, 10 yards walking), dyke side and on to the flagstones and the steep descent to the mysteriously useless cairn, CP 4. A dash to the finish completed the time trial which was hard fought between Andy and I, finishing within a minute or two of each other with us both being about 14 minutes behind Tom and Tim.<\/p>\n A splendid warm and breezy time trial in good company. <\/p>\n Thanks all.<\/p>\n Graham<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Two of Nicky\u2019s Summer Series TT\u2019s in two and a half days are hard work (for me) and, together with the previous week\u2019s Slow Warts outing, they bring an over familiarity with the Alport valley region. The Warts crossed the valley once then, the Way out West crossed it twice […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":73,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[155],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-warts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dpfr.org.uk\/wp_dpfr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dpfr.org.uk\/wp_dpfr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dpfr.org.uk\/wp_dpfr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dpfr.org.uk\/wp_dpfr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/73"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dpfr.org.uk\/wp_dpfr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dpfr.org.uk\/wp_dpfr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3520\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dpfr.org.uk\/wp_dpfr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dpfr.org.uk\/wp_dpfr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dpfr.org.uk\/wp_dpfr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}