Donk the cleaner

Me Mark and Simon went off to the peaks last weekend, had a go at cut gate, me and Mark have done this a couple times before but they've sanitised it since then and to be honest so far so good. They firmed up the 1st steep climb from langsett, I seem to remember it being a lot looser with big rocks, cleaned that, after that it's been dumbed down a bit but mickledon edge was same as ever, cleaned that for the first time. The start of cut gate has a rock field which they've picked a line through with a narrow ribbon of agregate or sommat. Again it's tamed but not ridiculously so, then a previously unrideable section has had rough slab steps put in and slabs across the boggy section, now cleanable uphill :-) After that the riverbed section has been pretty much untouched, dunno whther they are moving on to do that later tho. Loads of different lines through it, great fun. The drop down to ladybower was fast and fun and I managed to ride the (cheeky) steep nadgery stuff right at the end. The long schlep to Fairholme was boring but the plan of a quick cake stop followed by a steep climb and blinding descent spurred us on. Cakes were nice but the climb not so, this HAS been sanitised I could drive my car up it, used to be a cracking descent I heard (never ridden down it) it certainly used to be a bitch of a climb. This did not bode well for the downhill, if they'd done the same to that I'd have been well dis-chuffed. Fortunatley Lockerbrook was untouched if a little wetter than I'm used to and all three of us made it down without punctures. We were fading fast tho and every little rise on the lakeside path felt like a huge climb. The climb back up to cutgate was as bad as ever but going back down to langsett - wow superb, still a great trail. Si managed to go over the bars into a bog but aside from the mud was OK. Mickledon and hingcliff were taken at lightspeed, we got to the bottom with big grins. Good stuff.