HAVOK BIKE PARK, WEST YORKSHIRE
Hidden away in a secluded spot on the Yorkshire-Lancashire border, this bike park may be small, but it packs a powerful punch
Up a road just wide enough for the van, over a cattlegrid, across a field of sheep and through another gate… it takes us two attempts to find Havok, before we realise we’re actually in the right spot. Hidden in the gloomy depths of a dense pine forest, you’re not going to stumble across this place by accident, but when we finally do arrive, the welcome we get from Matthew Lambert – the man behind the bike park – is anything but gloomy. “Fancy a brew?” he calls, leaning out of the small hut that marks Havok HQ. It couldn’t be more different from the glass-fronted architecture of BikePark Wales or Glentress, but in a way it’s refreshingly low-key. There’s a back-to-basics simplicity about a group of committed volunteers securing a patch of woodland to build in, arming themselves with tools and putting in some hard graft.
Little but big
Steaming mugs of tea in hand, we venture into the freeride area adjacent to the hut to check out some of this handiwork and it’s immediately apparent that, while Havok may not be huge, some serious work has been done in the space available here. It’s as if our teenage imaginations have come to life, with access to a digger! With jumps, gaps, ladder drops and wallrides, Havok is like a set from one of the New World Disorder movies, compressed into a valley in West Yorkshire.
Guiding us around this biking adventure park today are Havok team rider Huey Walker, local ripper Ian Forsyth and Hope-sponsored enduro racer Dan ‘Woody’ Hole. Before even swinging a leg over his bike, Ian is already chomping at the bit for the big stuff, but we’re in definite need of a warm-up, so we convince him to join us on a run of the red-graded Medusa first.
Things starts off mellow, but the trail soon steepens and we’re plunged into a web of snakelike roots, which, after heavy overnight rain, lie glistening and ready to snatch away a wayward front wheel. Everyone makes short work of it though, prejumping off a rock, clearing the roots and landing straight into the fast left-hander that follows. This fires you straight into a sizable tabletop, which the downhill boys blast off. Huey chucks a suicide no-hander as casually as if he was riding down the road. Dan goes for the racer option, skimming over the ground, pumping the turn for maximum speed and scrubbing off the lip. He holds this flat-out pace as we continue downwards, seemingly oblivious to the dank, slidey conditions.
We sit as tight to his wheel as we can, trying our best to emulate his lines, but regretting our failure
WE’RE PLUNGED INTO A WEB OF SNAKE LIKE ROOTS, WHICH, AFTER HEAVY OVERNIGHT RAIN, LIE GLISTENING AND READY TO SNATCH AWAY A WAY WARD FRONT WHEEL
to bring a mudguard as we’re peppered by crud from his back tyre. A little further down, the trail breaks cover from the blackness and an S-bend of pristine berms sits illuminated in a patch of light. Squinting through the filth, we watch as Dan drifts it through the gravelly apex, bounces out, changes direction in mid-air and fires out the end of the next berm, seemingly faster than he came in.
As if to prove it was no fluke, he repeats this smooth performance on the last turns of the track – a series of slimy clay switchbacks, which are hard to even walk up.
Ian observes from the sidelines and then pushes up for a go. You can tell he’s eager to prove that his DH rig and white moto kit aren’t just for show, and seconds later he reappears, pulling up to huck into the first turn, before contorting himself around the tree on the exit. He carries crazy speed into the following turn, but it’s too much for his rear tyre, which skips out over the top of the berm and sends dirt flying. In a foot-out flail he somehow rides it out, laughing. That was wild!
Over and out
It turns out that this loose behaviour is just a taste of what’s to come in the freeride area. While the others are finishing their sandwiches, I sneak off to get my eye in on the easier Sovngarde line, but I don’t get very far. In fact, I don’t even get as far as the first ladder drop. Or at least, not still attached to my bike. I’m cruising into the take-off when an unseen root catches my front wheel and kicks the bike sideways. It’s not a hard mistake to correct, but as I point the bar straight again, I hit the wet woodwork and the whole bike goes from under me. Unable to stop, I fall sideways off the lip, thankfully clearing the gap, but landing heavily on my hip and rag-dolling down the lander.
“The things people will do for an excuse to avoid the big stuff,” laughs Matthew, after he’s checked to see I’m alright and noted the state of my smashed back brake lever. I reply with something between a grin and a grimace, gingerly testing the
DAN DRIFTS IT THROUGH THE GRAVELLY APEX, BOUNCES OUT, CHANGES DIRECTION IN MID AIR AND FIRES OUT THE END OF THE NEXT BERM
weight on my left leg and secretly not wanting to admit he’s kind of right! This textbook example of how not to ride ladder drops doesn’t do much to dissuade the others though, and Ian and Huey are straight up there, helmets on and lining up for the burliest trail in the park – Valhalla. A monster drop, double-overhead height, kicks things off, and we’ve barely looked round before Ian’s launching straight off it. You can see he’s in his element here on this big stuff, and he goes for it multiple times, landing with surprising smoothness given the size of the jump.
Probably the most iconic feature at Havok is a hefty log kicker that sends you across a gully. With a big gap into a fairly short and steep lander, it looks pretty intimidating to us. But not for Huey and Ian, who aren’t fussed about training it, wheel-to-wheel, for the camera. Huey drops a hand off and tips the bike into a casual toboggan, while Ian pulls up and goes for the ‘big air’ points. With the bike park’s biggest features ticked off and everyone still in one piece (me only just so), we decide to quit while we’re ahead. Havok may be small and unassuming, but the trails are anything but, so we leave feeling like we’ve had a big, quick injection of adrenaline.
“Now, where can we get some good painkillers?” we ask Matthew. “The Staff of Life,” he replies, where apparently they do fine-tasting, ambercoloured liquid painkillers in pint-sized doses. Duly informed, we point the MBUK van in the direction of Todmorden, not forgetting, of course, to shut the gates behind us and keep the bike park’s resident sheep where they belong.