Calder Divide Trail 150 Challenge

From gravel tracks on the river floodplain, to ancient bridleways along craggy ridge lines, along sunken lanes on wooded valley slopes, to singletrack across the Pennine moors, on quiet country roads through former mill and mining towns and traffic free greenways along the urban fringe, this northern landscape has it all.

The Calder Divide Trail was created in memory of local rider Will Norman. Will loved a big ride out along the river and up onto the moors. Tragically Will died last year. We lost a riding buddy. His partner Liz lost a friend and a husband. Their two children lost a father. The Calder Divide Trail 150 challenge will aid of the work of Overgate Hospice.

Using the idea of a watershed – a ridge of land that separates river systems – the bikepacking route travels from the flood plain up onto the high moorland plateaus, or ‘tops’ as locals call them, and down into towns like Hebden Bridge, Kirkburton and Marsden. The area the route covers is bound to the west by Heald Moor where the River Calder rises, to the east by the striking Millennium Bridge where the River Calder flows into the River Aire, to the north by Sun Hill (422 metres) and to the south by Black Hill (582 metres).

Eight valleys form the catchment of the River Calder – Cragg, Colne, Crimsworth, Hebble, Holme, Luddenden, Ryburn and Spen. The labour of local people in these valleys has created causeways, bridleways, green lanes, moorland trails and gravel paths on strips of common land. The Calder Divide Trail wipes away the modern layer of trunk roads, industrial estates and shopping centres so prominent on O.S. maps to reveal the older network of paths that lie beneath. The trails on gravel, stone, peat and heather are there. They just had to be connected.