Northern Grip festival in full swing

On sunny Saturday we headed to Ramsbottom to take part in the inaugural Northern Grip mountain bike festival.

The event was a celebration of all things mountain biking – from the enjoyment of the outdoors and the bikes – to the people and the post-ride pint.

A few random surprises

The event promised bikes, beer, good food, live music, DJs, films and a few random surprises. This sounded like great fun and we were delighted to get the invite to join in and have a Dirt Factory stall.

Northern Grip took place over two days, the 23rd and 24th July, and the main base was the market place and town hall in the centre of Ramsbottom. Organiser Tom and his Northern Grip team had worked hard to get everything ready and create some custom mountain bike routes for festival goers to enjoy.

The Dirt Factory crew of Ian, Andy and Clare from WeRide hosted a stall and ran the Northern Grip Bowling Green Bunny Hop Competition. It was a definitely a challenge to get a decent run in to our ‘Heath-Robinson’ inspired measuring device but many people braved the cane and had a good go.

Taking the win in the adult category with a height of 17” was Ian who won a Bell Super 2 MTB helmet. Runners up Jon received a Muc-Off Bike Care Essentials Kit and Nat won a Dirt Factory t-shirt. In the young guns category Tom took the win and also won a Dirt Factory t-shirt.

Personal update

It was great to meet so many different people at Northern Grip and give them a personal update about Dirt Factory. Some of the people we chatted to had travelled from as far away as Newcastle, Scotland, London and Surrey. It was clear that everyone enjoyed what Northern Grip had to offer and we are very much looking forward to attending again next year.

Big shout out to Od Designs for being our friendly neighbours for the day and to the awesome Mr Wilson’s Second Liners who did a super cover of Around The World by Daft Punk. Special thanks to the crew at Northern Grip who did a fantastic job and put on a reet good festival.