Disaster at Danby

Mountain Bike Ride

29th December 2014

The Bread Lad and The Boy

29th December 2014 route

Undoubtedly the shortest ride of the year and it was all going so well until my rear wheel bearings collapsed leaving the wheel flopping about like a ten pints to the better imbiber making his way home. We’d left Danby on a crisp morning, all very picturesque, blue skies with a scattering of snow and slogged up Ainthorpe Rigg, the wrong way, against the normal order of things, The Pensioner’s absence meant we were able to do this without any appalled castigation from the rear, although owing to the snow it was predominantly pushing once we left tarmac. All so we could have the pleasure of riding down Crossley Side, something we’ve been threatening to do for years, although picking the coldest day of the winter so far to ride down a rocky descent was not the wisest decision, ice covered sandstone and snowy patches made progress “interesting” but we managed without any major mishaps. Or so we thought. Setting off down Fryupdale, my bike began emitting some disturbing noises from the rear end - being a predominantly male group, disturbing rear end noises are nothing unusual - but these noises lacked a faecal flatulent element, being more of a tortured metal screech, which accompanied by a weaving back end and shouts of “Your back wheel’s wobbling all over” led me to believe something was afoot.

Investigation revealed the tolerance between the rear axle and it’s hub was akin to a spoon stuck in porridge. The back wheel flopping about like spoked jellyfish meant, for me at least, the ride was over and a direct route back to Danby was employed by me and my shimmying rear end. An early lunch in The Stonehouse Bakery made up for the disappointment

Such a shame, the ride had all the makings of a classic day out.

Cafe Racer's Xmas dinner ride

Road Ride

Jamie and Chairman Whelan

20th December route

Another day: another Xmas dinner ride. This time with those who take their pleasure on the more effete side - The Cafe Racers, who owing to illness, misunderstandings, hangovers and childcare constraints, were reduced to a trio. In a windy carpark in Masham at the unearthly hour of 9am, Simon, Jamie and myself faffed about for half an hour before capitulating to unspoken peer pressure and setting off in a generally upward direction, unfortunately generally against the wind too.

The ride passed without incident apart from Simon ‘arms of steel’ managing to snap a Presta valve as he assisted Jamie pumping up a tyre. Our payback for the gruesome ascents the Chairman had factored into the route was marred by the wet, greasy roads which made the descents somewhat challenging especially for a confirmed coward like me.

Lunch break in Pately Bridge confirmed our pace had been leisurely, as befits a christmas dinner ride, although 3 hours to do 25 miles might be considered a little too languid in some circles. Reality kicked in leaving Pately Bridge, ascending Old Church Lane, a seemingly unending bank with so many false summits the actual top was undetermined, somewhere in a parallel universe we may be still ascending like three Sisyphus’s with bikes instead of boulders. At some point we were able to change out of the big cog at the back and there ensued a fantastic few miles of actual cruising, on a decent road across Lumley Moor, propelled by a tailwind. A bunch more easy riding took us back to Masham for the main event of the day - Xmas dinner. Although we had not really done enough cycling to justify the abundant calories ingested, we had done more than the assorted non-cyclists who joined us for dinner. Except for Pete, who, owing to a calendar related cock up, thought the ride began a whole twenty four hours later, so he rode to Masham to join us for dinner.

18th December 2014

Mountain Bike Ride

The Pensioner, The Ginger One, Oz, The Cruncher.

18th December route

Another ride around Guisborough Woods, taking in Percy Cross Rigg and Codhill Heights. Owing to sloppy conditions we stuck mainly to wide open, fast tracks, route planning worked out and we were practically pushed along the top of the woods by a nicely powerful tailwind.

The main talking point of the day has to be the little polyethylene bags of dog poo which the dog walkers leave at the side of the trail, sometimes even hanging on branches like festering faecal baubles. Do the culprits intend to collect them later? Do the walkway employees go round and pick them up? Bearing in mind some plastic bags can take up to a millennium to biodegrade perhaps preserving their pooches poo for future generations to find is the owners’ intention. The collective brainpower of four process operators (and one ex-process operator) was unable to come up with a reason, then again some of us find it difficult to come up with a reason why we are soaking wet, freezing cold, covered in mud and still having the time of our lives.

Bag of crap anyone?

12th December 2014. The Pensioner returns

Mountain bike ride

The Bread Lad, The Pensioner, The Boy.

12th December 2014 route

Another nice winter's day in a frosty car park. Pinchinthorpe this time and the return of The Pensioner from his self-imposed exile to settee land, bright sunshine contrasting with his gloomy pessimism. At the other end of the age scale, was The Boy, on his second ever mountain bike ride, eager and optimistic, ready for everything and anything the countryside could throw at him. We tried to tire him out but only succeeded in destroying ourselves in the process.

The route was a brief tour of Guisborough Woods and the surrounding area, inevitably muddy but frozen in parts even featuring a little snow on the tops. The Boy rampaged up the inclines as someone of his tender years should be able to, his downhill skills were record breaking, he broke the record for the most falls on The Secret Path and The Chute. Enthusiasm outweighing experience yet again. It's amazing the way teenagers bounce, impacts which would have sent us home in the air ambulance were shrugged off, as he remounted and threw himself down the hill again.

Highlight of the ride, inevitably was The Branch Walkway cafe, the fullest we've ever seen it. Something to do with Xmas tree sales I think.

The Xmas Dinner ride. 10th December 2014

The Xmas Dinner Ride

The Ginger One, Oz, The Cruncher, The Fireman and Rod

Xmas Dinner route Clicky

Alarmist newspaper headlines boldly warned of the “weatherbomb” due to hit Britain on the same day we had planned our christmas dinner ride. The annually best attended ride. Would it still happen? Could we be casualties of the weatherbomb, flash-frozen to our bikes on Round Hill, the highest point of the moors? Lashed to death by hailstones the size of elderly cyclists’ prostate glands? Buried beneath an avalanche of driving snow? It turned out to be a bit windy on the tops but otherwise a grand day.

Our defiant band of headline ignorers warmed up by ascending Clay Bank from Chop Gate, then endured the push/carry/ride up Barker’s Ridge and onto Urra Moor where the wind did it’s best to push us off our feet and redirect our bikes as we strove to pedal ever higher. Curiously enough, after we turned into the wind at Cockayne Head, things felt easier, just heads down and pedal. We almost made it to Stump Cross before a puncture halted progress, shelter from the biting wind was hard to find behind tufts of grass and heather, while an inadequately equipped process operator, (no tyre levers, the wrong inner tube and a non-functioning pump), effected the necessary repairs.

At Stump Cross we pointed ourselves in the downhill direction on a splendid singletrack bridleway leading to the road at Bransdale. The bridleway was slightly muddy and claimed a few casualties on the way down, the wheel deep puddle which throws unsuspecting cyclists over the bars was still there from last time but I remembered it. Perhaps I really ought to have warned the others about it - where would be the fun in that.

The road out of Bransdale was as steep as ever but we all made it without recourse to pedestrianism although granny’s ring definitely took some hammer. Our next objective was Tripsdale, fun as always, the long downhill slightly slowed by the headwind but still enjoyable, the climb out gruesome challenging as ever, the very last section a granny ring crawl as the wind attempted to buffet us back into the valley. Soon afterwards we were at Medd Crag and it was quite literally all downhill from here, a bit broken up in parts but no problem to experienced downhill dudes like us, carving our way down with total flow, rad man. Or maybe we just hung on the bars as hard as possible.

The highlight of the ride came next, festive fayre at Lordstones, where we were joined by The Captain, a famous Terra Trailblazers back marker from a couple of years ago, now enjoying a retirement globetrotting to watch cricket. Which suddenly made him someone to be envied in the eyes of the Ginger One whose predisposition for wasting hours watching others play dull games is well documented. The meal was magnificent, well-presented, sensibly portioned and ever so tasty and worth every penny of the £20 it cost. Crackers were pulled, jokes were read, toys were played with, a token amount of alcohol was drank. There was also convivial conversation but at someone elses table, our conversation inevitably degenerated to the same two subjects it always does when group of men are together - bodily functions and sex. Today was no exception.

The Ginger One goes for his third pudding.

The Potato On The Couch

As most of you probably know, I had a couple of months this year where settee cushions were more familiar than bike seats. Here’s how it all came about.

Back in June I was riding a local training loop on my road bike having forgotten to remove the peak from my helmet (which is also used for mountain biking), sprinting on the drops I had to stretch my neck upward to see forward. About an hour after returning home I had a severe dizzy spell, it felt as though I was trying to walk on the deck of The Titanic as it sank (without the benefit of Kate Winslet)  accompanied by pain down both arms and the back of the neck. Probably low blood sugar I thought and shovelled down a bowl of Weetabix and a cup of coffee. The dizziness subsided but the neck and arm pain got worse, nothing too bad but being a gentleman of a certain age, my daughter took me to A&E to be checked out. By the time we reached the hospital I was vomiting continually and had lost the ability to walk in a straight line - not unlike most weekend nights in my youth. To cut a long story short, it turned out I’d suffered a stroke caused by a split in the basilar artery leading to my brain. The split, or dissection as the medical profession term it, was on the inside of the artery, so did not actually bleed out but turbulence caused a blood clot which travelled into my cerebellum affecting my balance quite severely. Luckily, within five days, I went from being unable to stand up for more than a few seconds to being able to walk well enough to be discharged from the stroke unit at the local hospital.

This was followed by two months of no exertion or straining whatsoever while the artery healed. I left hospital with a big bag of drugs including three different types of laxative - they were serious about no straining. Talking with the consultant 6 weeks later, he stated I had none of the usual stroke risks, blood pressure, cholesterol, blood composition were all fine, ascertained from the tests while in hospital. Dissected arteries are relatively uncommon but more often occur in people whose jobs involve looking up a lot, decorators, slingers, crane drivers and when hair is being washed over a sink and the neck is stretched over the sink edge at a hairdressers for instance. At the time I was a climbing instructor working up to 10 hours a week, mainly looking up at my clients. Plus 30 odd years of my own personal climbing and a couple of years spent powerkiting meant I’d done my fair share of looking up. The incident with the helmet peak had probably been enough to stretch an already weakened artery to the point of splitting.   

After 8 weeks I was well enough to return to cycling with the vague proviso ‘start off gently’. My interpretation of this was to spend 3 months riding  without using the big ring at the front. Did wonders for my cadence. After some deliberation I attended the Lakeland Monster Miles event deciding to scale down to the mini-massif and managed to get myself round which was good enough for me.

Things may have been a lot worse without that trip to A&E, I know what happened to me is rare, affecting only 1 or 2% of the population but it shows it is best not to ignore any unusual symptoms.

4th December 2014

Mountain bike ride

Oz, The Bread Man, The Ginger One.

4th December 2014 route

Just as cold as yesterday without the saving grace of sunshine and blue skies, another grey, filthy day as we met up in the grey, filthy, pothole ridden car park at Sheepwash. Another no show from The Pensioner, we'll need a note from his mam when he next appears. From the first pedal stroke our trajectory was upward, culminating in four breathless men at the summit of the Mad Mile, some four miles later. And that was the majority of the day's climbing over with - depending on your definition of climbing of course. A pleasant few miles along the Hambleton Drove Road followed until we gained our objective, the quaintly named Noddle End, a slippery downhill on mud and limestone which rewards a positive approach. The complete opposite of  Oz's mincing, brake squeezing, slither which left him some way behind. A bit of a drag upward, the exact route redacted for legal reasons and we were retracing our tyre tracks back along the Drove Road and getting our revenge on the Mad Mile by plummeting down at speeds unwise for a man on the verge of middle age. The rocky descent to the ford at sheepwash sorted the men from the boys, leaving three process operators approaching puberty as a bread man despatched the route dabless. Floundering on the rock steps, a route was eventually picked out, depositing us at the stream with only borderline casualties. Back at the car, soaking wet for the third day in a row, covered in mud and water, we drove to Osmotherley, where both cafes were closed. Thanks for that Osmotherley.

3rd December 2014. Frosty

Mountain bike ride

The Cruncher, The Ginger One.

3rd December route

A bit more like winter. Actual frost and everything but clear blue sky and a complete lack of wind, so we were not complaining. A fairly gentle route today after yesterday’s grueller, although the ride/push/carry up Carr Ridge was a less than gentle start. Steady riding across Urra Moor, breaking through the ice on the puddles, past Round Hill, the highest point on the North York Moors and on to Middle Head. A speedy descent to Baysdale followed, sweat freezing as we dropped. The climb from Baysdale Abbey soon warmed us up, The Cruncher, standing in for The Pensioner as rear gunner, suddenly tried an attack (probably learned from his turbo trainer videos) but misjudged the distance to the top of the hill and was reeled in without undue duress. Roady talk, somebody slap me.

Coleson Banks, our next descent, is wrecked, two deep wheel ruts running the length of the track, a raised middle section, slippery with mud, made for  interestingly technical riding. Some dabs were made, one of our number ended up sitting in a water-filled rut but no names will be mentioned, suffice to say he was the only monthly staffer.

Our usual plod through the woods from Bank Foot took us back to Clay Bank, shirking the challenge of Ingleby Incline, much to The Cruncher’s relief.

2nd December 2014 - A bit like winter.

Mountain Bike ride

Rod

2nd December 2014 route

A bit like winter.

First ride of December and it’s below 5 degrees C, a bit parky like. Only me and Rod braved it, everyone else using some pitiful excuse about being at work. Basically we made our way from Lordstones over to the Bilsdale Mast, down to Moor Gate and back to Lordstones via Arnesgill Ridge. A simple enough plan, including the odd detour for some moorland singletrack. Things went a bit awry when we thought we would approach Hill End Farm utilising a barely remembered bridleway to cut out the road hill to Low Cote Farm, some vagueness in the track department caused us to miss a footbridge and perform a Bear Grylls style river crossing to avoid the ultimate humiliation for any man - doubling back. And we still had the climb up to Hill End Farm to do. From here it was predominantly uphill and into a headwind all the way back to Lordstones. A poorly planned ride. The only saving grace being the non-attendance of our resident whingers, The Pensioner and The Ginger One, it would have been several miles of spat dummies, toys being flung out of prams and more whining than a Liberal Democrat trying to explain Proportional Representation. At least it didn't rain, although the amount of surface water ensured we were thoroughly soaked regardless.