The Xmas Dinner Ride
The Ginger One, Oz, The Cruncher, The Fireman and Rod
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.
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| The Ginger One goes for his third pudding. |
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