A Ride From Birk Brow.

Mountain Bike Ride

The Pensioner, The Ginger One, The Fireman.

20th February Ride.

Birk Brow (Or Guisborough Bank, if you are an ignorant Darlington retard)

In a move which elicited great disappointment from The Pensioner, a mid-ride cafe stop was scheduled for this ride, mainly because there isn't a cafe in Birk Brow car park, just a tea van which usually is on the verge of closing as we return. Other than that crushing blow, The Pensioner had little else to complain about today. Not that it stopped him complaining, especially after a senior moment by the ride planner meant a missed turn off added an extra mile or so.

The route attempted to be mud-free and almost succeeded, even though there was quite a bit of tarmac cheating involved. The wind was punishing, especially on the open moor roads but most of the off road tracks were surprisingly dry even Robin Hood’s Butts, our first off road track, which is usually like a canal, had only a few large puddles. Some heather burning, fortunately on the leeward side of the track, kept us pleasantly warm for a few metres. From the end of Robin Hood’s Butts, a mixture of road and bridleway took us uneventfully up to Danby Beacon, or RAF Danby Beacon as it remains on some online mapping, which shows they probably could do with updating as it closed in 1954 and was demolished in 1957. It’s claim to fame: it was responsible for the first German plane to be shot down over British soil. The track from The Beacon downhill toward Lealholm was fun with a tail wind, the tail wind became a headwind along Oakley Walls but we paced ourselves and chatted in a civilised manner to ease the pain. The Ginger One was present come to think of it, so the chat was anything but civilised, his coarse, uncouth Darlington manner contrasting with the Hartlepool gentility of The Pensioner and I.

The cafe stop at The Stonehouse Bakery in Danby, was, as previously mentioned, a mid-ride affair, good to be refuelled for the second half of the ride but not as relaxing when you realise what remains to be ridden. In this case sucking mud leading into Danby Park, a nicely remade track through the park, some seriously steep tarmac followed by some less steep tarmac, all leading to the very reason we parked at Birk Brow, the Quakers Causeway. The Quakers Causeway is one of the paved 'trods' which run across the moors, built by monks long, long ago, even before The Pensioner was born. Nowadays they are a mud-free if slightly lumpy way of crossing the moors, it seems medieval monastic paviors had a bit to learn about laying level flagstones.

By now we had rode in excess of twenty miles and the uneven trod claimed The Fireman as it's victim when he took a clipped in tumble into the heather. Soon we were back in the car park, the thick end of 23 miles under our wheels, the wind was still cold and the sun was still shining and no one, not even The Pensioner, was complaining.