Mountain Bike Ride.
Ross The Trainee, The Ginger One.
Warmest day of the year, it must have been true it said so on the telly and in the papers. Perhaps if today had occurred sometime during the last Ice Age it might have been worthy of that epithet, I’m beginning to doubt this is also the start of the three month heatwave we have been promised by the government. There is an election coming up - they’ll say anything for a vote.
Ross The Trainee joined us again for his second go at mountain biking, The Pensioner is suffering the after effects of some unspecified illness, definitely worse than Ebola and Dengue fevers combined, which had rendered him close to death over the weekend but perked up a bit at the promise of a ride where he had a chance of not being the lanterne rouge the whole way. And then he slept in, missing out on the fun. Having a trainee meant me and The Ginger One had an excuse for riding of a more leisurely nature, a short route with a minimum of hills.
We left Kildale and turned off the road to New Row, following the bridleway up the track known as The Yellow Brick Road, which me and The Ginger One managed to ride up for the first time in many years. The track surface, which changes monthly from deep gravel to bare rock and anything in between, means a dab free ascent is never a foregone conclusion for cyclists as inept as us. Turning left at the top we followed Percy Cross Rigg, although who Percy was and why he was cross is always a mystery, past the pillbox, to the top of The Unsuitables before introducing Ross to the technical, rooty, pleasure dome which is The Secret Path. All the tracks are phenomenal at the present time, dry and hard, barely any mud or puddles, The Secret Path was no exception, dry roots and loamy curves bolstering our limited skills, too soon it was over but better was yet to come. A short pedal on the fireroad and we were at the top of the latest incarnation of The Chute, which was even more fun than The Secret Path, the dry conditions engendering confidence. Fun over for a while, we made our way gradually upwards, through Guisborough Woods and onto Roseberry Common, where we stopped for a breather in the shadow of Roseberry Topping before some gravity assistance took us down through Aireyholme Farm to Dikes Lane. The bitter wind froze the sweat on our bodies so we were chilled in more ways than one when we reached Dikes Lane. Hottest day of the year, pah.
The route reverted once more to an upwards direction, up the root-ridden track towards Mill Bank Woods, the bridleway along the side of Easby Moor is in that finite gap between muddy slop and head height bracken; it will be unrideable in a few months, so we made the most of it. From there, fire road followed by tarmac took us steadily to the important part of the route, Glebe Cottage, it seemed the majority of cyclists in North Yorkshire had the same idea, bikes everywhere. At least Ross was not completely exhausted this time, not having a pensioner to compete against.
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