What A Difference A Week Makes.

What A Difference A Week Makes.

Mountain Bike Ride.

The Pensioner, The Bread Lad, The Ginger One, The Cruncher.

29th April Route

A plume of Arctic air blowing from Norway said our old friend the weatherman, blasting in from Norway he would have said if had he been the one flogging up New Way, trying to shelter behind an unsuspecting Ginger One, he hasn’t the faintest idea about roadie tactics such is his level of ignorance/contempt/disdain of the world of Lycra and emaciation. Our ride began in cool and breezy Danby, probably 20 degrees C colder than this time last week when we were enjoying the balmy, tropical weather of Southern Scotland. Riding straight up to and over the newly sanitised Ainthorpe Rigg, we viewed the ‘improvements’ less than favourably, will it ever again be worth the detour and push up from Crossley Side just to ride it down to Ainthorpe? Probably not.

Making our way up the aforementioned New Way into a vicious headwind, the clouds closed in and it began to snow. Yes, snow, even though it will be May in two days.This time last week became an oft repeated phrase. We regrouped by the gate to Trough House waiting for The Pensioner, who rode up, grunted and continued straight through the gate and along the track. Very commendable, except going through the gate was never in the plan for today’s carefully designed route, carefully designed to minimise the headwind battling. Assuming he had only gone a little way down the track to find shelter from the snow storm at Trough House, we finished our snacks and followed only to find the old, stone shooting house bereft of pensioners - he had continued along the track. Never mind, the route could still be salvaged if we caught him before he reached the Glaisdale Corkscrew, however, owing to his head start and the wind, which was now at our backs, he was away across the moor like a geriatric Marco Fontana. We had little option but to follow, this track around the head of Fryup Dale, is always worth riding even though a lot of the rocky technicality it was renown for has now be subdued by the trail sanitation department. At the end of the track, we explained his deviation from the original route, he replied the chosen route may not have been quite to his taste, although he may have used more emotive language.

Seeing as we were unexpectedly in the area, it would have been rude not to include a descent of Glaisdale Rigg and so we commenced on three and a half miles of downhill, down Glaisdale Rigg’s loose and broken surface, through Glaisdale village and down to the River Esk, where we began to climb again. Steeply through Park Farm and on to Lealholm Side, then continuing to Oakley Walls. Planning today’s (original) route, a look at the map and the weather forecast told us the last place we wanted to be riding back towards Danby today was Oakley Walls. And yet here we were, plodding into the wind along Oakley Walls, careful planning obliterated by one impetuous pensioner. The offroad track to Clitherbecks Farm was were rejoined the original plan and despite the recent weather, was dry and fast, as was the Lord’s Turnpike track, surely the best finish of any ride, downhill, offroad and depositing us practically at the door of The Stonehouse Bakery.