Cyclocross Ride
The Chairman
In an attempt to satiate his perverted desire for muddy tyres and baggy shorts, The Cafe Racers’ renown Chairman has bought himself a cross bike, jumping on the CX bandwagon, giving in to his urges for a good, rough ride. The famous Rosedale Round his preference for saying goodbye to cross bike virginity; for me, it’s a simple pleasure to be in Rosedale Abbey without the thought that an ascent of The Chimney or Heygate Bank beckons and having done the loop many times on a mountain bike, I was interested to see how it would be on cyclocross bike. The Chairman still turned up looking like Chris Froome’s scrawnier sibling; beer, pies and baggy shorts ought to be in his training regime before he slips down the gaps in a cattle grid and becomes trapped like a frog in a drain.
The first section is on tarmac and passes the The Pensioner’s favourite farm, Bell End, scene of many a Finbarr Saunders’ style giggling session from the back on our mountain bike outings. On the cross bikes this section did pass much quicker than usual, soon letting the Chairman’s Planet X have its first taste of gravel, steeply up through the farm yard and on to the old rail track where things are more of a cindery/grassy nature with the odd wheel trapping rabbit hole or bit of subsidence to catch the unwary. Despite the grassy surface we felt we were flying along compared to usual mtb pedalling, past the kilns and over two gorges, before the rail bed turns to singletrack round the head of the valley, narrow bars and skinny tyres requiring precision steering on the narrow track. Heading along the other side of the valley, we rejoined the cinder covered rail bed, rising gradually at first before levelling out and giving us a speedy pedal toward Bank Top, pausing only for a photo opportunity near the old Sheriff Pit air shaft.
Carrying on the same vein, we crossed over the road at the top of Chimney Bank and made our way to Ana Cross, where the cameras came out again as we recorded the moment for posterity. The track down to Lastingham is normally a balls out blast, rocky and loose, letting the suspension soak up the bumps; on the less forgiving cyclocross machines things were somewhat more cautious, employment of nature’s original shock absorbers, elbows and knees, helped a little but a full body version of the claims lawyers’ favourite, vibration white finger, was beginning to make itself evident by the time we reached the smooth tarmac at Lastingham. The Chairman began to complain about pins and needles in his extremities - lets see the no win, no fee guys pick the bones out of that.
Leaving Lastingham and it’s famous crypt behind, we returned to the fun stuff at High Askew Farm, riding the unusually dry singletrack above the River Seven, along the valley back to Rosedale Abbey. A couple of dismounts were required as we deferred to some large rocks but otherwise it was all rideable, even the now legendary section which broke my collarbone in 2012. It’s still hard to understand how I came off. Soon the lower slopes of Chimney Bank were reached, fortunately our direction involved nothing as gruesome as riding upward, although I’m sure The Chairman’s masochistic tendencies were tempting him to have a quick spin skyward; my gourmand tendencies kept my handlebars firmly pointed in the direction of Graze On The Green.
To answer the burning question, how was the Rosedale Round on a cyclocross bike? Not that much different, it being a fairly smooth route overall and only marginally faster, only 10 minutes quicker than when we rode it earlier this month.
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