Two Shiny New Bikes

Mountain Bike Ride.

Riders: The Fireman, The Youth, Trainee#2, Oz, Olly.

20th September route

Two shiny new bikes in the car park today but only one shiny new rider, young Olly, venturing out for his first ride with us and bringing the average age of a Terra Trailblazer’s ride down by about twenty years, in fact half of today’s team were born in what the remainder of us would consider the recent past. I have boxer shorts older than some of the people here today. The other shiny new bike, courtesy of our firm’s Bike To work scheme belongs to grizzled veteran and erstwhile Terra Trailblazer, Oz, who has not been spotted since the last Christmas dinner ride. The Fireman joined, making three oldies and three youngsters, a nice even split. The thought of young people, out enjoying themselves, laughing and joking, obviously was too distressing for The Pensioner who eschewed us and went for one of his remote adventures instead.

Eventually we made it out of the car park and began the tarmac warm up, ascending Percy Cross Rigg to the Sleddale turn off; the junior section exhibiting a disturbing lack of heavy breathing on the ascent. A brief downhill blast took us to Codhill Heights and more climbing, the usual chorus of moans and groans absent today, I suppose that’s one of advantage of new kids - they have no idea what is coming. The top of Highcliffe Nab became our first rest point and the inevitable group photo happened before we rode steeply down the other side, something of a technical test piece to check out everyone’s downhill skills. Oz’s bike carried him down, his face telling the story. After a speedy run down the fire road, we disappeared into the vegetation on the new, improved Lover’s Land/Lover’s Ledge track, rather muddier than we would have liked at the start, things drying up as the track traverses the open hillside, some pleasant jumps have been constructed which add to the flow, the steep finishing section was a bit greasy, claiming the odd casualty from our group - okay just me then.

All safely but not necessarily successfully down, some gruesome climbing followed from Hutton Village back into Guisborough Woods, a pause at the top for puffing/panting/defibrillation before a flat section of cruel brevity took us to The Unsuitables, one of Guisborough Wood’s most famous, or maybe infamous ascents. The gate at the top, a welcome sight, was the scene of another breather, the junior branch somehow finding the breath to exchange witty banter, while us on the verge of middle age were happy to reach the top without infarction.

The brace of shiny new bikes were now looking more like off road velocipedes ought to, mud splattered and sweat-stained. Percy Cross Rigg came and went, young Olly leading the pack on the rocky downhill, showing all the impetuousness of someone yet to have a bone-breaking crash. We made our way around the Lonsdale Bowl and down Finger-Bender Bank, so called following an unfortunate Pensioner related incident some years ago. It is amazing how far a finger can bend without actually breaking. Didn’t stop him moaning about it though. Andy’s track was our next objective, a steep chute leading down to Gribdale, the bracken, however, had other ideas, with no Middlesbrough drug dealers amongst us we were lacking a machete, so after a spirited battle with seemingly sentient bracken which was determined to wrap itself around any vertical object, we capitulated and made our way to Gribdale via a different track.

The ultimate climb loomed, the fire road to Captain Cook’s Monument, although the ride, so far, had barely made it into double figure mileage, the climbing and the pace was beginning to tell, even The Rugrats were quiet for a bit as we plodded slowly upward, failing as usual on the steep section around the memorial plaque. A quick sit down at the monument to Australia’s first illegal immigrant but the cool wind was in no way preferable to hot coffee, a unanimous and mostly unspoken decision saw us plunging down to Mill Bank Woods and directly to Glebe Cottage for the highlight of the ride. Just in time, as a distinctly unfriendly drizzle descended on us for the last half mile.