Mountain Bike Ride.
The Pensioner, The Ginger One, Trainee#2, Oz.
28th October route
Not a bad day for the end of October, practically windless, dry and sunny, five of us met at Gribdale, spreading bike parts about the car park as we assembled our steeds. After the requisite amount of faffing, we could procrastinate no longer and set off up the hill to Newton Moor, a bit muddy and slippy but rideable, this is a vicious way to begin a ride, gaining height quickly and reducing riders to panting, sweating wrecks even more quickly. Five panting, sweating wrecks reconvened at the top, regaining their breath, thankfully things level out from here for a bit. We rode the track along Newton Moor before entering the top of Guisborough Woods, following a fire road to emerge at the top of The Unsuitables, aiming for the leafy, rooty fun fest known as The Secret Path. Trainee#2 and me plunged in, negotiating the slight uphill section near the start and pausing near a large pile of discarded Daily Mirrors, if your paper round takes in The Secret Path, you can’t be blamed for lightening your load, I suppose. At this point, we realised we were alone, the other three had not caught us up, even by our standards, losing sixty percent of the team within two hundred metres was good going.
Eventually The Ginger One and The Pensioner turned up, it seems Oz had left his wallet on display in his car, on the front seat, Gribdale is a slightly dodgy parking spot, most days there is a pile of car window glass somewhere, he decided to return and put it in a safer place. Quite what a smash and grabber would make of two threepenny bits, a ten shilling note and a creased photograph of a 1970’s Yamaha FS1E we can only imagine. The geographically challenged Ginger One made an executive decision, ran it up the flagpole for a bit of blue sky thinking outside the box, made sure he didn’t reinvent the wheel, while remaining focussed and proactive (unfortunately The Ginger One, ambitious fool that he is, really does consort with retards who speak like that) he told Oz to meet us at the old wartime building on Percy Cross Rigg. Actually part of the Starfish Decoy System from WW2. The route was rejigged slightly, giving us the dubious benefit of a ride up The Unsuitables and Percy Cross Rigg.
Eventually The Ginger One and The Pensioner turned up, it seems Oz had left his wallet on display in his car, on the front seat, Gribdale is a slightly dodgy parking spot, most days there is a pile of car window glass somewhere, he decided to return and put it in a safer place. Quite what a smash and grabber would make of two threepenny bits, a ten shilling note and a creased photograph of a 1970’s Yamaha FS1E we can only imagine. The geographically challenged Ginger One made an executive decision, ran it up the flagpole for a bit of blue sky thinking outside the box, made sure he didn’t reinvent the wheel, while remaining focussed and proactive (unfortunately The Ginger One, ambitious fool that he is, really does consort with retards who speak like that) he told Oz to meet us at the old wartime building on Percy Cross Rigg. Actually part of the Starfish Decoy System from WW2. The route was rejigged slightly, giving us the dubious benefit of a ride up The Unsuitables and Percy Cross Rigg.
Idling the time away at the air raid shelter (sic), waiting for Oz to return, we spotted a likely looking track cutting down the moor, presumably to join The Cleveland Way after Black Nab. In a spirit of adventure and derring do, we gave it a try, once Oz had rejoined us. It started well, nice grassy doubletrack, not a lot of hazards and heading in a gravity-friendly direction. All good things inevitably coming to an end, it did, rather abruptly at a lonely grouse butt, the grouse butt the track was obviously built to access. Onward appeared to be a trackless trek through the valley bottom, bracken, heather and that long white grass which always denotes boggy ground. And boggy it was, sphagnum moss, soaked with water, five men walking through a field of sponges, sinking knee deep, waterproof socks now keeping the water in rather than out. We trudged deeper into the bog, expecting alligators and airboats from the Florida Everglades to appear at any moment, a bracken covered hill our objective, higher ground our salvation. Eventually we reached it, not without some dark mutterings from the back markers, a dry path appeared and everyone was happy again.
Rather drier tracks formed the remainder of the ride, we made our way past Highcliffe Nab to Nomad which was a bit muddy but still a nice track, comparisons were inevitably made with seven days previously when we were tearing up the Whinlatter trails. A couple more of Guisborough Wood’s finest trails were dispatched before we returned to Codhill Heights to ride The Nipple, or as some people know it, Scalextrix. This is a rutted trail which punishes those who can’t keep a straight line - The Pensioner was duly punished, ending up trapped underneath his bike, regrettably, he was too far back for photos or video. Some further singletrack around Great Ayton Moor was followed back to the cars, although it may not have been the singletrack we originally set out to follow, being male it was unthinkable to use the L word, instead we were either temporarily misplaced or exploring new tracks for future use.
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