January Round Up and Video

January Round Up and Video

Video click here

The first month of 2017 over and done and we never experienced the sub-arctic cataclysm eagerly predicted by the pensioner-troubling tabloid press. In fact we had some days which would not have been out of place in late spring, although other days were filled with mist, mud and water. A respectable 16 rides and 276 miles were polished off, probably my best ever January since the beginning of my MTB career. Hamsterley Forest saw a few visits, mainly for the mud-free tracks which hold up a little better in the wet than our natural tracks on the North York Moors.

Just a couple more months of winter’s dusky mantle and (hopefully) spring will arrive, fresh green leaves will begin their job of sucking the earth dry for us. Never mind this lungs of the world nonsense - get them trails crisped up because it looks as though firm, man-made trails are set to be even rarer in North Yorkshire. Allegedly the Guisborough Woods graded routes have been declassified, no longer red, blue or black routes but just forest paths to be shared with everyone, a catastrophe in the making, particularly as there are already reports of militant walkers antagonising cyclists. What are we paying our £1’s for? At least the cafe and the bike wash still welcome cyclists.

So let’s look forward to a few more weeks of rain, wind and mud, bodies brutalised and bikes ravaged as we plough through the winter, that old Terra Trailblazers’ aphorism repeated like a mantra.

“At least we’ll be fit for the summer.”