The Day After Doris

Mountain Bike Ride

The Youth

24th February route

The day after Storm Doris dawned dry and bright, the morning sunshine lightening the darkness of a country devastated, nationwide cataclysms filling gigabytes of news media; we drove into Great Ayton cautiously, expecting a dystopian nightmare of collapsed buildings and fallen trees. The river was faster than usual and a bit browner - otherwise no change. We rode coatless in the warm sunshine, in February, passing through Fletcher’s Farm and climbing upward, through the farmyard at Aireyholme Farm where things became muddy. The long drag up to Roseberry Common was also thick with the brown stuff but the view of a well-populated Roseberry Topping took our minds off the struggle. Half term and sunshine a combination to lure the day people, our usually solitary tracks comparatively thronged with those enjoying their brief liberation from the education industry. We shouldered the bikes and joined the hikers for a few minutes, walking up the steps to the gate onto Newton Moor, which is a NSP (natural stopping point), so a quick breather and a bit of chit chat with a friendly walker was in order before we moved on to fling ourselves down a couple of Guisborough Woods’ finest downhill tracks; the first two sections of Les’s were in far better condition than they ought to have been considering they had spent all day yesterday being dumped on by Doris. Not precisely dry but mud was not the cloying mire we’re becoming accustomed to and progress was as brisk as it can ever be for someone approaching middle-age with marginal bike handling skills and an aversion to (any more) broken bones.

A bit of fire road plodding followed, culminating in an ascent of The Unsuitables, that direct but somewhat demanding route back to the top of Guisborough Woods which we seem to drag ourselves up at least once a week. Pausing at the top to wait for The Youth to catch up, I refrained from mentioning the thirty six year age difference as he panted into view, making his excuses between gasps. We carried on down Black Nab on the paved track, splashing through standing water until the fun ends at a gate, from where we climbed gently to the Codhill Heights track. The wide, fast descent to Sleddale was, again, a lot less muddy than would have been expected and some fine speeds were recorded as we hurtled down the track like Danny Hart and Guy Martin - in our imaginations at least. The climb back up to Percy Cross Rigg once again sorted the men from the boys, just saying like. At the end of the tarmac section of Percy Cross Rigg, we returned to offroad for a trip around the Lonsdale Bowl,  Fingerbender Bank, today a gentle rivulet tinkling picturesquely down the rock slabs. Finger’s safely unbent we arrived at Gribdale, beginning to realise, despite the odds, we’d had a decent ride and it was all downhill to the cafe, a downhill, even if it is on road is always enjoyable, especially if it’s steep and a little greasy on the corners.

Arriving at Dikes Lane, surely a name from a Carry On film if ever there was one, we hung a right, then a left and, keeping with the downhill theme, began to reverse our outbound route, although with a quick detour into Fletcher’s Farm cafe for necessary sustenance before returning to Great Ayton.

Stuck At Sutton Bank.

Mountain Bike Ride.

Olly, Trainee#2, The Ginger One.

16th February Route.

According to the good old Met. Office today was supposed to be even better than yesterday, Fun In The Sun, mendacious meteorologists make fallacious forecasts, a headline probably spelt out by joining the raindrops on the windscreen. It was not a good start to the day, despite it being half term, the car park at Sutton Bank is pretty much deserted, possibly something to do with the £4.50 parking charge. A little ray of sunshine came into our lives by Trainee#2 thinking an overpriced car park, a cafe, a bike shop and red, blue and green trails meant he was at a proper trail centre, despite being prewarned some of the trails are only old bridleways we’ve rode for twenty years or more with signage added. The poor, misguided fool.

Anyway, the first part of our ride moved away from the visitor centre and out to the valley of Nettledale, always best in the winter before said nettles reach shoulder height and make the route an exercise in self-flagellation best left to niche perverts of the public school variety. Today it felt like fun, probably something to do with the start being almost 4 miles downhill, even though a fair proportion is on tarmac. A ride over the stepping stones signalled the end of the fun and a mile of uphill followed, broken up by finding a dead rat, always a bonus to overgrown schoolboys - which we all are at heart, despite our sophisticated exteriors, except for The Ginger One, of course, a Lidl own-price yoghurt has more culture. A pleasant but brief descent on slippy limestone led to another ascent ending on the road outside Old Byland, from where we made our way, into a headwind back towards Sutton Bank, mainly tarmac until a farm track/field crossing gave us a bit of extra training by doubling the weight of our bikes and jamming the wheels with the stickiest gunge since the excrement hit the eiderdown. Trainee#2 seemed to think our time would have been better spent sticking to the waymarked routes, a few miles later we were literally sticking to a waymarked route, where the mud did a proper job of stopping our progress. The quarry drop on the Blue Route, normally one of the highlights of a trip to Sutton Bank, today somewhat marred by lack of investment in a suitable surface. I’d like to think our £18 will be converted into hardcore and gravel at some point in the future.

The Escarpement was somewhat better, the majority holding up well, with just the odd muddy patch, the weather even improved a bit and the views from the edge, as always, were sublime. We paused to have a look at Whitestonecliffe and the allegedly bottomless Gormire Lake before taking the cycle only track back to the visitor centre. A quick spin around the start again and we were done and ready for the cafe. Unfortunately the cafe was not ready for us, or anyone else for that matter, being inexplicably closed. At least the jetwash was open and the cloying mud was removed; clean bikes all round we set off for home. It’s a poor ride when the highlight is the jetwash but in our grumpy state that was exactly how it felt.

Fun In The Sun, In February?

Mountain Bike Ride

Olly, Trainee#2

Starting a blog without mentioning the weather is like starting a day without coffee, it just doesn’t happen. Today was one of those exceptional February days where a slip through some cosmic wormhole fast forwards us to June for a few hours, if only the trails could have followed suit, they were still muddier than a muddy puddle in the middle of Muddyville Marsh. Our intrepid trio left Great Ayton behind and as the saying goes, headed for the hills, passing Fletcher’s Farm and making our way up the slippery slope to the Red Run, an area of old industry, now a motocross track. The Red Run used to be a bit of a test piece for tyro mountain bikers, a steep slope of red shale, starting practically vertical  a fast descent but with a long flat run out. Erosion has taken its toll and the slope is no longer steep or vertical, more like a trench funnelling aspirants downward. The youngsters still had a few goes, those of us who are older and wiser did the enjoyment versus exertion ratio equation and stayed at the top.

Moving on we made our up through Ayton Banks Wood to Easby Moor with a combination of riding, pushing and sliding up slick slopes, only to ride down the other side on a slightly less greasy track through the woods which brought us out above the scrappy cliffs of Cockshaw Hill. Another slope of doom delivered us to Gribdale, my main bike and (more importantly) it’s mud tyres are currently languishing in the bike shop, the old 26 wheel bike was dragged from the back of the shed and hastily refurbished to get out today, the tyres, Maxxis Crossmark, are brilliant all-round tyres, providing you go all round the mud. Unfortunately that can be a little difficult this time of year, the front wheel took to washing out on the bends, throwing me over the handlebars with callous disregard for the person who pays it's bills. (Anyone who has kids will understand the parallel). From Gribdale we recommenced climbing and I was able to reconnect with my old granny ring, spinning casually upward rather than the lung-ravaging, thigh-bursting effort usually required by these trendy 1x systems.

Our next fun bit was the descent of Little Roseberry, another local classic, steep and, today, slippy naturally enough but a cautious approach paid off with a casualty free descent. A circumnavigation of Roseberry Topping followed before a foray through Newton Woods to, at Olly’s request, the Elephant’s Hole, a gigantic shale bomb hole at the head of Cliff Rigg Quarry. The only way down is a painful descent through an alley of gorse bushes, which included another front wheel washout, the fall down the hillside broken by a handy sapling and a pair of lightly padded testicles. The lower quarry features a bit of a bike playground, mainly jumps and berms normally populated by embarrassingly talented pubescents riding bikes which probably cost less than our tyres. A lack of teenagers today meant we were free to indulge without humiliation and some time was spent attempting to get both wheels off the ground simultaneously, with varying degrees of success, pretty much in inverse proportion to our ages. The burst of hyperactivity destroyed the youngsters, the plan, involving mud and ascent had to be shelved and a return to Great Ayton had to be made on the tarmac.   

Perambulations From Pinchinthorpe.

Mountain Bike Ride

Oz, Trainee#2

9th February route

Yellow warning for snow and ice today, which seems to indicate there may be a fifty fifty chance of snow somewhere in the Northern hemisphere. A red warning for mud would have been more useful, three intrepid Terra Trailblazers lashed out a quid each to park at a dry and chilly Pinchinthorpe. Yet again brazenly ignoring the press warnings. Me, Oz and Trainee#2 - now known as Juan Crank, following some maintenance issues, muttering about the cold, even though it was not too bad for early February.

The first climb, past Bousedale House, was rather muddier than a fire road ought to be and felt especially difficult to those of us who embarking on their third day of riding. Not that I received any sympathy from my dilettante companions, whose lack of exertion had left them fresh and powering up the hills as I shed gears just to stay on the bike. Several more hills later we were on Newton Moor,  looking back at Roseberry Topping, a meagre dusting of snow highlighting the tracks. Deciding to introduce Trainee#2 to an old track known as Follow Me, we rode across the moor to the start, a drop in through a small rock outcrop which has eroded to beyond our ability, fortunately there is now a more amenable chicken run to one side. The remainder of the track is enjoyable, holding up fairly well to the winter weather, with just the odd muddy section. Our fun was prematurely halted by the Forestry Commission, who are cashing in their investment and indulging in a spot of conifer genocide, leaving the remainder of the trail buried under tree trunks and discarded branches. Exiting stage right through churned up furrows from the logging machine, the road at Gribdale gave a brief respite prior to ascending the fire road to Captain Cook’s Monument. Legs burning, heart hammering, lungs panting, we arrived at the monument and rested briefly before plunging back down again via some especially muddy tracks, which claimed the odd scalp from our trio.

Reaching Gribdale again, another highway to hell wended it's muddy way up to Newton Moor, where we continued ascending on Fingerbender Bank (so called following a finger related accident by The Pensioner many years ago) and around the Lonsdale Bowl, to the road at Percy Cross Rigg. Trainee#2’s crank arm by this stage wobbling like a spoon in a pan of porridge but still hanging on owing to the magical properties of thread lock. More climbing; more suffering for my tired legs, from Sleddale and over Codhill Heights to Highcliffe. A swift descent on fireroads took us to through the forest to Stripes, where some more muddy descending was attempted in a start/slide/stop/start/fall off sort of fashion. Picking up the end of the Blue route, we slithered our way past the Blue Lake and out of the forest, finishing the ride on firmer tracks to reach the Branch Walkway cafe, ready for essential sustenance from the extensive menu. And bike wash tokens.

Misty Mad Mile

Mountain Bike Ride

Oz

7th February route.

It’s always unprepossessing opening the curtains to be greeted by the sight of our monotheistic messiah’s micturition gently splashing the pavements, especially not at the start of a mountain biking day but who dares wins Rodney and it was bike on roof rack and off to Square Corner. Only by previous knowledge though, because Square Corner, in common with most of the surrounding hills, was somewhere under a blanket of mist and would have  proved elusive to anyone trying to find it for the first time. One by one our team assembled in the car park, well, one and one to be frank, for we were reduced to a duo today, only me and Oz, bereft of excuses so compelled to ride. The prevailing Square Corner micro-climate, which makes it invariably colder and wetter than any other part of North Yorkshire was well in evidence today; bikes fettled with the minimum of faff, we began ascending into the clouds - directly up the Mad Mile, according to Mr. Garmin, 420 ft of ascent in a mile on a loose and wet track. “Just find an easy gear and spin...” it says in all the bike magazines, obviously staffed by superhumans with the legs of Chris Hoy and the lungs of Bradley Wiggins, or written in East Anglia. We were mashing our very lowest gears and still struggling to maintain upward momentum, striving for the perfect balance between power and body position; eventually it was done, dab-free but also style free, arriving at the top panting like nuns in a cucumber factory.

The Hambledon Drove road beckoned us southward, the monotony of the track today not tempered by the magnificent views, we rode in a cocoon, operating on memory to make the correct turns. Eventually we reached Dale Town Common, the grassy track sodden, visibility reduced further, memory beginning to be doubted as gate after gate loomed from the mist only to be dismissed until the correct gate arrived, leading to an uninvitingly muddy field edge track. Somewhat dirtier than when we set off we arrived at the tumbledown barn of Noddle End and the start of the downhill track to Peak Scar Woods. The rock in this area is limestone as opposed to the more usual moorland sandstone, the downhill track is scattered with limestone like the floor after a toddler has been eating fried rice, as I’m sure you’re aware, limestone is slippery when wet, as Jon Bon Jovi once sang, in between the limestone was, of course, mud, mud with the frictional qualities of a bucket of oiled eels. The chances of a fall were beyond high, approaching inevitable given our skill set, which is vastly inferior to our enthusiasm, sure enough we both managed a tumble or two.

The remainder of the route is best glossed over, a gradual uphill first along the Peak Scar road to Sneck Yate, then following the Drove Road back to the top of the Mad Mile, at least the wind was behind us and the mist lifted occasionally to give us a glimpse of blue sky, teasing us like a well-turned ankle to a Victorian gentleman. The sun came out properly as we paused at the top of the Mad Mile, about typical when we had mere minutes left of the ride. It hardly mattered, we plunged downhill, skipping over the rocks which caused us such heartache on the ascent, rocks give way to gravel and bends, scrubbing a bit of speed off today to avoid a heathery detour, then the home straight, drainage humps specially placed for a bit of phat air showboating for those with the necessary prowess.

Blustery Birk Brow

Mountain Bike Ride.

Olly

31st January route.

Just imagine living and riding somewhere the weather is consistently excellent; what would I fill the first paragraph with? A description of who was last into the car park and how long they faffed about getting their bike ready while everyone basks in the sun like blubbery seals? A collection of synonyms to describe the cerulean sky and azure sea? A treatise on the effects of cactus spines on bare flesh? Lazy wind blowing like a gentle hairdryer, evaporating rivulets of sweat from unlined foreheads?

Birk Brow today was as far from that fantasy land as The Ginger One is from culture. The sky was grey, the air was wet, the wind so strong it literally blew my bike off the roof rack into my arms, the butty van looked as though it might be lifted off to meet a tin man, a cowardly lion and a scarecrow - yes, all the way to Darlington. Naturally, our route plunged straight into the headwind, working on the theories our legs were fresher at the start of the ride and we would be pushed up the hill on the way back. Our objective was the Quaker’s Causeway, the nemesis of many a soft-tailed, hardtail rider. And the odd full suspension jockey. Riding a narrow, paved causeway, laid in the days when nipping to Toolstation for a spirit level wasn’t quite so easy, into the teeth (yes, this wind had teeth) of a gale, is, without a doubt character building, particularly if that character is Eeyore the gloomy donkey. Between the paved sections lay mud, all incarnations of the North York Moors finest, from black swampy peat to the evil yellow mud which sticks like dung to a duvet. Eventually we reached the road where things became only marginally easier, the gusts still contrived to force us backwards. Some respite occurred after turning onto Robin Hood’s Butts, where headwind morphed into side wind; considering the lack of precipitation Robin Hood’s Butts is filling up nicely, some of the puddles approaching the size of small tarns.

At the cairn, we turned right, following the fine singletrack of the Sis Cross bridleway, the uphill section to the remains of the cross slightly protected from the wind by the hillside. From the cross, some speedy singletrack carves through the heather, today a  bit slimy which engendered more cautious riding than is usual - a couple of tumbles is normally de rigeur for this section. Our route today turned onto the Pannierman’s Causeway, which undulates a bit before dropping down to Danby Park - which isn’t a park at all, no swings, roundabouts or seedy conveniences with phone numbers written on the walls in black felt pen - just some trees. The track through the park has been, for the most part, resurfaced and the mudfest of years gone by is no more, which makes it a pleasant ride. The tarmac road back up to the Quaker’s Causeway is never a pleasant ride, although, finally, we now had the wind behind us, God’s gentle exhalation pushing us heavenward, or to our idea of heaven -  the Birk Brow butty van. Only the Quaker’s Causeway to revisit first, with a tailwind, things were less arduous but not exactly as undemanding as we would have liked. The mud had not mysteriously dried up and the stones were still as level as the last set of shelves Stevie Wonder put up in his kitchen; the thought of food spurred us on and we reached Birk Brow in record time. Actually, the slowest ride of the year so far but there are another eleven months for us to shatter that particular record.

The butty van had not been whirled away and, even better, was still open for business. Wet gear and bikes stowed away, it was time for our reward for battling the elements while the other riders sat watching the weather through their windows. I was a little discerning in my order, owing to a body shape which is becoming more Christopher Biggins than Chris Froome, a mere bacon sandwich. Olly however managed all the major food groups, bacon, sausage and egg, in one bun.