The Worst Day Of Ben's Life.

Mountain Bike Ride.

Oz, The Youth, Benny The Brawl.

12th August route.

Obviously it didn't begin as the worst day of Ben's life, in fact it began quite well, he managed to find Birk Brow carpark and meet the rest of us. The usual downhill blast with the Whitby bound traffic took us to a quieter road to Moorsholm and that is normally the worst part over. After crossing the Moor Road, a farm road took us alongside Freeborough Hill, the curious hump of soil which, according to legend, holds King Arthur and his Knights ready to arise in a time of dire need. We were not (yet) in dire need, so we pressed on to Dimmingdale Farm, passing through the farmyard, pausing to give the friendly dog a stroke, before heading through the gate and over Middle Heads towards Three Howes Rigg. Parts of this track do have a tendency toward the moist end of firm and this being the most mediocre attempt at a summer since, well, 2016, moist may be a bit of an understatement. This brought out all of Benny's OCD, imagining the water dampening his tootsie's was host to the sort of faecal bacteria which wipes out whole populations.

After a lot of chuntering, we eventually reached Robin Hood’s Butts and had an almost pleasant, wind-driven pedal through the puddles, a bit of tarmac and short paved trod later and we were passing Clitherbeck Farm on the bridleway which was surprisingly firm today. More tarmac led us to Danby Beacon, where took a breather before heading down the rutted 4x4 track to Oakley Walls, with the odd pause to wait for Benny The Brawl to catch up, although how he could become so far behind on a downhill track is a mystery. Unfortunately, the rain caught us up faster than Benny could manage, a bit of futile sheltering in a grouse butt happened until the rain passed.

From the end of the 4x4 track we reversed our route to Clitherbeck and back to Robin Hood’s Butts, this time into the wind, at which point proper rain appeared, some celestial joker flinging buckets of water on us as we battled along the track. Half way along it became apparent that Ben was so far behind Marty McFly’s De Lorean would struggle to find him. I stopped to wait, the other two, Oz and The Youth, pedalled past, quite happy to leave Ben to the elements; gradually a picture of utter dejection appeared, pedaling into the wind and rain, water streaming down his body and he had somehow been afflicted with a water-borne strain of Tourettes. I didn’t have the heart to tell him this was merely a qualifier for the Quaker’s Causeway. We found the other two sheltering in the Shaun The Sheep bus stop, doing the opposite of a rain dance, which appears to be standing very still, staring sullenly at the rain and morosely chewing energy bars.

We convinced ourselves the rain was easing and rode toward the Quaker’s Causeway, cloud and mist now descending to meet the road, I took out my phone and checked the calendar - yep, definitely August. At the start of the causeway, half of our merry band, again disappeared into the distance while I took on the duty of care. Some time later Ben appeared out of the mist, wet and despondent, his enthusiasm for the thousand year old paved pathway across the moors somewhat waned since we discussed in the comfort of the control room. We forged onward, through the mist and drizzle, the best way to tackle the causeway is with aplomb, momentum and full suspension are your friends, Ben had neither and I had to backtrack several times to make sure he hadn’t been swallowed by a bog or abducted by aliens. Apparently, in Ben’s opinion, our situation was similar to hobbits being led through the Dead Marshes of Middle Earth by Gollum; I guess that makes me Gollum. The hobbits, unlike Ben, did not have Tourettes, his has entered an acute phase by now, everything was shit, or sometimes shite and then it became the worst day of his life so far.

“There can’t be anything worse than this.”

“There must be worse things than this.”

“I can’t think of any.”

“What about being murdered? That must be worse.”

“Umm, I don’t know. I’d quite like someone to come and smash my head in with a rock right now.”

Is this really the country that gave us Scott, Livingstone and Ray Mears? We reached the car park on the verge of hypothermia, that may not be quite the exaggeration you imagine. It’s August for God’s sake, the glorious twelfth, in fact. Oh, it was glorious.