The Pensioner's Ashes 2 - The Sequel

The video of The Pensioner's Memorial Ride, click Here

The Pensioner Memorial Ride 2018

Mountain Bike Ride

The Breadlad, The Ginger One, Climbing Simon, The Sheik Of Bristol, Young Briggs, Oz, Rod, Tom.

15th June route.

Almost a year to the day since The Pensioner’s Ashes and Ashes To Ashes - The Movie, we congregated in a windy and unseasonably cool car park ready to celebrate his memory in our own peculiar fashion. This year we chose his most iconic bit of route planning, The Pensioner’s variation on the classic Gunnerside route, formulated by a combination of the Ordnance Survey, YouTube and getting off his arse and pedalling, quite often in the wrong direction, until the route became the polished gem we know today. 

Owing to the paucity of parking in Gunnerside village, we met at Surrender Bridge, nine of us, ready to celebrate The Pensioner with a bit of wind-swept suffering and a few laughs along the way. In something approaching close formation, we set off along the track to The Old Gang Smelting Mill, we had Jordan, The Sheik Of Bristol, newly returned from the forty degree heat of Saudi Arabia to the only just scraping into double figures temperatures of The Yorkshire Dales, his first MTB ride for four and a half years and Climbing Simon, who had decided to attempt the route on his cyclocross bike and seven others in varying stages of fitness. At the ruined buildings of the smelting mill, we took a happy, smiling group photo before the trauma of the first proper hill was inflicted upon us. The track up to Moor House from Level House Bridge definitely split the peloton, the irregular riders trailing behind but everyone was puffing like a bunch of asthmatic paedophiles in a playground by the time the track levelled out. 

From Moor House, some steady riding across the moor, on a typical Pensioner track, wide open without anything to block the light because “if you had these eyes, you would never even get out of bed on a morning”. Today is dull, cold and blustery but a few hot days earlier in the month probably constitute the British summer for this year, so we mustn't grumble. The track begins to descend, the more skill drifting into the loose turns, we turned off the gravel track onto a grassy, rutted downhill, crossing a small stream, The Ginger One managing to avoid the testicle/cross bar interaction he suffered last time he sped through this water. 

Regrouping at the oddly named Barf End Gate, euphoric gurning all round, we continued across some snooker table sward to pick up the bridleway down to Gunnerside. This is probably the highlight of a ride filled with highlights, starting with a steep, grassy descent, which becomes a gully before turning to a clatter bang rock garden popping out onto the famous electric gate road. Climbing Simon emerged from the rock garden, still on his cross bike, wild eyed and white knuckled with a grin on his face which could only be described as manic. 

Fun over for a bit, we began the long climb out of Gunnerside, passing Dyke Heads prior to taking another typical gravel track for the steady slog up and along Jingle Pot Edge. Despite being less than halfway round, some of our team were beginning to feel the pace and we became a little strung on the long drag. We were now high above the Gunnerside valley, its green flanks’ rent by the scars of hush mining, grey keloids formed from tumbles of barren rock running down the hillsides. Botcher Gill Gate brought us all back together and shortly after we were all enjoying the grassy descent to the 18th century mine buildings in the bottom of Gunnerside Gill. Young Briggs produced some more of The Pensioner’s ashes and with an irreverent lack of ceremony he would have appreciated, we took turns to scatter him around another of the places he enjoyed so much. 

And then - the climb out, steep, narrow, rocky and brutal, we shouldered bikes and plodded upward, sticking faithfully but maybe not thankfully to The Pensioner’s original route, until we reached the lunar landscape of Melbecks Moor. Cold and gloomy, a vista of bleak spoil tips remnants of the mining, what would be classed as an environmental disaster nowadays, acres of land rendered infertile by industry, merely making a living in days when the countryside was not valued so highly and food came before aesthetics. Decidedly nippy on top, windproofs were donned as we made our way to the next downhill, essentially just riding back along the opposite side of Gunnerside valley but what a ride, a little bit of technical stuff preceding a grassy blast downhill, speed only limited by the size of your cajones. All too soon we were back at Barf End, heading for the hamlet of Blades and the last climb of the day before some pleasant singletrack, just the right side of horizontal took us back to Surrender Bridge.

Despite the mediocre weather, everyone appeared to have had a grand day out and it was a fine tribute to The Pensioner and his most excellent route planning. A few people had been introduced to the delights of Swaledale for the first time, for others it was deja vu. Tired and hungry, we decamped to The Black Bull in Reeth, only to find we were three hours early for eating. Some suitable liquid refreshment was imbibed, courtesy of The Pensioner, before we had to withdraw to The Dales Bike Centre for food. 

May 2018 Round Up and Video

May 2018 Round Up and Video.

Click here for video.

Life’s not so bad when you start the month’s mountain biking off in Spain, return to England, go back to work for four shifts, then spend the next four days in The Lakes - and the weather remains sunny. Not warm particularly but sunny nonetheless. A theme which continued through the month, bright but cool. Several rides of a local variety didn’t make the blog but the routes and pictures are below.

Bank Holiday Monday saw us parked up outside Castleton for a long ride in unprecedented temperatures, no new trails but we managed to join a load of old favourites into a twenty-odd miles blast through the heather. Even though we were disgraced by some youthful super-hero who pedalled up the steep side of Ainthorpe Rigg, as we carried our bikes. He didn’t even have the decency to be out of breath at the top. Route

Our next ride was around Guisborough Woods, relishing the dry trails. The Youth entertained us with a spectacular airborne dismount when a vertical drop off took him by surprise. If only I’d had the camera rolling when I came round that bend to see him dropping out of the sky like Wile E Coyote in the Roadrunner cartoon. Even the elusive Benny The Brawl managed to tear himself away from whatever dubious delights Redcar has to offer to join us for one of his sporadic appearances of 2018. Route

Another day saw us congregating in a disappointingly chilly Chop Gate for a spin over the moors and ultimately down Trennet Bank back to the cars. The sun did put in an appearance eventually and we enjoyed a good ride on dry trails. Route

The penultimate ride of the month did see a brief return to winter, low temperatures, even lower cloud, continual drizzle but we did not let it discourage us, naturally when I say us, I mean me. I was out there in my raincoat, everyone else must have been wearing their Harry Potter invisibility cloaks or perhaps they just stayed in and watched the drizzle from the settee. Route

Me and The Youth finished the month off at a sweltering Hamsterley. All the red and black man-made trails except for Boneshaker and Route 666, we can’t be bothered with them any more, plus a few off-piste runs, which although dry were a bit greasy under the tree cover. It is the school holidays, everywhere within half a mile of the car park was packed, bikes everywhere yet the trails were virtually empty. Is there a whole network of routes we are unaware of? Route