Fifteen Years And Counting.

Mountain Bike Ride

Guillo sin amigos.

15th August 2018 route.

Back in the mists of time, 15th August 2003, when some of the present riders were still sucking dummies, the inaugural Terra Trailblazer’s ride  took place, when the cycling duo of me and The Pensioner (who was a pensioner even back then thanks to the financial delights of voluntary severance - the lucky bastard) were joined by a chubby youth who came to be known as The Ginger One. (TTB 001) Now he’s gaunt and virtually bald and new starters at work are baffled by the nickname. Things snowballed following this ride, other feckless shift workers decided riding a bike over the moors was as good a way as any to waste their ample time off. The firm we work for was called Terra at the time, someone, with heavy irony, named us the Terra Trailblazers and the name stuck, despite the firm going through several name changes since then. Same job, same chair, different colour overalls; so long as they keep paying us who cares what we are called? 

Our route that day around Silton Woods and Boltby Forest has changed beyond recognition, wooded singletracks are nowadays empty tracts of open moorland, covered in the branches of long dead trees or overgrown scrub of brambles and gorse. To celebrate this momentous anniversary, it was felt the Rosedale Round would be more appropriate, a North York Moors classic route we have enjoyed once or twice a year for the past fifteen years.

Today I opted to start from the top road, opposite Blakey Bank, meaning a mid-ride cafe stop, as I set off into the blustery wind, I could hear the sound of The Pensioner whirring round in his metaphorical grave. Mid-ride cafe stop indeed. Heresy. Almost as bad as a pot of tea with no accompanying pot of water. Four miles or so of old rail track saw me crossing the road at the top of the notorious Chimney Bank and taking the track to Ana Cross, where I had a breather and a spot of selfie filming before continuing on the wide, sandy track to Lastingham. The perpetual headwind meant no records were broken today on the downhill but the track was dry and the sun was shining, so it barely mattered. A brief bit of tarmac to High Askew Farm and then off road on the track along the valley bottom to Rosedale Abbey, riding thought heather and bracken, cautiously down the gully which claimed my collar bone six years ago. I still find it hard to believe such an innocuous looking section of track could have caused so much damage. Flashback: as I laid in a crumpled heap at the side of the track, The Pensioner rode up and took a cursory glance before deciding next to the cripple would be as good a place as any to relieve his bursting bladder. There’s nothing like laying battered and bruised while a pensioner pops out his python beside you.

The amount of cars in Rosedale Abbey vindicated my decision to start from the top, getting parked today would have been a struggle. A quick snack in Graze On The Green, putting back some energy and I was off again. Up the road, past Chairman Whelan’s favourite public toilet, climbing ever upwards, hearing a ghostly titter passing Bell End Farm, until I reached Hill End Cottages. From here a farm track leads steeply upwards to the remains of the Rosedale East railtrack, passing through a farmyard populated by chickens, turkeys, ducks and ducklings. The rail track heads around the head of the valley in a scenic fashion, contouring the hillside to keep an amenable gradient, relics of the  ironstone mining days are all around, the huge calcining kilns where the stone would be burnt to boil off moisture before being transported by rail car to be processed in Teesside. Looking at the bucolic idyll today, it’s hard to imagine six thousand people once earned a living in this valley; apparently Rosedale Abbey was akin to a wild west frontier town, pubs packed with drunken miners, fighting and brawling like a Redcar saturday night. 

Once the railway track is gained it’s a steady pedal around the valley, beneath small cliffs and over embankments, arcing round in a huge U turn, the path varying from cinder rail bed to compacted singletrack, crossing streams the colour of Irn Bru. There’s still a lot of iron in them thar hills. The path turned back into the headwind for the last mile or so, needing that bit of extra effort to plod along the cinders back to the car park, what would really have been useful was a big daft lad to draft but he couldn’t come out today.

Fifteen years to the day and still going, if not strong, with enthusiasm undimmed, for some of us anyway.