The Whole Of July In Two Rides

Not much to round up this month and there’s no video for July, only two mountain bike rides happened, owing to that unpleasant inconvenience we know as work and a rather more pleasant family holiday - Spain was far too hot to be riding bikes and it would have been difficult to squeeze a ride in between the eating, drinking and snoozing in the sunshine. Apparently it had been a bit warm in England too but we arrived back the day after the weather broke, a chilly 18 degrees at Newcastle is a great shock after leaving Malaga’s 30 degree heaven.

Both mountain bike rides were Billy No Mates affairs, work and holidays too for most people, although to the generation brought up on reality tv, it seems manscaping is worth missing a bike rides for. Manscaping? Apparently an essential part of contemporary life for the modern imbecile, no doubt to to substitute for their lack of a discernible personality. If the diatribes of Benny The Brawl, our arbiter on today’s youth culture, are correct, (and it’s a big if), the whole country is populated by vacuous narcissists living a wholly vicarious lifestyle, where the only ‘gains’ that are important are what can be seen in a mirror. They are welcome to it; I’ll be riding my bike in the sunshine.

7th July 2018 route.

The first ride started from Clay bank car park on a saturday - a curiously empty Clay Bank car park, apparently there was a football match on in Russia or somewhere and the majority of the country would be bereft if they missed it. All the more moors for me. And it was hot. After the slog up the Carr Ridge steps to the top of Urra Moor, a slight breeze made things a bit more amenable. The track around the edge of Urra Moor, which we know as The Rim was in perfect condition, dry and springy, excellent views across the verdant patchwork of Bilsdale, The Wainstones peeking up over the shoulder of Hasty Bank. Reaching Medd Crag, I decided to give East Bank Plantation a try and wasn’t disappointed, the usual quagmire sections were dry and the whole downhill bridleway flowed like a trail centre route. 

A bit of road work took me to Harry Wath Wood, near Lordstone’s, a mental breakdown of some description made me decide it would be a good idea to carry my bike to the summit of Cringle Moor, just so I could ride down the Carlton Bank downhill track. At the top, it seemed nobody wanted to share the seat/viewpoint with a heavily perspiring mountain biker on the verge of middle age, so I was able to manspread on my stone throne like some Tolkienesque king surveying his lands; wondering what he might do about the twin cesspits of Redcar and Darlington. 

It turned out that the downhill course has changed to offer more of a challenge to today’s longer travel bikes, the small drop offs I remembered are now fully grown jumps, well above the level of my pitiful skills. The bits I did ride were fun, then I turned onto The Fronts, the roller-coaster track which contours the face of Cringle Moor before continuing as a bridleway below Cold Moor and Hasty Bank. Again, the recent weather has left everything a pleasure to ride, even the puddles of gloopy mud in the dark sections, shielded from the sunlight had managed to dry out. 

The last section of track, beneath Landslip, the often inspected but rarely climbed cliffs which overlook Clay Bank, has been sanitised, the wide rock garden is now a gravelled track, the trees are being felled, returning the landscape to how it was when I first started scrambling about at The Wainstones and abseiling down Raven Crag with my dad, back in the - dare I say it - 1960’s. Clay Bank car park was still only a quarter full when I returned to lay on the wall, basking in the sun like a lycra-clad walrus, gulping down slices of malt loaf instead fish.

30th July 2018 route

The second mountain bike ride of July occured on the penultimate day of the month, when I had returned from Spain, tanned but fatter (according to my mother - thanks for that mother. She’ll only have herself to blame when I develop anorexia). The Glebe Cottage cafe at Kildale has reopened, so it is my duty to sample it, wholly for the benefit of the readers, you understand but first a little spin on the bike to build up an appetite. It seems the weather in England had also been Mediterranean while I was away, however, the inevitable thunderstorms rolled in an destroyed the idyll, today was a bit cloudy with a cool breeze but still managed to be pleasant. 

This being my first ride in almost three weeks, a road warm up seemed in order and the pedal up to Percy Cross Rigg did not seem to arduous, perhaps tapas and cañas are a new unrecognized training diet I may have use for a book and TV series. Or maybe not. Continuing down to Sleddale, then up and across Codhill Heights, I rode round the back of Highcliffe Nab on fire roads towards Westworth Woods where I decided to explore some little used bridleways from twenty years ago when I first began mountain biking. What used to be a tree-dodging slalom through the conifers is now a single track through heather and brush across open moorland - not quite the same but still strangely enjoyable. 

A few more of Guisborough’s finest tracks followed before the long drag back to Newton Moor, Roseberry Topping was busy today, only to be expected now we are into the school holidays, nice to see some kids giving their thumbs a rest and having a go at being outside in the fresh air. A quick scoot around the Lonsdale Bowl back to Percy Cross Rigg, then hunger pangs took me down the Yellow Brick Road to New Row and back to the cafe. I am pleased to report that cheese and onion toastie was just perfect.