"I ain't seen the sunshine since I don't know when."

“I ain’t seen the sunshine since I don’t know when” Johnny Cash, Folsom Prison Blues. I ain’t seen the sunshine since I don’t know when either but at least I can have a shower without the ongoing threat of having my almost middle-aged body abused by Big Bubba, The Beast Of B wing. It’s been a grim week (and it’s only Wednesday), last week’s perpetual mist gave way to an East wind coming directly from the steppes of Russia and carrying rain colder than the Devil’s semen. A brass monkey would be castrato before he’d turned a pedal. If the sun doesn’t appear soon we’ll all be on vitamin D tablets.

“Oi, conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative...”

“Says who?”

“Says me.”

“And who are you?”

“Oscar Wilde.”

“Have you met Big Bubba?”

“Was he in Reading Gaol?”

Mountain Bike Ride.

The Little Woman

19th November 2018 route

Monday. We suffered from some mendacious meteorology today, setting off from Scaling Dam under the forecast cloudy sky. So far: so good. Within half a mile a few spots of rain caressed us, which soon progressed to a disappointing volume of water, aided and abetted by the vicious east wind. Time for The Little Woman to find out what mountain biking is really like, to be fair she endured the cold and wet stoically, while I cursed and raged at the BBC, the met office, Wincie Willis, the weather gods and anyone else I could think of for misleading us onto a wide open moor in a face-shredding hail storm. If they could have got their act together I would have chose a nice, sheltered forest, a pair of winter gloves and my hands might not have been frozen to the handlebars by the time we got back to the car. It was a grand little route too, finishing on the singletrack across Roxby Moor. 

Tuesday. Actually managed a rest day this week, although I did spend some time in a bike shop, so the day wasn’t completely wasted.

Mountain Bike Ride

The Breadlad, Howard.

21st November 2018 route

Wednesday. Me and The Breadlad went to Hamsterley, once the daily A19 traffic jam had cleared, the place where every morning and evening day workers go to crash into each other. We met Howard, who has temporarily forsaken time trialling for some proper cycling. Whatever time trialling is. The Terra Trailblazers idea of a time trial is getting to the cafe before it shuts. The forecast wasn’t good, we went prepared to get wet and get wet we did but mainly from puddles rather than precipitation, it has rained for days now and there seems to be a permanent dusk, like living in the aftermath of a fabled volcanic eruption which blocks out ninety percent of the light and leads ultimately to the death of mankind except for a few survivors for whom sunlight is unknown because they spend all their time in darkened rooms playing computer games. They will repopulate the world, when they find the disproportionately small cadre of surviving female gamers, finally losing their virginities to produce a new human race of myopic, hunch-backed beings with giant thumbs and ultra-sharp reflexes but the muscle-tone of a jellyfish, who survive on energy drinks and artificially-flavoured corn snacks. But I may have digressed. 

We rode some wet trails, not straying off-piste because we didn’t fancy sliding downhill in sloppy rut, the official trails hold up well in the winter because they have money spent on them, something Guisborough Woods don’t seem to have grasped and that money comes from the car parking fees, something the trail-burglars of Bedburn don’t seem to have grasped. For anyone especially interested we did, Section 13, Special K, Brainfreeze, nobody is interested in Boneshaker since the uphill finish was added. A quick blast along The Grove Link before the long drag to Polties Last Blast, which segues nicely into K Line, then the triple tranny, which isn’t one of the films The Ginger One watches on that laptop which looks like a plasterers radio, but Transmission, Accelerator and Nitrous. By then we were pretty much soaked through, so we retired to the 68 Cafe for warmth and sustenance. 

Mountain Bike Ride

22nd December 2018 route

The Breadlad, The Youth

Thursday. Back to the dystopian future of drizzle and mist, Blakely Ridge is once again cocooned in grey sky and greyer tarmac - nothing else to see, if it wasn’t for the wind, we could be in a steam room somewhere. Instead we’re at Blakey Bank Top, all wishing we weren’t but not ready to admit it. Me, The Breadlad and The Youth set off along the railtrack before plunging down the hillside, on the track which leads to Dale Head Farm, or more importantly, Dale Head Farm Tearoom. Even by Terra Trailblazer’s standards, ten minutes into the ride is a bit too early for bait time, so we turned off onto the first of Rosedale’s three Daleside Roads - must be a bit confusing for the postman - this one is Daleside Road (track) on the map and I’d like to say it is a pleasant, technical downhill over which the trail fairies have sprinkled easy jumps and flowing berms. I’d like to say that but it would be about as true as what our wives think we paid for our bikes, in reality, it is a muddy plod across fields full of incontinent sheep and an interminable amount of gates, until we reached Daleside Road (#2) which is tarmac and probably only used by residents, or so it would seem to the bloke in the Range Rover who came flying round a corner to see three cyclists; canny brakes them Range Rovers. 

This road continues in a generally downhill fashion to Rosedale Abbey, which we passed through and began the climb up Knott Road, passing Bell End Farm (cue ghostly tittering from The Pensioner), taking the left turn and climbing up to Hill Cottages, where we faced a dilemma, continue on tarmac directly to the tea room, or climb up onto the old rail track on Rosedale East Side, as per the Rosedale Round and drop down to the cafe en route. After some moments of indecision, The Breadlad’s belly won the day and we set off along our third Daleside Road of the day to introduce The Breadlad to the delights of Dale Head Farm’s self-service approach to catering and some shelter from the permeating drizzle which has been our constant but somewhat unwelcome companion all ride. Caked up and coffeed up, we slithered up the half mile of muddy bridleway to the rail track, which we followed in the tyre tracks of the previous two weeks, around Rosedale Head, testing ourselves on some muddy sections before re-entering the mist for the final mile or so back to Blakey Bank Top, where conditions were pretty much as when we left this morning. Grim.

Mountain Bike Ride

23rd November route

The Breadlad, Howard

Friday. Awoke to the fifth day in a row of rain, another perfect day in paradise but by the time we’d met up in Pinchinthorpe car park, me, Howard and The Breadlad a curious glistening orb crawled it’s way into the sky with all the eagerness of a haemorrhoid sufferer going for a rectal examination. And apart from the occasional few seconds of cloud cover, it stayed up there for the whole ride. We availed ourselves of the less muddy tracks in and around Guisborough Woods, trying to keep some flow going but mainly trailing along in the wake of Howard who has an unfair advantage over the rest of us, cheating by unethical practices such as training, time trialling and duathlons, although we’ve never even seen him with skis or a rifle. It was a grand day, out of four days riding, we managed one reasonable day, defined by not returning home wetter than an otter living in Michael Phelps' trunks.