Mountain Bike Ride
11th February route
Oz, The Breadlad.
The Breadlad found a window to fit in a spot of biking in his peripatetic lifestyle, so we started the week in Clay Bank car park, which was only slightly below cloud level, gloomy and damp. Very strange, seeing as we had left blue sky and bright sunshine behind to be there. The tame rooster was, as usual, strutting his stuff around the car park, eliciting a stream of juvenalia about big black cocks. We can’t grow out of it.
Making our way slowly up the Carr Ridge steps, our combined minds solved the NHS crisis, Brexit, the hefty cost of funerals and why people who go to gyms are actually less fit than three old blokes pushing bikes up a hill. Back on the bikes we plodded on over Urra Moor, across to Burton Howe and down the Old Coal Road. A lovely descent, in a non-technical sort of fashion, the sun decided to put in an appearance, shoving the clouds away to reveal a pleasant day. More tracks took us to Turkey Nab above Battersby and lots more descent until we arrived at Bank Foot Farm, slightly disappointed because we knew our fun was over, only the standard drag through the woods back to Clay Bank ahead of us.
On the way back we went for a look at the site of the old ICI Discoverer centre, which was a sort of Outward Bound place, where all ICI apprentices were sent for a week of outdoor stuff and inter-trade bonding. It would be classed as human rights abuse nowadays, without even WiFi for the screen-dependent little freaks, modern apprentices. Oz was a somewhat reluctant attendee, or possibly inmate, back in the late Seventies - when trousers were wide, shoes were high and shirt collars were like the wings of a 747, like most of the apprentices finding life without the maternal touch a bit of a revelation. And generally not in a good way. Not much to see now, a few concrete bases and scraps of breezeblock being overtaken by nature, the dreaded bucket shower long gone, much to the delight of Oz.
Mountain Bike Ride
La Mujerita
12th February 2019 route
More outdoor adventure for the little woman and for me, the second visit this week to Greenhow Plantation, although riding the opposite way to yesterday. We set off from Ingleby Greenhow, up the road to the plantation and kept climbing on fire roads. Fire roads which were draggier than Danny La Rue (I might be showing my age there but I don’t know any other drag artistes) and some of the softer bits were churned up by hooves. It was tough going but as they say in the spirit of mindless optimism, winter miles make summer smiles.
Things began to head in a more gravity-friendly direction and we were soon at the bottom of The Incline, thankfully only looking up it, not riding up it. The Incline was where rail trucks full of iron ore from the mines of Rosedale were sent down to the main line at Battersby Junction and the old track bed extends to Bank Foot Farm, for us, slightly downhill with a tailwind, making up for the early ride torture.
From Bank Foot Farm we went for a little recce of the the track which cuts through to the bottom of Coleson Banks; last time me and The Ginger One rode along there it was a disaster after the initial fire road section, like a small corner of Somme battlefield dropped into North Yorkshire. It looks as though some work has been done to stop 4x4’s and maybe some drainage has been added because it did not look too bad today. Riding back to Bank Foot we encountered a random cow - well, young bullock actually - just wandering the woods and fire road. It eyed us warily but let us pass ungored, as though we were cycling picadors.
We looked for someone at the farm to inform them about the cow but nobody was around, so it may be still there now, turning into a feral bovine, hiding in the trees, breaking free from his herbivorous past, leaping out to tear passing walkers to shreds and gorge on their internal organs. Or maybe not.
13th February route
The Ginger One
It was supposed to be The Breadlad and The Ginger One meeting me at Gribdale but the demands of the high powered world of crumpet production meant there may have been the possibility of top crumpet executive, The Breadlad, actually having to do some work during his shift tonight, so he bailed on us. So it was just me and The Ginger One who hauled our bikes up onto Newton Moor in search of dry tracks on this unseasonably warm February day. We made our way to Les’s One, with a quick detour to The Hanging Stone, naked and alone, standing proudly erect (the stone, not us) now the forest below has been felled. Les’s One is suffering from the weather and withdrawal of funding but still rideable, we continued along the path below the aforementioned Hanging Stone, then a circular mixture of fire roads and tracks took us as far as Westworth Woods and then back to Highcliffe Nab. From Codhill Heights, we pedalled up to The Nipple, now looking a lot less nipple-ish since the summit cairn was dismantled.
The track down the other side was in fine condition, following narrow ruts, with plenty of traps for the unwary - rocks and little drop offs, twists in the ruts and startled grouse. The track is nicknamed Scalextrics for reasons which become obvious once you are riding it. We joined the Sleddale road and climbed out of the valley, before following Percy Cross Rigg and the Lonsdale Bowl, again relatively mud-free despite the season, before descending Fingerbender Bank, so called from one of The Pensioner’s more excruciating tumbles. The final descent, we know as Andy’s Track, so called to annoy The Pensioner because he actually discovered it, took us back to Gribdale, barely muddy, barely wet. Are we sure it is February?
15th February route.
The Ginger One.
The Ginger One out twice in the same week? Is he secretly in training for some prestigious event? Ticking another one of the bucket list? Or just can’t get any overtime? Regardless, he was here at Hamsterley, a sunny and warm Hamsterley because the good weather is continuing. I can almost hear the ghostly muttering of The Pensioner,
“We’ll pay for this later, you know. We can’t have weather like this in February and get away with it. It’ll be a shit summer.”
Glass half empty: glass half full? The Pensioner never even had a glass. His dour pessimism ought to have been capitalised upon and televised like Ricky Gervaise did with Karl Pilkington.
Hamsterley is surprisingly busy today for some reason, living up to the name of one of its Strava segments, “Wheezing Fat Men On 4K Bikes.” or some of them only barely wheezing because they are on 6K electric bikes. Taking advantage of the weather, we rode up to Doctor’s Gate, and across the moor on dry tracks, returning to the forest on a track which can only have been named by someone from Darlington, “Interfering With Sheep.” A couple more off-piste tracks followed then we broke with tradition and actually rode Route 666, just to see if it was the pointless diversion we remembered. It was. A mile of rooty ascent for about 5 metres of rooty downhill, we arrived at Oddsox, glad we’d be able to bypass Route 666 for another five years. After Oddsox, we began the long drag to Polties Last Blast, being overtaken by electric bikers as we panted upwards. We plunged straight into Polties, followed by K Line which is always fun, apart from the climb at the end. At the Transmission table, we couldn’t even get a seat for the numerous other bikers thronging the area, so without a pause, we embarked on Triple Tranny, the three routes, Transmission, Accelerator and Nitrous, reaching the valley bottom with aching forearms and burning brakes. And then it was climbing time again, up the aptly named Cough Up A Lung Lane to Section 13, actually passing some electric bike guys, more to do with their puncture than our athletic prowess I’m afraid. Another mixture of official and unofficial trails took us once again to the valley bottom before Mr. Extra Loop had us climbing again, to take in the skills loop, before we could call it a day. After the skills loop I noticed my GPS had recorded an unfeasible 3,800 feet of ascent, some glitch there surely. The flat Gruffalo trail back to the car park added another 500 feet, then riding across the car park to our cars, we allegedly ascended another 200 feet. 4,500 feet in 13 miles, we can’t even manage that in the Lake District, either we are cycling gods or it’s time for a new GPS.
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