March 2019 Round Up and Video

March 2019, Round Up and Video

Click here for video.

March has been a grand month, occasionally a bit chilly but it managed to stay dry most of the time. The trails are drying up nicely, there are already mutterings of a water shortage, everything is going too well. 245 miles, 17 rides, 4 rides left to blog.

Mountain Bike Ride

Monday 25th March route

La Mujerita

The start of another week, bright and sunny but with a cool breeze. Me and La Mujerita went to Square Corner, where she was introduced to the delights of The Mad Mile, which is pleasure and pain, not exactly personified but given a representation in physical form. And it was the pain side of the equation first, a mile of ascent, stretching up the right hand flank of brooding Black Hambleton. The summit was eventually gained, from here it is a relatively flat pedal along the Hambleton Drove Road, an ancient highway which ran from Scotland to the south of England, used extensively in the 18th and 19th centuries to drive cattle to market. 

To avoid this being an out and back route, we turned off the Drove Road at the crossroads between Kepwick and Arden banks, heading down Arden Bank a little way until we could take the turn off across Dale Town Common, following a wide, grassy track rejoining the Drove Road at the edge of Boltby Forest. The gate from Dale Town Common is almost opposite the entrance to High Paradise Farm tearoom, now open for the summer season, well, it would have been rude not to. A few minutes later we were munching our way through calories disproportionate to the amount of miles we had actually covered. 

Reluctantly we left the farm behind and began to reverse our tracks along the Drove Road, passing through the Eastern edge of Boltby Forest, emerging onto the moor at Steeple Cross, for a play in the bomb hole. Well, one of us anyway. Because it was such a mellow relaxing sort of ride I thought I’d ruin it by getting the drone out and giving myself half an hour of techno-frustration, as the drone decided it wouldn’t play nicely. No problem with the actual drone but the software which controls the flying functions and the camera is beyond poor, almost every time it boots up there is some new difficulty prevents things from running smoothly. Today it all began suspiciously well, the drone connected to the app first time, took off, hovered nicely, then disconnected itself from the app, meaning I could fly the drone with the remote control but had no connection with the camera, so I was unable to see whatever the camera was looking at but it didn’t matter because the buttons which begin the video recording or take pictures appeared to have been disabled. Bring it down, switch everything off and on again and then the system error messages begin, no other explanation, no clues, just system error, all the time the battery is running down, there is only 12 to 15 minutes battery life at the best of times and it’s quite normal to use first battery just getting everything working properly. Today was no exception, things improved a bit on the second battery, so, feeling lucky, active track was activated, the automatic system where the drone tracks a moving object from the front, side or rear. Fire it up, jump on bike, ride along, glancing at drone to see if it is still following, it is, good, until, suddenly, it decides it’s bored with that game and stops dead, waits a bit, becomes more bored and decides to return home (to the take off point) via a detour into the stratosphere, where it becomes a mere dot in the sky,  light aircraft and satellites are swerving to avoid it. Then it decides it must return to earth because the battery is running low. All without any input from the remote control or me. Two batteries flattened for the sake of a ten or (if I’m lucky) twenty seconds of footage. Isn’t technology marvellous? 

We continued retracing our tyre treads along the Drove Road until we reached the cairn at the top of the Mad Mile - always a welcome sight no matter which direction you are travelling in and all that was left to do was plummet back to the car park. One of us may have employed a bit more plummet than the other but it was her first ride down this track, so we can excuse it this time.

  

Mountain Bike Ride

Tuesday 26th March route

Guillermo sin amigos

The following day was also breezy and cooler than it appeared, I was alone except for Mr. Drone again, who behaved marginally better than yesterday but still decided to head for the far reaches of the solar system at one point. I set off from Gribdale to check out the newly resurfaced track which runs from Percy Cross Rigg to Lonsdale Farm, this is a B.O.A.T. (bridleway open to all traffic) and had suffered from the molestations of the ‘one life: lets live it’ (as long as you can afford the diesel) brigade. It has been broken up and deeply rutted since I began mountain biking, a (ahem, cough) couple of decades ago, in fact it has fond memories as the spot where I had my first ‘proper’ crash, broken helmet, snapped chain, bruised ego - I learnt an important lesson that day - never, ever, fall off in front of walkers. You would have to be suffering from acute vertigo or have necked a gallon of beer to fall off now, it’s like an off-road highway, not a rock or a rut in sight, all the fun of coming down has been erased but on the plus side, I can now pedal the whole way up, something I’ve not managed for many years.  

Continuing across Codhill Heights to Guisborough Woods I did some selfie filming with the drone and a bit with the GoPro, garnering some last minute footage for this month’s video. Owing to lack of rain and what my old mother would call “a good drying wind” most of the tracks in the woods are running really well, other than the odd muddy puddle here and there. I rode a few before the flask of coffee and slice of cake in the car began sending out “we’re here” signals. I squeezed a couple more tracks in before heading around the Lonsdale Bowl to Fingerbender Bank, where a lack of concentration at the top combined with numerous narrow ruts had me laid in the heather wondering if a lateral collateral ligament will take as long to heal as medial collateral ligament. It was okay to ride on, walking, standing or driving were a bit painful but as the Black Knight said - “Tis but a scratch”. And I can limp as well as any benefit claimant in this town, even though I don’t get paid for it.

Mountain Bike Ride

Wednesday 27th March route

The Ginger One, Howard, Oz

Managed a whole quartet today, meeting at Sheepwash, the weather ditto and ditto, we had a similar start to last week’s Sheepwash ride, heading straight up the hill to High Lane, yesterday’s knee injury causing a few problems, like putting on weight on my left leg, so as long as I didn’t dismount the bike, ride up steep hills or stand on the pedals everything was fine. Just ride like a pensioner then. The first jump in Silton Woods, scene of some of The Youth’s finest moments has been dismantled - for no apparent reason but the rest of the track is untouched (for now) and in fine condition. There wasn’t a youthful gene between any of today’s crew, so the jumps were shamelessly chicken-ran. 

Satisfied, we returned to High Lane and into the woods to follow Rod’s track, through the trees and gorse bushes down to Cote Ghyll before the long climb to Scarth Wood Moor, where we did a lovely track through the trees on spongy pine needles. Exiting the woods we climbed back up on the paved bridleway, so we could descend back to the cars on Olly’s Folly prior to the Rusty Bike Cafe. Another grand day out, riding bikes in the countryside, I believe there are some people who still have to do a thing called work, where freedom and liberty are curtailed by routines and schedules. It must be dreadful.Heh heh heh.

Mountain Bike Ride

Friday 29th March route

The Ginger One, The Breadlad.

After a day’s rest we were dragging bikes out of cars and admiring The Ginger One’s new bike, freshly purchased using the company bike to work scheme. A name from the past, Marin, a very nice looking bike. We were at Danby, the sun is still shining and it was actually warm enough to ride without a coat. We were headed for The Seated Man, the sculpture above Castleton, trying to bring some culture to The Ginger One, whose idea of fine art is the subtle juxtaposition of coloured snooker balls against green baize. We began, as we do 90% of the time by riding uphill, on the road to Danby Park, where we followed the bridleway through the woods to the Castleton road. Dropping down we passed under the railway bridge, which is currently closed to vehicles, every road leading into Castleton, for miles around, has a big yellow sign, informing motorists of this fact, inevitably there was some geezer driving towards the barriers, winds down his window and asks us if the bridge is closed. From the bridge to The Seated Man is uphill every pedal stroke of the way, through Castleton High Street, onto the Hutton Le Hole road, then a quick off-road climb to the fellow himself. The Ginger One was so impressed, he took a picture, obviously so he can return to Darlington and tell everyone in the snooker club he’s been to The Land Of The Giants and the giants look like Jeremy Corbyn. 

We descended back to the road and continued climbing until we picked up the bridleway which goes to Fat Betty, or White Cross as it is known on the OS maps, an antiquity reputed to be from the 12th century, a fact wasted on my companions who were only interested in the next downhill. We did the Trough House track at a cracking pace,  wind behind us, sun on our backs and gravel crunching under our wheels. At the termination it was decision time, another speedy blast, down Bainley Bank or the much more technical track down Birk Carr to the road near Fryup Lodge. The latter was chosen as it was virgin territory to my companions, I’d rode it last year when it was a bit wet and greasy, we’ve not had a any rain for almost a fortnight, so I was looking forward to it. 

The initial section is a narrow singletrack, meandering through the heather, this descends to a wall and gate, where a rocky gully funnels participants downward, a rocky gully which turned out to be full of mud, soft, sloppy, wheel-eating mud. We were struck dumb, the whole of North Yorkshire is turning into a midwest dustbowl and here we were slipping about in shin deep slurry, luckily the mud was only in the upper section, grass and rocks reappeared for the finish, some steep sections were even sessioned for the camera, before taking minor roads through Fryupdale. 

At Stonegate Farm we took the bridleway through the fields heading back to Danby, it was in excellent condition, not a bit of slop, just grass and firm mud. Reaching the apogee of our ride, The Stonehouse Bakery, it was even warm enough to sit outside in the sunshine, what a way to end a month. Little were we to know, winter was lurking just around the corner.