Before The Lockdown.
Four rides while the everyone else is out panic buying. Under martial law could panic buyers be shot like looters? Just a thought. Sniper towers in supermarket car parks, anybody walking out with 100 toilet rolls, 4 kilos of pasta and 20 litres of hand sanitiser, bullet through the forehead, instant cure for the empty shelf problem and Britain's inconsiderate retard problem. I'd vote for it.
Stump Cross Descent
Monday 9th March 2020
Clay Bank
The Breadlad/Oz
One of The Breadlad’s favourites today - the Stump Cross descent, a North York Moors classic, taking a singletrack bridleway from the aforementioned cross down into the remote valley of Bransdale but first we had to slog our way to the cross. Starting with an ascent of Carr Ridge, a staircase of stone steps climbing up Urra Moor, a ride/push/carry, helped and hindered today by the gusting wind, which has returned, as strong as ever, after a week’s holiday. I am again on the old Stumpjumper while the new(ish) Stumpjumper is still in surgery. If you have been paying attention, the old stumpy has no rebound adjuster on the rear shock, my cunning plan for today was to pump the shock up to maximum, 300psi, in an attempt to counteract the bobbing. Not wholly successful, long ascents induced motion sickness as the bike bounced uphill like a rubber horse.
After passing over Round Hill, broad, sandy tracks took us to Stump Cross, which is literally a stump of rock, fitted into a socket chiselled in a boulder. I imagine the stump will have been part of a larger cross at some point lost in the mists of time. The all natural descent is a beauty, thankfully too remote for overuse from the trail centre boys, starting with a gentle singletrack through heather, becoming technical as the heather gives way to grass, then more singletrack before finishing with a satisfyingly steep drop on shale.
Our return takes us through Bloworth Woods, although, nowadays there is less wood than an erectile dysfunction clinic, it’s only a matter of time before they get Pele in to do an advert. The fire roads through the woods vary from hard packed gravel to Shrek’s swamp and everything in between and we were unusually pleased to reach Rudland Rigg, even though this ancient thoroughfare cutting across the moors is, by some quirk of the cosmos, uphill whichever direction you ride it and we were now riding into the wind, it still felt easier than battling through the mud with Shrek and Princess Fiona. We retraced our tyre tracks back over Round Hill and took revenge on the Carr Ridge steps by shredding down them in the style of Red Bull Rampage competitors, although Pink Calf Panic may be a more accurate description of our brake-squealing, cross-country mincing style.
A Bit Blowy On’t Tops
Tuesday 10th March 2020
Pinchinthorpe
The Breadlad/Oz
Oz out two days in a row? I wonder if he is building up his stamina ready for retirement? He’s normally not even spotted two days in a month. And The Breadlad paying for parking: what is happening? Is everyone trying to get as much riding in as they can before the whole world goes into coronavirus lockdown? The country has already gone insane, panic buying pasta and toilet rolls, or in the case of Billingham Tesco - frozen chips, while ignoring essentials like beer and cheese. Perhaps if women didn’t feel the need to use a wad of toilet paper the size of a tumbleweed every time they take a piss, the toilet paper might last a lot longer. Just saying like.
The wind is still harassing trees, bullying them into bending and screaming as we ride through Guisborough Forest in a quest for dry trails. The wind behind high, wind in front low strategy is being employed and we zipped across the moors with the wind at our backs like cycling gods, taking in the odd trail until we reached the One Man And His Dog trails, which are in an open section of the forest and drying up nicely.
We sessioned a few trails, just like the sick, young dudes we are, shredding the gnar, getting some roost (whatever that is, I have no idea what I’m talking about, I saw it on a video once), rolling all the jumps - far too windy for wheels to be off the ground, falling sideways into spiky undergrowth, (okay, that was just me, proves I was trying the hardest). Eventually the lure of the cafe overpowered the attraction of mud and wood and we made our way into the headwind, along the old rail track back to Pinchinthorpe where we bade farewell to The Breadlad, whose international playboy lifestyle precludes him from joining our rides for the next month and depriving the rarefied world of crumpet manufacturing of his years of knowledge and experience, it has been noted that some of the local chemical factories probably have a smaller carbon footprint than The Breadlad.
Still Windy
Wednesday 11th March 2020
Sheepwash
La Mujerita
Would you believe it is windy today? As windy as the windiest day in windy land. Again. The bikes were practically blown off the roof rack at Sheepwash as the car was unloaded. We rode up through the woods to High Lane, accompanied by the usual cacophony of shrieking swaying trees. Continuing past Chequers to Square Corner and on to Silton Forest we had a sidewind but once in the forest we were quite sheltered and it was almost pleasant. La Mujerita was introduced to Silton Woods downhill track, only the amenable top section but she still greeted it with the same amount of trepidation as a free fall parachute jump or getting Michael Jackson in to do a spot of babysitting. Her descent was not entirely dab-free.
We moved on, returning to Cod Beck Reservoir, crossing the dam and climbing up to Scarth Wood Moor, to ride the gently descending paved track down the other side, which she does enjoy. Nice with a tail wind today, marred by an unfortunate skid and fall for La Mujerita, almost at the end of the trail. The only injury was to her pride, laid in the mud in front of a pair of walkers but coffee and cake in The Rusty Bike soon cured that.
We moved on, returning to Cod Beck Reservoir, crossing the dam and climbing up to Scarth Wood Moor, to ride the gently descending paved track down the other side, which she does enjoy. Nice with a tail wind today, marred by an unfortunate skid and fall for La Mujerita, almost at the end of the trail. The only injury was to her pride, laid in the mud in front of a pair of walkers but coffee and cake in The Rusty Bike soon cured that.
Well, That Was Different
Friday 13th March 2020
Sunderland
Charlie/Keith
They say a change is as good as a rest and today was certainly a change, I joined Charlie and Keith of the Nissan Nomads for one of their local rides. We rode from Sunderland on a network of cycle paths until we reached the river Tyne and followed its south bank toward the centre of Newcastle, the iconic Tyne bridge, easily recognised from the labels on the brown ale bottles, always ahead of us. We crossed the river using the millennium bridge, the Blinking Eye as it is known locally and rode along the north bank to the cycle hub, well placed to lure cyclists nearing the end of coast to coast routes.
Around this area, there are plans to erect the usual giant ferris wheel found in most cities nowadays but this one will not be known as the Newcastle Eye; in a nod to the vernacular, probably by some received-pronunciation, home-counties, desk-jockey who once saw an episode of Auf Wiedersehen Pet, it is to be called the Why Aye.
Both sides of the river, heading east from Newcastle city centre are part of the national cycle route network, being the finishing stretches for Hadrian’s Cycleway and the C2C amongst others, it must come as a shock to visitors who have ridden miles through stunning countryside, to find themselves weaving through piles of rubbish in the back streets of random trading estates, with a vista of security fencing corralling the weed infested courtyards of shuttered industrial units and a general air of abandonment. Picturesque for fans of post-industrial dystopia but no way to end a popular cycle route.
To return to what Keith likes to think of as the superior side of the river, we used the Tyne pedestrian tunnel, which has recently been reopened to cyclists and pedestrians after a six year refurbishment, local gossip maintains it took less time to actually build the tunnel originally. The ceramic tiled tunnel is reminiscent of a pre-war swimming baths, similar to the old Billingham Baths which Charlie and myself frequented in the late sixties, being Grade Two listed means it will not suffer the same fate as the old baths, demolition. Riding through the tunnel, forty feet below the river bed is a unique experience, which ought to become more popular when the new glass elevators, which can accommodate six bikes are brought into operation.
From here, I think we largely retraced our route back to Sunderland, sections looked familiar anyway, the right hand horizon dominated by the mighty Nissan plant, where Keith would be spending the remainder of his day while Charlie and me, free from the constraints of industrial life, had a whole afternoon and evening to squander as we saw fit. Don’t know about Charlie but I am going to cut election manifestos into squares for when the toilet paper runs out and experiment with making hand sanitizer by mixing anal lube with vodka, this time next year I could be a millionaire, although there might be a few sore arses about.
Around this area, there are plans to erect the usual giant ferris wheel found in most cities nowadays but this one will not be known as the Newcastle Eye; in a nod to the vernacular, probably by some received-pronunciation, home-counties, desk-jockey who once saw an episode of Auf Wiedersehen Pet, it is to be called the Why Aye.
Both sides of the river, heading east from Newcastle city centre are part of the national cycle route network, being the finishing stretches for Hadrian’s Cycleway and the C2C amongst others, it must come as a shock to visitors who have ridden miles through stunning countryside, to find themselves weaving through piles of rubbish in the back streets of random trading estates, with a vista of security fencing corralling the weed infested courtyards of shuttered industrial units and a general air of abandonment. Picturesque for fans of post-industrial dystopia but no way to end a popular cycle route.
To return to what Keith likes to think of as the superior side of the river, we used the Tyne pedestrian tunnel, which has recently been reopened to cyclists and pedestrians after a six year refurbishment, local gossip maintains it took less time to actually build the tunnel originally. The ceramic tiled tunnel is reminiscent of a pre-war swimming baths, similar to the old Billingham Baths which Charlie and myself frequented in the late sixties, being Grade Two listed means it will not suffer the same fate as the old baths, demolition. Riding through the tunnel, forty feet below the river bed is a unique experience, which ought to become more popular when the new glass elevators, which can accommodate six bikes are brought into operation.
From here, I think we largely retraced our route back to Sunderland, sections looked familiar anyway, the right hand horizon dominated by the mighty Nissan plant, where Keith would be spending the remainder of his day while Charlie and me, free from the constraints of industrial life, had a whole afternoon and evening to squander as we saw fit. Don’t know about Charlie but I am going to cut election manifestos into squares for when the toilet paper runs out and experiment with making hand sanitizer by mixing anal lube with vodka, this time next year I could be a millionaire, although there might be a few sore arses about.
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