Another Teasing Glimpse Of Summer.

Another Teasing Glimpse Of Summer.

It’s Saturday afternoon and I’m sat at home writing this in the middle of a thunderstorm, tomorrow doesn’t look much better from the forecast, all you Monday to Friday, nine to fivers, treat it as a message from God - get a shift job, get a life, the weather has been grand all week. Or retire, which is even better than working shifts. 

The first ride of the week saw me in Lordstones’ car park awaiting the imminent arrival of The Breadlad, who is on NMT, (New Marske Time) fifteen minutes behind GMT and then he was held up too which meant we slipped into the Strava lunch ride category. We set off and headed around Cringle Moor to ride a couple of lesser known tracks before crossing the road to Carlton Bank and making our way on some awesome but also little used singletrack to Faceby Woods. The track through the woods still has enough mud to hamper the flow, one minute weaving between the trees on a ribbon of leaf-covered loam; the next minute stopped dead by a quagmire of mud,rocks and roots. Towards the end of the trail, we ‘sessioned’ some small jumps with all the elan two blokes on the verge of middle-age could manage. It’s safe to say Red Bull won’t be calling us any time soon, although The Breadlad could probably manage a rampage - in a cake shop. 

We emerged at Heathwaite and began the long drag up Scugdale, continuing up Barker’s Ridge and on to Cock Howe, which could only mean one thing - Trennet Bank. A descent to rival any, losing all our sweat-dripping, leg aching, chest burning, height in a flurry of heather, rock, shale and grass, in excellent condition today, dry and grippy. We met a couple of blokes riding up, riding up Trennet Bank? A crime against nature surely? Time for us to reimburse our withdrawals from the gravity bank, which meant a steady plod up to Beak Hills for us. We finished the ride along The Fronts, always a pleasure this time of year, a roller-coaster track leading straight back to the cafe, which, of course, is still closed, so it is another car park picnic for us. 

The following day, Clay Bank with The Ginger One, who is from Darlington, not so much a different time zone as a different century. This is the first ride with The Ginger One since the day Boris closed the pubs, when we managed to squeeze in, what we didn’t realise at the time was our last pint for the foreseeable future. At least it was a pint of Jennings in a Lake District beer garden, what a way to sign off. 

We had not ridden the top track through Greenhow Plantation for a while, it goes along Jackson’s Bank, passing under Botton Head before dropping down to join the track to Bank Foot Farm. The track is a bit of a nightmare in winter but given enough dry weather is a nice change from hiking up the steps or droning along fire roads and one of us at least, was curious to see if recent felling activity has spoiled the track. Suffice to say the trail is now a doubletrack, two deep ruts, as wide as a pavement, filled with branches and muddy, slurry; optimistically, we pressed on, shouting ‘timber’ everytime another pine tree was culled. Carrying our bikes through shin-deep mud, we rounded a bend and realised the trees were crashing straight across our path. Time to beat a hasty retreat. Working on the adapt, improvise, overcome strategy, as opposed to the more usual, cry, sulk and swear strategy, we hike-a-biked up the Jackson’s Bank bridleway and gained Round Hill. Continuing on the broad, sandy tracks which criss-cross the moors, rode to Burton Howe, turning off the Cleveland Way and heading down the Old Coal Road across Middle Head Top, turning left at the bottom to head North West across Ingleby Moor, a fair few miles of descending to keep the old glee cells topped up. 

Rejoining the Cleveland Way, we took in the view and calories before continuing down a freshly sanitised Turkey Nab, not a soul about, at least the countryside has emptied out a bit since the shops reopened. One of the nice trails in the woods at the bottom of Turkey Nab has also fell victim to conifer cropping, today’s battling though fallen trees quota having been fulfilled earlier in the ride, we give it a swerve and rode down two of the remaining trails, which are still intact and in fine condition, springy loam, dry roots and grippy rock, the ideal way to finish a ride. Or it would have been if we’d parked at Bank Foot instead of Clay Bank and didn’t have about four miles of uphill fire road to do.

The third day of riding was a local loop with La Mujerita, just to Greatham Creek and Seaton Carew, where we hoped to see the Brent Alpha oil rig being brought into the dismantling yard in the creek mouth. It was low tide at the creek when we arrived, even the seals had decided to be elsewhere, so we continued to North Gare, from where we could see the rig out at sea, waiting for the tide. 

A full scale search was in operation around the gare and the beaches either side, a police helicopter, coastguards, police on foot and an RNLI rib were all looking for a missing lady. The weather is still having a go at being summer, Seaton Carew was rammed, especially the only open bar, doing a roaring trade, serving beer in plastic glasses to those happy to sit in the sun and drink - and who wouldn’t be on a day like this? We joined a queue for chips, which, along with ice cream and beer, appear to be the thriving industries of Seaton Carew. The rig was still out at sea when we left Seaton for home, using the nautical knowledge imprinted in my seagoing genes (well, my grandad once worked on trawlers out of Grimsby) and an online tide table, I estimated the rig would reach the creek in about three hours, we would be able to watch it being towed in and offloaded from the barges. Duly, we returned in three hours to find the job was done and dusted, the rig was in the yard ready for dismantling and we had missed the whole show.

After a very hot day of rest, thermometers creeping towards the big three oh, Friday’s forecast was for thunderstorms, just in case the British public should become too comfortable with Mediterranean weather, we’re probably not allowed foreign weather since Brexit. We met up at a warm but windy Blakey Bank Top car park, me, Rod and The Youth, who has finally ventured leg over crossbar again following his embarrassing crash in front of the prepubescent dirt jumpers in a local quarry. 

Our route for the day essentially four downhills and one climb, which sounds tempting but the climb is a big one, ascending out of Rosedale Abbey, passing the snigger-trigger of Bell End Farm and continuing upward almost back to Ralph Cross. In today’s heat, a sweaty affair, although the wind was behind us, like being blown uphill by a giant hair dryer. The route demanded we lose a fair bit of the hard-gained height dropping down a bridleway to the old Rosedale rail track, a superb singletrack descent, trickling through heather and coarse grass for almost a mile, the odd boggy patch dried up for the summer. 

From the rail track it is a barely perceptible climb back to the parking spot. The Youth has not been on the rail track since it was ‘improved’ with a bulldozer and several tonnes of gravel, the old rocky uphill test pieces have gone, as have the puddles of brown ironstone water which could treat the unwary to a good soaking and a broken rib or two - or was that just me? Although it was somewhat hazy, the predicted thunder didn’t arrive and our car park picnic turned into a long, leisurely, laze in the sunshine, taking advantage of the end of a brief few days of summer.