Ellen's Tail End.

 Didn’t Fulfil Its Early Promise.

Open the curtains to blazing sunshine, some light cloud moves in during breakfast, the world becomes totally grey as the car is loaded up, the beginning of the rain is synchronised with our first pedal strokes. And, would you believe, stopped when we rolled back into Great Ayton after our ride. Me and La Mujerita had a little leg stretcher from Great Ayton to Guisborough Woods, climbing gradually to Highcliffe Nab, bypassing many of Guisborough Wood’s finest trails owing to La Mujerita’s well documented singletrack aversion. Perhaps a shoe shop at the end of each trail might help or a Cadbury’s Creme Egg for every dab-free descent. Today was just a fire road adventure, with side orders of drizzle and wind to add a bit of spice to the day. But a ride is a ride and always better than the alternative - which is not having a ride and all the associated adult responsibilities that could potentially entail. Better to be out in the wind and rain than joining the zombies trudging around garden centres and shopping malls, I think being impaled through a kidney by a brake lever would be preferable.

How Many People?

What a difference a day makes, as the song says. Same start, same woods, different companion, improved weather and the whole of Teesside (well the portion who can tear themselves away from daytime TV) are crammed on top of Roseberry Topping like penguins on a shrinking ice floe, heads swivelling in unison to watch me and SuperBri pedalling up from Aireyholme Farm. Today’s Guisborough Woods visit did take in a few of the trails, which meant a lot more down and up than yesterday, not that it seems to bother SuperBri, whose secret appears to be pre and post ride smoothies which look as though they are made from liquidised body parts - or maybe it’s just an offal milkshake. I’ll stick to being the fat lad at the back thanks all the same. There were a great many people about today but very few of them on bikes, there were even some climbers giving the north-facing green cliffs of Highcliffe Nab a bash. Our great disappointment of the day came at the farm cafe, which decided, for some reason, to stop, temporarily, serving food as we arrived, it was two pm, to me it’s another example of the british approach to service industry, it could never happen in Spain. They did point us in the direction of the farm shop which served coffee and snacks. 

Storm Ellen Couldn’t Frighten Us.

Another face from the past reappeared today, The Ginger One forced himself away from overtime and golf to come on his first bike ride for nearly two months. He keeps wittering on about some place called work, which is, apparently, what people do to pass the time until they can retire. In the way that bad dreams disappear when we wake up, the horrors of twelve hour shifts are hard to recall after nearly two years of liberty. We met at Square Corner with gale force gusts rocking our cars. According to the weatherman we are being treated to the tail end of Storm Ellen, the west coast of the country is being battered but over here on the east we have some vicious wind and even more vicious showers, rain coming across in huge, wet sheets, drenching everything including us. I introduced The Ginger One to some of the Silton Woods trails discovered last week and reintroduced him to the first trail he ever rode as a mountain biker, seventeen years and six days previously. He couldn’t remember it, mainly because it used to be a gloomy ride through conifers, not a track across open moor as it is nowadays. Eventually, after some wild and wet riding, we reached Over Silton at the bottom of the forest, from where we made our way to Boltby Forest and the Hambleton Drove Road, a simple sentence which glosses over a lot of pain and suffering as we gained the necessary height. It was worth it for the tail wind, Ellen’s tail end pushing us across the moor all the way to the Mad Mile and the blasting drizzle meant we had a rambler free descent of the Mad Mile. Back at Square Corner it was too rough even to consider a tailgate picnic, so it was bikes away, wet clothes off and back down the A19 for a front room picnic.

A Brief Glimpse Of Summer.

Two rides in sunshine and temperatures close to summer, sandwiched between days of drab, grey drizzle. Staycation my arse; get me to an airport.

31 Degrees - that’s more like it.

The norm nowadays seems to be starting the week with a lonely ride and this was no different except it looks as though summer has muscled it’s way in to the seasons and is playing catch up, like a latecomer to a drinking session, whacking the heat straight up to gas mark 8, with temperatures sneaking into the low thirties. Lordstones car park was pretty rammed, even this early in the morning, everyone lured from their shells by the yellow ball in the sky. Considering it was such a hot day, I foolishly chose the most brutal start to any ride from Lordstones, straight up the old gliding club access track on the side of Carlton Bank, which gets no easier, continuing across the moor to Brian’s Pond and onward, ever upward to surmount Barker’s Ridge. Flatter riding took me to Cock Howe, another name which gave  The Pensioner something to snigger at, where I could leave behind the broad, sandy tracks which characterise the North York Moors and embark on some singletrack. 

The narrow bridleway which leads to Head House is a little overgrown at the start nowadays but soon opens up to a dry and dusty peat track, cutting through purple-blooming heather at an amenable angle, before dropping more steeply through bracken to a stream crossing. After the stream, the track continues over grassy moorland to a copse of trees behind the shooting house, a red kite, no doubt disturbed by a panting bloke on the verge of middle age opening the gate, took off, leisurely circling up on thermals in the direction of Bilsdale transmitter mast. I kept on the bridleway to Arnesgill Ridge, turning right to climb to Osmotherley Stones before retracing my tyre tracks back down Barker’s Ridge, always more fun in the friendly gravity direction, to Brian’s Pond. In what could only be described as a fit of masochism, I pedalled up to the summit of Carlton Bank, for no particular reason other than, in the words of George Mallory, “because it’s there.” Even the view wasn’t that spectacular, heat haze blanketing the horizon but it was nice to sit and catch a bit of breeze. Chatted to a young couple doing the Cleveland Way, who were the first people I had seen since leaving Lordstones a couple of hours before, strange considering the car park is rammed. The track back down the hill was a lot more fun than it had been ascending it, continuing past Lordstones, I squeezed in a couple of trails around the back of Cringle Moor before dehydration and hunger got the better of me. 

The Glorious Twelfth.

The next morning I was back in exactly the same spot, Lordstones overflow car park, this time with La Mujerita and the weather was anything but glorious, the whole hilltop covered in mist, billowing clouds drifting past at eye level, boiling up from gullies below us like steam from a volcano. The chance of another 31 degree day looking pretty remote. 

Today’s route is almost the same as yesterday’s, other than bypassing the singletrack owing to La Mujerita’s aversion to narrow, steep and rocky. As we climbed higher, the mist began to blow away, the sun got his hat on, hip, hip, hip hooray and we got our coats off. Bilsdale mast was our objective and we cruised toward it on broad tracks, fabricated for the grouse shooting industry and today is the twelfth of august, first day of the grouse shooting season. Normally the moors would be a thronged with shooting parties, shouting beaters waving flags made from fertilizer bags, the sound of gunfire and the smell of cordite, enthusiasts paying thousands of pounds for a day on the drink with added weapons; today, not a soul in sight, a glorious day for the grouse at least. And it was turning into a glorious day for us too, maybe not reaching yesterday's high temperature but plenty warm enough. 

We took a breather at the mast, three hundred and fourteen metres high, a sacred totem for the TV watching classes, doubtless beaming out shite to people sitting on their fat arses in front of the telly at this very moment. Breather over, we enjoyed a lengthy downhill stretch to Head House, the remote shooting house where I saw the red kite yesterday. From Head House, yesterday’s return route was taken again, minus the detour to Carlton Bank summit. When we returned, Lordstones was back in full summer mode, in contrast to the grey clag we had left behind this morning. A large group of paragliders were making the most of some mediocre gusty wind and getting a bit of flying time, impressing earth-bound spectators. Is there a collective noun for a group of paragliders? A flight? A canopy or a spiral could work maybe.

Grinding Through The Silt at Silton.

Well, that’s it finished, summer has crashed and burned with a couple of hot days, weather reverting to grey drizzle interspersed with heavy downpours, the forecasts, both long and short range predict more of the same, it’s an east coast effect which often plagues us this time of year. It’s glorious across in the lakes. Why aren’t we there? Mainly because it’s full. Rod had managed to wangle a day off work today and was delighted to introduce me and SuperBri to some of his secret trails around Osmotherley, which explains why we were assembling bikes in the moistness of Square Corner. 

We began in Silton Woods, starting with a trail which seventeen years ago, almost to the day, saw the inaugural ride of the Terra Trailblazers  (TTB 001) and the coining of the catchphrase “might be muddy”. The trail is now devoid of enveloping conifers, which has helped things dry up somewhat. We rode the first two sections of the “official” Silton Woods downhill track, after which my route knowledge becomes a little vague, as Rod led us, like a jungle guide, through brush and damp vegetation to the assorted trails he has been developing during lockdown. Not all his own work though, some of the trails have had features added, the sort of features gentlemen on the verge of middle age would be wise to avoid, let alone build. The sort of features more usually tackled by full face helmets, body armour and cajones the size of mangoes. 

Today’s weather conditions made the trails challenging enough without the added complications of sudden death or life-changing injuries to contend with. SuperBri soon found out that wet wood is slippier than black ice, damp rocks are also slippery and too much front brake on steep descents results in SuperBri becoming Superman. Everything was wet, slight gusts of wind shook big gobbets of water from the trees, damp bracken soaked our clothes, hidden puddles dunked our feet, tyres splashed water up our backs - who thinks to bring a mudguard in August? Slick roots and lubricious loam made up the trails,  we descended and climbed through various areas of the forest, every trail with the coda, “that’ll be great when it’s dry.”. Thoroughly moistened and in some cases, battered and bruised, we made our way back to Square Corner, which was shrouded in mist. Although aching legs said otherwise,  our mileage had not yet reached double figures, so we continued to Cod Beck Woods for further slip sliding away on more of Rod’s creations before returning to our cars for a picnic in the precipitation.

For those who might read the account of the Terra Trailblazers first ride (TTB 001), Blind Bob became The Pensioner and Simon became The Ginger One, which is paradoxical because the sparseness of his hair as he became older leaves most people wondering how he got the nickname.

A Selfie Sort Of Day & Other Stories

A Selfie Sort Of Day.

A dearth of willing or able riders saw me arriving at a surprisingly busy Lordstones for a lone ride. At least, not having to worry about anyone else’s time constraints or Strava PB’s meant I could indulge myself with a spot of selfie filming. As we all know, it’s the only way to get true talent in front of the camera. 

I even took the drone, with which I have such a love/hate relationship, it doesn’t find itself on the moors as often as it should. In the past the phone app was so unreliable, it was usually a fifty fifty chance it would connect to the camera on the drone, leaving the option of flying blind, not knowing what was being filmed or messing on trying to connect until the drone batteries ran out. Naturally the chances of it working were always inversely proportional to the distance from civilization. Lately, after many app updates, things are working a lot more smoothly. 

After a circuitous route, I ended up on top of Cold Moor, where I put the drone in the air, even though it was probably a bit too windy - can anyone explain where these winds are coming from in August? I had a fly around, got a bit of footage before breaking out the GoPro’s for the descent. The Cold Moor descent is one of those North Yorkshire classics which seems to be better with more traffic, making a more defined line, some improved drainage in the middle section has helped too. From Chop Gate it’s a long slog up Clay Bank, followed by a brutal climb onto the track through what is left of the plantation on the side of Hasty Bank. Previously rutted and rocky, it has been smoothed out and gravelled to aid access for conifer harvesting - it ought to be easier to climb now but unfortunately it is still as steep and I think sometimes less technical climbs seem harder because there is nothing to take your mind off the agony of aching legs and burning lungs. A quick zip along the Fronts took me back to Lordstones, where I had my little picnic in the scenic grassy overflow car park, watching half a dozen paragliders circling around the summit of Carlton Bank.

PS. Selfie Sort Of Day cycling top from Switchbacktrails, awesome clothing from a local firm.

Going Local

Not Going Loco Down In Acapulco but Going Local Down in Teesside and there the similarity ends, unless Acapulco has thick grey clouds, the threat of rain and the constant backdrop oa a chemical factory. Me and La Mujerita had a little scout about Norton, up to Thorpe Thewles, Bishopton, Stillington and back to Billingham, squeezing in quite a few off-road tracks along the way. It was a bit of a leg-stretcher, the rain stayed off and we were home in time for lunch in the garden. Not much else to say really.

Slogging Up The Slagbag.

Scaling Dam was the venue for our next ride, me, The Breadlad and SuperBri, introducing him to the Slagbag, that short but savage climb up from Hardale Beck to Thorn Hill. Of course, it was no problem to SuperBri who rode it with aplomb compared to our maladroit meanderings; panting like perverts in a playground, we reached level ground and continued across the moor. The weather is having a diffident foray into the realms of summer, almost a factor 30 sort of day, or at least, getting towards it. We made our way to Lealholm via Lealholmside and Underpark Farm, continuing to Crag Farm where we paused for the perusal of some curious cows, where we perusing them or were they perusing us? It was hard to say. One especially jaunty beast tried to get a game of piggyback going but the rest of the herd seemed to prefer eating grass or staring at the strange brightly-clad humans. 

We continued up through fields of staring sheep to Fryupdale and paused again before the ride/push/carry up Crossley Side onto Ainthorpe Rigg. SuperBri was under pressure after we told him about the time we saw a lad ride up the whole track, could SuperBri be the second person we see doing it?  He made a valiant attempt but even his superhuman stamina wasn’t up to the task. The ascent by me and The Breadlad was more in keeping with our subhuman stamina - make it to the usual high point, then walk the rest. 

The track across Ainthorpe Rigg is downhill but not too steep with just enough rocks and gullies to keep it interesting, all the drop offs and jumps vanished last time the trail was sanitised - it used to be a dried up stream bed, so the full face helmet and Power Ranger suit guys go elsewhere, which makes it a bit difficult to understand the sign which has been placed at the bottom telling us not to build jumps. 

A quick down and up - well maybe not that quick - got us to Danby Beacon, from where we had a supreme finish along the Roxby Moor singletrack, someone has even been along and filled in some of the holes in the wheel ruts. It looks like some of the estate managements have spent the whole lockdown buying gravel and spreading it across the moors. Once we reached Scaling Dam, it only remained for us to hotfoot it to Birk Brow and hope the burger van was still open. It was and all our gains from a few hours of healthy exercise were soon devastated by a mixture of unidentifiable meat, cheese, grease and onions which, at that moment, tasted finer than anything a Michelin starred chef could knock up.

What A Day For The Rosedale Round.

Another Friday: another hottest day of the year. It seems summer only happens on Fridays this year. A North York Moors classic route to look forward to, some might say, the moorland classic route. Utilising the track bed of the old Rosedale ironstone railway for around half its length, it is a less than arduous circular route. Starting from Blakey Bank Top gives the easiest start of any ride, all the way to Lastingham with barely a foot of ascent. Blakey Bank Top was warm but windy, being high on a ridge it is rarely calm, we headed straight onto the rail track and headed toward Chimney Bank, a few patches of over-generous gravel application making things harder than they ought to have been. Industrial relics from the mining days went by in a blur, the massive air shaft for Sheriff's Pit, remnants of buildings and the arches of an old calcining kiln at Chimney Bank top, as we powered through the countryside, well, SuperBri powered, this particular industrial relic just panted along trying to keep up. 

Ana Cross

We crossed the road and continued to Ana Cross, where we caught our breath before the descent to Lastingham, a bit of a headwind keeping speeds down to verging on sensible. From Lastingham, the route does a U turn, heading back up the Hartoft valley to Rosedale Abbey, passing High Askew farm, which always raised an inexplicable snigger from The Pensioner, inexplicable until we found out “I ask you” was the catchphrase of some comedian or other from the days of music hall. The Hartoft singletrack is also well remembered as the place where my collar bone became two halves of a collar bone, just after I had thought to myself; ‘there’s nothing to worry about on this section, let the brakes off.’ Which I did, only to find myself laid in a battered and broken heap shortly afterwards. 

Hot and sweaty, we rolled into Rosedale Abbey for a civilised lunch at the Abbey Tearooms, sitting outside in the sunshine, chatting with other cyclists, all intent on an ascent of Chimney Bank - on the hottest day of the year, rather them than me. We had plenty of ascending to do ourselves after lunch, firstly up to Bell End, cue ghostly Pensioner titter from somewhere above, up again through Hill Cottages, then more steeply up through a farm yard filled with hens and ducks, until we gained the east side of the rail track. 

The gently ascending track runs around the head of the Rosedale valley, in a huge U turn, passing more ruined buildings, the views along and across the valley are spectacular, patchwork fields of yellow and green, purple heather, streams exposing the rusty red of the iron ore bearing rocks beneath their surface. It is hard to imagine this bucolic valley was once the workplace of six thousand people, steam engines shunting back and forth along the tracks, smoke and noise as the mining industry worked hard to supply the raw material of the Industrial Revolution. The car park was full when we returned, mainly people sitting outside (or inside) their cars, enjoying the view, not adventurous/brave/stupid (* delete as appropriate) enough to be cycling the thick end of twenty miles in the blazing heat of the hottest day of the year.