Waiting For A Call From Noah. May 2021 Week Two.
Another Birk Brow start, another day of sunshine and showers but the showers weren’t forecast to begin until after three this afternoon. Perhaps it’s time we clubbed together and bought the met office a clock, or at least a new battery for the clock they have, or possibly just teach them that three o’clock is when the little hand is on three and the big hand is on twelve, not the other way round. Keith drove all the way from Sunderland for the privilege of being drenched by some North Yorkshire rain. Let’s be honest though, the ride did begin well, blue sky, fluffy white clouds, a bit of wind and the temperature too high for snow, which is a bonus after the past week or two. Trail builder extraordinaire Ralph was lurking about in the car park, as ever accompanied by Max Saluki, so we stopped for a bit of a chat and some congratulations on his new Hanging Stone trail which I rode on Friday. He gets real pleasure to know people are enjoying his creations and welcomes the feedback, he said he spent eight hours one day last week on his latest trail, constructing and clearing debris, not bad for a bloke approaching eighty years old. He wandered off to indulge in what he calls “Maintenance Monday” on one of his other trails and we set off with a somewhat irregular start - downhill, an occurrence so rare Keith made a comment. Not quite the same comments he was making three hours later as we flogged back up Birk Brow in sheeting rain. Which is the same as shitting rain, just with a French accent. But everything was tickety boo at the moment, the bridleway to Margrove Park was mainly dry, with just a few muddy patches, a quick scoot along the road to Slapewath and the climb up Cleveland Street (which is actually a stoney track) were all in sunshine. Keith was introduced to the trails in the woods behind the pub, a superb little collection of slopes, berms and jumps, some of the jumps are even within our limited skillset, which is a bonus. Everything was a little bit greasy, following the past few days’ rain but we still had a pleasant half hour or so just messing about in the woods, as the young people say, before we crossed the road and had a ride into the lower reaches of Guisborough Woods. Today’s route planning was mainly centred on the theme of indolence, avoiding any excessive climbing, as we had a four hundred and fifty foot hill to get back to our cars. To this effect we explored some of the low down tracks, the ones we would normally use to finish a ride, like Hips And Whips and a few others which all end up on the track which skirts the bottom end of Guisborough Woods. Some of them were a little too slippery, particularly the steeper ones but we managed to get down unscathed in our own peculiar style. We were always conscious of the ordeal to finish the ride though and when we couldn’t prevaricate anymore we set off to ride back up Birk Brow, just as the rain began again. Expecting it to be another short lived shower we pressed on but this rain had other ideas, it flexed its metaphorical muscles, opened the delivery valve another 50% and let us have it. Water was streaming down the gutters, overflowing the drains, cars were aquaplaning up the hill, we pedaled grimly upwards. From where we joined the road, near Slapewath, to the car park at the top, my Garmin recorded 452 feet of ascent and it rained for every inch of those 452 feet, Keith stopped to put his coat on, I was too wet to care, just looking forward to the dry clothes in my car. We reached the car park, steaming from our efforts, naturally the cloud carried on past, heading for the coast and the sky reverted to blue but only long enough for us to dry off and scoff our goodies from the burger van.
Sunshine and warmth shouldn’t have to be viewed with suspicion but after the weather of the past couple of weeks, it’s difficult to do otherwise. The coats might not have been worn but they still went in the bags, ready for the next drenching, which will undoubtedly be sooner or later. Me and Simon T. were flaunting our car passes in Hamsterley main car park, when The Ginger One turned up, a rare sight, he’s normally a Bedburn Burglar, the car park outside the forest where the wealthiest individuals park so they can use the trails whilst avoiding the ANPR cameras and the six quid parking fee. Just as we were thinking he might have developed a conscience, he muttered something about being late and not wanting to keep us waiting. I’m sure he secretly found the trails more enjoyable knowing he was paying for them. Just the usual Hamsterley Hot Lap today with a couple of off-piste sections thrown in to keep us on our toes, why we even thought of off-piste when it has rained every day for the past three weeks is beyond me but we did and they were as predictably dreadful as we predicted. Swiss Tony, the route we like to use instead of Boneshaker, was a slithering, sliding runway of glossy roots, mud and bad language, The Ginger One entertained us by failing to make a corner and testing his MIPS on a sturdy tree trunk. He’s from Darlington, so negligible chance of brain damage anyway. How come mud is such hard work on flat tracks but point it downhill and it has a lower coefficient of friction than a bucketful of eels? The sun stayed with us the whole ride and there was just enough wind to keep the evil Hamsterley midges away; aside from The Ginger One’s head/tree interaction there were no injuries to speak of, we rode like Gods of cycling, shredding lots gnar, railing berms, phat air and I have no idea what I’m actually talking about but those are proper mountain biker phrases and there are no properer mountain bikers than what we is, so they have to be said, dude (or is it bro nowadays? I can’t keep up.) For those who want to get down with the kids, restraining orders permitting, MBR have produced a guide to mountain bike lingo, click HERE. Anyway, it was a grand day, we pretty much had the trails to ourselves, seeing only two other bikers the whole way round, the cafe was open and the banter was entertaining, Lou Reed’s perfect day might have been going to the zoo but only because he was too stoned to ride a mountain bike.
Another lone ride while everyone else struggles in the bounds of their constraints and responsibilities. Looking for an easy day because we’re going to Whinlatter tomorrow, I parked up at Scaling Dam and tried a route I’ve had in mind which takes in two superb descents with the minimum of climbing between. The east end car park is again closed; is it a permanent thing now? I parked in the lay by and rode along the top of the dam to the boat club, passing pairs of geese proudly showing off their goslings, swimming on the reservoir in family groups. A mile or so on the moor road brought me to the Danby turn off and a short time later I was cycling along Robin Hood’s Butts, it is a blue sky day but the wind is coming off the sea and a temperature inversion can be seen on the coast, a blanket of cold cloud where land meets North Sea. Occasional gusts of wind have a distinct chill to them, like a wife’s words following some unspecified offence, usually involving alcohol, other women or bike parts. From Robin Hood’s Butts, the Sis Cross track beckoned, much soggier than of late, the daily deluge is taking its toll, the grass is sodden and riddled with puddles, the peat singletrack is slippery and slimy, I climbed steadily to the ‘cross’, a lump of stone sticking out of the ground and began the descent. The peat hags and boggy puddles have reappeared, returned like unwelcome relatives, sucking in unsuspecting front wheels, slowing progress. Wanting a relatively easy day, I made like a roadie all the way up to Danby Beacon after exiting the Sis Cross track; the view to the coast from the beacon was superb but looking the other way, over the moors, a boiling mass of angry clouds was threatening some unpleasantness from behind. And nobody welcomes unpleasantness from behind, not without suitable consent anyway. The wind still has teeth, a reminder it is nowhere near the middle of summer, nor ever will be at this rate. Moving on, I dropped down to the Roxby Moor bridleway, a gravelled doubletrack cutting across the moor toward Scaling reservoir, a gradual decline to be ridden as fast as you dare until you get caught in a rut and like Onan transplanted from the Bible to North Yorkshire, tossed off into the heather. Not today though, lonely boys in the middle of even lonelier moors tend to be a bit cautious, the thought of laying in a crumpled heap at the side of the track with only grouse for company is not that appealing. Perhaps, what I need for these lonely days is a pet kangaroo, specially trained to fetch help, like they have in Australia, it was on TV nearly every day when I was a kid; there was also a dolphin which could perform similar feats of rescue but I think a dolphin would probably struggle a bit on the hills. The Roxby Moor singletrack was finished without recourse to marsupials or marine mammals and a short bit of tarmac later I was back at the car. This looks set to be a Terra Trailblazers classic ride for the indolent, well under a thousand feet of climbing and a pair of cracking descents.
Today was forecast to be cold, grey and drizzly, as it often is on the east coast when the wind is coming in off the sea; plan B - head west, was initiated and a Whinlatter day was arranged. Cutting across the Pennines on the A66, the gloom of Teesside behind me, the clouds parted and I dropped down - into the gloom of Cumbria, the weather was no different, the Chinese junk sails of the mighty Blencathra were not even visible, nor were any other mountains, just grey almost to the road. We more or less converged on the car park together, not so much a meeting of great minds as a meeting of people prepared to pay eight quid for a day’s fun; the most highly paid Trailblazers were conspicuous by their absence. Whinlatter virgin Bingo Bob, joined Simon T, Charlie, Keith and myself, in less than 24 hours us latter three ought to have been going to Spain for a week of Costa Del Sol delights; dry, dusty trails, hot sunshine, cold beer and the mandatory post-ride three-scoop ice cream prior to a quick shower and an evening up the colon. Colon Square, that is, where the beautiful people of Fuengirola go to see and be seen, naturally we fit in seamlessly, with our dashing good looks and urbane British charm. But instead we were being slightly moistened in the North Lakes, perhaps God just doesn’t want us to dry out, like stranded whales. Anyway, Whinlatter you were great, apart from the puddles. We warmed up on the blue Quercus, route, which was new to everyone except me, being a relatively recent addition, it was enjoyed by all and is a good introduction to Whinlatter, gravel, rocks and roots, utilising the natural features of the area rather than ripping them out in favour of a groomed piste. Straight from the blue onto the North red route, one of the two Altura trails, where a bit more climbing calms everyone down, the first natural viewpoint has a stunning vista across Bassenthwaite with the bulk of Skiddaw as a backdrop, somewhere behind the grey clag, which prevented us seeing further than the first row of trees. This set the theme for the remainder of the ride, where I described the magnificent views and my companions failed to believe me. It hardly mattered, we were all about the riding and it wasn’t too long before we were slaloming down the finishing sections, Grand National and Big Dipper, massive zig zags, slashed like the mark of Zorro across a blank hillside, exhilarating riding, down, down, hairpin, down down, hairpin, all the way to the road. Superb, lots of big grins, as we headed to the cars for a snack. Calories replenished, we began the long drag to the top of the south loop, more hairpins, this time in the heavy gravity direction, we grunted and groaned our way to the top, well one of us did anyway, I am at that strange age where any sort of exertion, or even movement to be honest, is accompanied by the sound track from a combination of 1970’s films, mainly Deep Throat, Enter The Dragon and occasionally Jaws.
There is a little cap of solid rock which marks the end of the torture and has a grand view across the Newlands Valley to Derwentrwater - usually. From this point it’s pretty much downhill all the way, save for one slight rise and we were all itching to rampage down the mountainside, the drizzle had ceased but an overgenerous sprinkling of puddles ensured we didn’t dry out, if our padded shorts got any wetter we’d be packing Sudocrem to stop us getting nappy rash. The south loop definitely is the superior offering from Whinlatter, consistently downhill, enough features to be interesting but nothing to stop you in your tracks, just fun all the way down. We reached the car park looking like cavers after a particularly muddy crawl, being wise to the vagaries of a British early summer, we all had dry clothes. Bob, having an electric bike was fresh enough to throw in another couple of loops, he enjoyed it that much, asking the same question at the end as we always do. Why would anyone go to Dalby, when for an extra 30 minutes driving you can be at Whinlatter? A four hour round trip to do fifteen miles of riding might not be everyone’s idea of a productive day but we know the true value of pleasure. Admittedly, it is still a poor substitute for a week riding in Spain but we can’t worry about things we have no control over.
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