November 2021 Round Up And Video.

Too many words? Click here for video.

Not a bad November, the trails remained reasonably dry for the most part, the weather ranged from mild autumnal days to snowdrifts - sometimes within the space of twenty four hours. The bracken is dying off, giving the hills a beautiful golden sheen but more importantly, opening up some of the trails which are impassable without a machete during the summer.

Not a bad month for companions either, there were only four solo rides, as opposed to eleven in October. The Breadlad and Superbri are neck and neck in the attendance stakes with 35 rides each, followed by Simon T. and Keith with twenty one and nineteen rides respectively. Some others haven’t done badly, Rod is well into double figures with sixteen and Howard has managed nine outings at our leisurely pace, considering they both have day jobs, it’s a good effort. New starter, Miles has managed more rides in his first month than some people have done in the whole eleven months to date. Just scraping onto the board with a single ride is The Youth, who is finding out the hard way the constraints of a nine to five existence.

In lieu of a Christmas Dinner Ride, which hasn’t happened for some years now, the Christmas Toastie Ride will be going ahead as usual. The Branch Walkway cafe at Pinchinthorpe Visitor Centre does a grand concoction of sausage, bacon, sage and onion stuffing and cranberry sauce in between two slices of toasted bread. Just the thing after sliding around in Guisborough Forest’s frozen slush for two or three hours. 15th, 16th or 17th December look like the most promising dates at the moment but we can be flexible.

The remaining two rides of November are blogged below.

GPS Battery Died

Storm Arwen has been and gone, felling trees, downing power lines and dumping a load of snow. Very picturesque but hard work riding a bike through it. For me it was another lone adventure, pedaling slushy roads from Great Ayton, through Aireyholme Farm and up the steps to Newton Moor, luckily the snow managed to be fairly grippy and not too deep - if you didn’t stray from the grooves. The view from the top of the steps to Roseberry Topping was magnificent and I managed a few snaps before the clouds closed in again. After riding round the Lonsdale Bowl, I ascended Percy Cross Rigg and down the other side - a bit sketchy - to reach Guisborough Woods at the top of The Unsuitables. The trails in the trees were not too bad, being more sheltered and a bit like night riding, the snow hid some of the hazards, enabling a more confident approach, which mostly paid off. And like a good punishment beating, all the bruises are in places where they can’t be seen. The clouds cleared leaving a perfect blue sky to compliment the white snow. I had a pleasant couple of hours riding trails until I was cold, wet and hungry and the irresistible allure of hot coffee and warm pies reeled me back to Great Ayton.

Where Has All The Snow Gone?

Twenty four hours later the temperature of this grey and moist land has risen by eleven degrees celsius and there is not a scrap of snow to be seen. Our original venue for today, Hamsterley, was shelved owing to Storm Arwen devastation, so we met up at Swainby, me Simon T., and He Whose Name Shall Never Be Spoken - mainly because he is supposed to be elsewhere. We rode up by Whorlton Castle and over the fields to Faceby, heading into Faceby Woods to ride some of the trails, following the main trail further back than normal rewarded us with a superb track coming down from the Cleveland Way near Gold Hill. Even though it was sloppy and muddy and we were riding it in a rain shower, it is a superb bit of trail, I’ve no idea how we managed to miss this for so long. Reaching the bottom, enthusiasm to push back up again was somewhat lacking, so we contented ourselves with playing on a couple of jumps before moving on. A couple more trails lead to the hamlet of Heathwaite, where we crossed the road and slogged up a field of heavy gravity to Clain Woods, which inevitably means the steps. Mr. X made a brave attempt at riding them but was defeated by the slippery moistness of the conditions, which makes him just as much a failure as those who pushed the whole way. We splashed through the ford at Sheepwash and up the freshly sanitised track to High Lane, my companions shocked at how much it has been smoothed out. Entering the woods above Cod Beck Reservoir, a few of Rod’s finest trails awaited us, Rod’s nemesis, The Colonel hasn’t had to exert himself too much this week in his endeavours to lay traps across the trails, Storm Arwen has done the work for him. One last climb saw us topping out on Scarth Wood Moor to ride the old track through the trees, except the trees have been chopped down, or most of them, leaving only a few to be blown down onto the trail, our normally impeccable flow thwarted by the actions of nature. Another couple of descents later we were rolling into Swainby, with the inevitable diversion into the Rusty Bike Cafe to rebalance our calorie deficit in the nicest possible way.