Swooning In The Balmy December Heat. Mountain biking in North Yorkshire with The Terra Trailblazers.

Too many words? Video here.

Another month over, another year over, December went out in a blast of unseasonal warmth, giving us false hope that spring might have arrived a few weeks early. I’m sure there will be a few months of grimness before that season shows its face. All in all it wasn’t a bad year, except our Spain trip didn’t happen again, which is a great shame, hopefully 2022 will see a return to the sierras. My own personal stats are in, 177 rides, as SuperBri pointed out from the comfort of his settee, that's not even half the days of the year ridden, I’m such a slacker. It averages at 3.4 days per week, considering weekends are rarely included, I am managing successfully to waste most of the weekdays dicking about on a bike. We welcomed a few new faces in 2021 and a couple of old faces returned, some familiar faces went awol, tempted away by the lure of filthy lucre, or, in some cases, golf. How can they stoop so low? A pastime with less appeal than necrophilia, who wouldn’t rather crack open a cold one on their days off than smack a little ball around a field? But it takes all sorts to make a world and at least golfers are all herded away in special clubs where they can’t mingle with normal people. As for necrophiliacs I have no idea where they meet but I guess it’s a case of “if this coffin’s rockin’, don’t come knocking.” And they do say romance is dead. Would a necrophiliac's favourite group be Coldplay? What has any of this got to do with mountain biking? Blame The Breadlad, not literally, don’t be getting the wrong idea, he likes his women with a pulse - it was a news story he heard recently and told us about on a ride which obviously started a peculiar train of thought in those with more deranged minds. The last three rides of 2021 are blogged below.

More Dropouts Than A Pair Of Pound Shop Underpants.

When six became two.

This ride was to have been called “First Ride In The New .10’s” until we lost more riders than a Tour De France drug test. All for perfectly valid reasons I’m sure - and definitely nothing to do with the atrocious weather forecast for today. I have skived off for the last three days, apparently visiting relatives on Christmas Day and Boxing Day is a tradition that must endure at all costs and getting the bike out of the shed would be viewed as some sort of heresy. Yesterday was a day off to recover from the orgy of food and drink over the previous days, during which I attempted my own personal David Bowie tribute by eating a tin of Heroes in a day - every day. For all those people who are addicted to Christmas, just remember, Boxing Day is the ideal time to go cold turkey. The Terra Trailblazers’ answers to Ray Mears and Bear Grylls met at a virtually deserted Great Ayton, getting bikes ready in a steady but surprisingly warm, drizzle and explored the mental dichotomy of simultaneously feeling smug and doubting our sanity. It was one of those rides where spectacles had to be dispensed with because the Elton John style windscreen wiper glasses haven’t arrived yet. We took the usual route up through the farms to Roseberry Common, the great bulk of Roseberry Topping totally invisible even though we were only about 200 metres away. Despite the weather, a surprising number of people were about, mainly of the fell runner variety, or as we know them, outdoor exercisers who are too tight to buy a mountain bike. We plodded up the steps, going higher into the clouds, meeting the occasional people, who materialised from the mist like Berghaus clad wraiths. From Newton Moor we rode to Codhill Heights via the slippery paving of Black Nab, at the gate behind Highcliffe, we met the only other two bikers we had seen all day, both as drenched as we were but proper hard core dudes, both wearing shorts over bare legs and riding singlespeeds, they both knew Rod, so a shivering chat about mutual friends ensued before we went our separate ways. Me and Rod proceeded to slither down a few of Guisborough’s finest trails, always muddy, always slippy, always rideable but only just. Some might say we were honing our skills, so that if summer turns up in 2022, we’ll be top shredders; others might say we are a couple of lunatics with Shredded Wheat for brains, sliding down muddy trails in the rain. Either way, we squeezed a few miles in against the odds, arriving back in virtual dusk (at half past one?), a lot muddier and wetter than three hours earlier. Tomorrow’s forecast is even worse, strange how we have suddenly found urgent appointments which will postpone riding until the drier days of Thursday and Friday.

Fourteen Degrees And Dry.

The 30th of December and it’s 14 degrees, according to the media, we’re on course for the warmest New Year’s Eve since records began. In England of course, I daresay my daughter, who is celebrating New Year in Northern Queensland, where they are having 35 degree days, would consider a 14 degrees a bit on the chilly side. In view of the heat, me and Rod dispensed with our coats, as we rode up to Clay Bank from Ingleby Greenhow, then shouldered our bikes or the trudge up Carr Ridge and onto Urra Moor. The moorland tracks look as though the tide has just gone out, more puddles than sand and we were glad to have remembered our mudguards, it’s no fun driving home with soggy buttocks. Although, being hard core cyclists with glutes of steel we will never suffer from saggy buttocks. A fairly standard route took us across Urra Moor to the Cleveland Way, sneaking a bit of extra descending down the Old Coal Road from Burton Howe, to rejoin the Cleveland Way as it approaches Baysdale. The singletrack to Turkey Nab was not in optimum condition, a slippery mess of mud and water but the Turkey Nab track is beginning to recover from the sanitation it received, the rock slabs are peeking through the dolomite, it won’t be long before wind, water and the ‘one life: let’s live it’ wobbly heads in their 4x4’s, have it back to the fun descent it previously was. We had a quick nip into the woods to play on the tracks, now they aren’t buried under bracken as they were in summer - very enjoyable they were too. Which is only a short pedal back to the car park where we picnicked in the balmy, barmy heat of the last days of December.

Another Year Over

Last day of the year and the last ride of the year, me and Rod met in Birk Brow car park, buffeted by a viscous wind, pretty much deserted except for a Lithuanian HGV and a handful of cars. No burger van, the ladies must be having a week off, so no reason for most people to stop there. As we assembled our bikes the HGV driver climbed from his cab and came over for a chat, not letting the fact he only knew two English words (no and internet) inhibit his volubility in any way. After a lot of gesturing, pointing, head shaking and blank looks, we still had no idea what he was trying to say, so we left him to it and sloped across the moor, slithering down some 4x4 tracks until we reached the woods above Margrove Park - Skelton Warren according to the OS map. Time to introduce Rod to the newest trails in the oeuvre of Ralph and Max, although to be fair, Max’s contribution is probably limited to sniffing and watching, not because he’s like Oz when he was employed but because he’s a saluki. Ralph, however, is still a prodigious trail builder despite being around 80 years old and is overjoyed when people ride his trails. He takes the idea of giving something back to a whole other level. Rod was impressed with the trails and with the close proximity to a car park, which will be handy for his after work jaunts on fine evenings - which is the type of thing day workers have to do if they want a bit of weekday fun. We sessioned a few trails - just like the youngsters - before moving across the valley to Slapewath and another network of trails winding through the trees, not Ralph’s work this time but equally enjoyable. Later we headed across the road and made our way to Guisborough Woods for a few more trails but always in the back of our minds was the climb back to our cars. Birk Brow, almost 400 feet of ascent in a little over a mile, with, according to the sign at the bottom, a maximum gradient of 15%. Enough to open your lungs up, especially after a hard day of shredding the gnar like us young folks do. Arriving back at the car park, we saw our Lithuanian acquaintance was still there but he must have been having a kip because he didn’t reappear. In fact the wagon was still in the same place when we passed by four days later - seems like a hell of a way to spend New Year, in a windy and deserted car park on top of a hill. And that was it, another year of riding over, seven hours before the end of the 2021, enough time for bike cleaning, shower, food and out to see if I could finish the year exactly the same as I started it - full of Guinness.