Autumnal

Another gentle one with La Mujerita, on the lanes and byways of the industrial north east, exploring the urban rurality which surrounds the trading estates and chemical factories. A slightly dull, misty day enlivened by the autumn colours; golden leaves, crimson berries, green ferns, all glowing in the weak sunlight. An unpromising week to come, according to the forecasters, so best make the most of it. Trying to stay off tarmac as much as possible, we took a convoluted route, managing to pad out the ride with off-road detours through fields and forests. Unfortunately the café at Thorpe Thewles former railway station was closed because it is Monday, cruelly crushing our dreams of coffee and cake for sustenance. We took an equally convoluted route home to raid the pantry.

Postdiluvian Pedaling

Only two rides this week, this one following three days of persistent precipitation, the kind which would dissuade the hardiest of cyclists from venturing out, I managed a pedal from Great Ayton, riding flooded lanes as a warm up before climbing up Percy Cross Rigg and across to Guisborough Woods. In the woods new streams and waterfalls have appeared all over, as the moors drain down to the sea (eventually). Mainly keeping on fire roads, with the occasional foray onto more well-drained trails, I made my way around the forest, getting a few miles in my legs, everywhere golden with fallen leaves and a carpet of russet pine needles. For a change from the butchers or bakers, I stopped at Fletcher’s Farm shop and discovered something which ups the crisp flavour game beyond the usual cheese and onion - roast duck with plum sauce. To be fair they only tasted of plum sauce but nice for a change.

Close Encounters Of The Cervine Kind

Another ride around soggy byways of North Yorkshire with an unpromising forecast ahead. Someone once said, the only two fluids vital to life are rain and semen, so at least we can be thankful only the former will be drenching us - on the bike anyway. What some of the deviants I ride with get up to behind closed doors a pure and innocent boy like me can’t begin to imagine. A fair amount of water was rushing down the stream when I parked up in Swainby but the clouds were lifting as I climbed up towards Sheepwash and further up onto High Lane. Some more climbing - there’s a definite theme here, got me to Silton Woods. A fair bit of tree-felling has been going on but at the moment most of the trails are spared. A quick blast on the downhill track and I was returning to the gate and heading back to Square Corner, continuing past Chequers, the former drovers inn not the official residence of the prime minister - I hadn’t pedalled that far south. A few of Rod’s trails in the woods above Cod Beck reservoir beckoned and it may be that our old friend The Colonel is having a rest, no piles of branches across the trails, perhaps he’s took up another hobby, like bowls or dogging and doesn’t have the energy to be humping piles of wood around the forest. Leaving the reservoir behind, I pedalled up the road to Scarth Wood Moor, merely to ride the bridleway down the other side, which is paved and worth the ride up. A brief continuation bridleway appears after the cattle grid at the top of Scarth Nick, today the bridleway was muddy and slippery, I emerged back onto the road and continued downhill on tarmac, there was a sudden rustling to my left and a deer leapt out of the roadside trees, inches from my front wheel, if I had been a second or two quicker on the bridleway, things wouldn’t have ended well for one of us. Me, no doubt, splattered on the tarmac while Bambi and his buddies laughed at me from the woods.

Last Look At The Blast Furnace

Going local with La Mujerita again, this time across the salt marshes to Seaton Carew. The salt marshes are long gone, as is the salt factory which used to be at Greatham but Seaton Carew remains in all its faded glory, now forever immortalised by the antics of Mr. and Mrs. Darwin and his canoe. We paused at various spots along the coast to snap the blast furnace across the river estuary in Redcar, due to be demolished tomorrow morning. The end of steelmaking in the North East, gone the way of the pits, the shipyards and most of the chemical industry, not with a bang but a whimper; there was more fuss when Woolworths and Debenhams closed down, I wonder what T.S. Eliot would have made of that. Fish and chips is the thriving industry in Seaton nowadays; I don’t think I’ve ever seen the shops without customers. We could indulge guilt-free, having ridden a dozen or so miles to stuff our faces. The local starling population had no such qualms and were on hot standby for any dropped scraps, the braver ones even stalking about our table, loudly berating our tidy eating. It is just as well they haven’t realised their superior numbers could easily defeat us, an actual murmuration was flying over heads at some points. Filled with chips and fizzy pop, we rode gently home to work off some of the excess calories.

Back Before The Rain

Me and The Breadlad today. He has found a small window between work and his international jet setting to fit in a bike ride. We met in the puddle-strewn car park at Sheepwash, testament to another few days of solid rain but today’s forecast was only for showers. We covered a lot of the ground which I rode earlier in the week when I had my close encounter of the cervine kind, although we reversed Scarth Wood Moor for a change and called into the Lady Chapel, The Shrine Of Our Lady Of Mount Grace, which The Breadlad has never visited. He was probably worried there might be a collection plate and he wouldn’t be able to pilfer the loose change without being spotted by the watchful eyes of Jesus from his cross. Or the CCTV, even churches aren’t sacred nowadays. Especially ones which are hidden in woods like something from a Brothers Grimm book. We took our heathen carcasses away from this holy ground and headed back to the reservoir, climbing up through the woods to High Lane and retracing my recent tyre tracks into Silton Woods. All the felling machinery has gone now, so there’s a lot less chance of being crushed by a falling conifer. What happened to the days of axes, checked shirts and cries of “timber” renting the air? When Monty Python wrote a song about the cross-dressing proclivities of lumberjacks? Hard to do now when they sit in a cab all day listening to The Prodigy and assorted death metal - obviously I have no idea what they listen to but that seems the right soundtrack to ripping trees from the earth. Anyway, we added some more tyre tracks to the mud and had a slither on the downhill track. Fast forward to later and we were in the woods above the reservoir again, finding a route through fallen trees on a bed of golden pine needles. The clouds which had been chasing us all the way from Silton Woods finally caught us as we reached the car park, a brief squall as bikes were packed away ready for a visit to the Rusty Bike cafe in Swainby. Something we do too rarely these days - visiting cafes in general.

Misty Meandering

For the first time this year, in the interests of research, I donated four quid to Redcar and Cleveland Council to park in an area which offers mountain bikers nothing more than a few square feet of tarmac to leave your car on. Compared to Hamsterley say, or Dalby. Why allow myself to be a victim to such exploitation? Merely to check the cafe will be maintaining our traditional Christmas Toastie Ride by supplying the toasties and I am pleased to report they will. Our staple fare for a few years now, (since the annual, post-ride Xmas lunch fell victim to apathy and disinterest) sausage, bacon, stuffing and cranberry sauce between two slices of toast. Monday 19th December for those who fancy a wet, muddy ride in the company of like-minded idiots. Today was a bright but cold day with intermittent mist patches which swept across the area, dropping the temperature even further. Another standard scrounge about the forest, checking out trails old and new, assessing conditions for the aforementioned ride, as everyone expects value for money when they are lashing out money to keep councillors in the style they are accustomed to. Some are wet and slithery, the trails not the councillors, I've never met any councillors, so can’t comment on their characteristics, good or bad, remarkably some trails are in pretty good condition considering the rain we’ve had. The enveloping mist became more patch than patchy, arriving and forgetting to go away again, making everything dull and cold, like a manager coming to sit at your table during a work’s night out. The little devil on my shoulder told me I could take advantage of the cloud cover and have an orgy of trespassing along the little-used tracks over Penrod Hill and down to Commondale without being spotted by the gamekeeper (again) but the chubby angel on the other shoulder was more interested in steering me towards the cafe.

Roaming Along The Riverside

Another grey and chilly day, me and La Mujerita had another local ride, mainly because one of us still benefits society in return for money and is at work this afternoon. And it’s not me, I benefit society by going up in the hills out of the way. For an industrial river, there was a surprising amount of wildlife about today; seals, cormorants, a few varieties of duck, a grey heron flapping slowly above the water like a pterodactyl. The riverside track passes by a few units and small factories, one of which appears to manufacture Indian food and always smells magnificent. The path moves away from the river at Teessaurus Park, the home of several brightly-painted metal dinosaurs, joining a roadside cycle track which takes us to the mighty leviathan which is The Transporter, symbol of Teesside, now sadly (and perhaps terminally) inoperable. The cost of repairs is said to be too prohibitive to warrant its use as a river crossing again. Such a shame. Conscious of our time constraint, we reversed our route and headed for home, grabbing a few extra miles in the legs with a detour to the Tees Barrage.