Mob-handed.
It’s no secret that owing to comfy couches, daytime TV, central heating, general inertia and the curse of employment, a lot of my rides nowadays are solo efforts but not this week as both SuperBri and The Breadlad find themselves free for most days. We began in Swainby, climbing up past the castle and continuing to Whorlton, where a field edge bridleway takes us to Faceby. A brutal climb up another Field Of Heavy Gravity leaves us panting like paedos in a playground before we reach Faceby Plantation for a bit of funtime. We introduce SuperBri to the jumps in the woods, pleasantly dry and loamy today; some time was spent honing our jumping skills, almost as much time as we spent honing our excuses for not attempting the jumps. Leaving the playground with only minor injuries, we moved across the other side of the Scugdale valley, making our way to Sheepwash via the Clain Wood steps hike-a-bike, SuperBri made an effort at riding them but was soon reduced to our level. We indulged in a play on a few of Rod’s trails in the woods above Cod Beck Reservoir before climbing the steep road onto Scarth Wood Moor on the opposite side of the reservoir. Luckily wind assisted all the way up, the climb was quite painless and as always, worth it for the ride down. We finished the ride with a trail in Clain Woods, which is so nice it would be a shame for it to suffer overuse. Our day was rounded off nicely with a visit to the Rusty Bike for coffee and comestibles.
Relaxing Roxby
Seeing as the majority of my rides average around 2,000 feet of climbing and this week was looking like being busy, it was time to slip an easy one in, which is how me and The Breadlad found ourselves at Scaling Dam ready to tackle the Terra Trailblazers’ easiest moorland route. The only flaw being a mile and a bit along the moor road to start, at the mercy of myopic morons behind the wheel. We soon put the dickheads behind us, gratefully going off-road on Robin Hood's Butts until we reached the cairn marking the start of the Sis Cross bridleway, a perfect thread of singletrack, woven between swathes of heather, spoilt only by the odd muddy patch. We poured down the trail like hot metal filling a casting, swooping round bends, floating over claggy patches, every nuance of the ground beneath our tyres dispatched with aplomb, our years of experience coming to the fore. Well, in our own minds anyway. After crossing the road, we gained the Panniermans Causeway, a partially paved moorland trod which leads to the Danby Beacon road. Making our way to the beacon on tarmac with a tail wind was pleasant; we paused at the top but the bitter wind soon persuaded us to move. The exemplary bridleway over Roxby Moor was our next objective, a magnificent downhill thrash across open moorland, big skies and a view of Scaling Reservoir, looking almost Mediterranean blue in the sunshine. The ride finished along the dam of the reservoir, a flat finish for a flat ride, just over 800 feet of ascent in less than twelve miles. Perfect.
Almost Back Before The Rain...
Only almost.
Defying the mediocre forecast, me and SuperBri did our bit to offset The Breadlad’s carbon footprint and car-shared for the second time this week, driving to Great Ayton. The Breadlad was busy performing his grandad duties today so it was just the two of us today. Pleasantly sunny this morning, not the constant drizzle the BBC predicted. We climbed up to Roseberry Common by one of our usual starts, through Fletcher’s Farm and Aireyholme Farm and headed straight into Guisborough Woods for a trawl about the trails, which are still far drier than they ought to be for the time of year. If The Pensioner was still with us, his opinion would be that this would not augur well for the coming summer. “We’ll pay for this, you know. You can’t have weather like this in February. It’ll be a shit summer.” He may have been many things but an optimist was never one of them. Up hill and down dale we went, clocking up yesterday’s 800 feet of ascent in the first four miles and then doubling it and adding a bit more on for good measure. It is half term so a few people are around, mainly walkers but the odd mountain biker - although some people view all mountain bikers as odd. Still, barely enough people to justify the amount of cars parked up In Great Ayton. Where do they all go? Some deep-seated FOMO makes me wonder if there is a fantastic place somewhere we don’t know about. We pedalled away from the woods, across Codhill Heights and around the Lonsdale Bowl to Gribdale, utilising all our favourite tracks. At Gribdale the sky went dark, dropping the temperature by a few degrees, further down the road, as we headed toward Great Ayton, a light drizzle began, at the bakers, we sheltered under the awning as a full-blown downpour brought an end to the day’s fun.
Connect 4
Because four in a row is always a winner.
I found myself unexpectedly free today,much to the delight of The Breadlad who had been less than enthusiastically anticipating a day of domestic bliss. At the beginning of the week it became apparent SuperBri had never done the full descent into Faceby Plantation from the summit of Carlton Bank, which culminates in the trails we did on Monday. So, a Lordstones start for the three of us it had to be, no concession was given to the fact this would be the fourth ride in four days for one of us, SuperBri and The Breadlad both managing to shirk one ride apiece during the week. It was another bright and breezy day, yesterday’s rain having blown over. A few paragliders were launching from the top of Carlton Bank, more were slogging towards the top as we pedalled up the old access track, a remnant from the days when there was a gliding club up there. At the summit we chatted with the paragliding lads, who are always friendly and willing to talk about their hobby - always men though, never have we seen a female paraglider. The paved Cleveland Way track is a superb ride down before we turn off onto a natural (i.e. greasy and muddy) trail down to the trees, a little roller coaster section over some small shale tips leads to the top of Monday’s trail, which we enjoy in its entirety. Of course, what goes down, must go up, this particular up being the B.O.A.T. at the end of Scugdale leading to Stoney Wickes. Never an easy climb, always involving an amount of pushing or carrying, it was in bad condition today, looking as though an immense herd of cattle had stampeded along the track, even walking became a slippery sloppy ordeal of ankle deep mud. Looking back toward Carlton Bank, some of the paragliding lads had found the lift they were looking for earlier and were looking down on us from impossible heights. Our reward for the treacherous climb was a descent of Raisdale Mill Lane, under no circumstances could this ever be classified as a flow trail, so the mud and rocks came as no surprise, me and SuperBri began to covet The Breadlad’s mudguard. We finished by riding up to Beak Hills farm and around the back of Cringle Moor; our ultimate trail, a superb section of enduro track finishing at the cattle grid near Lordstones. The short hill back to the car park pushed my total ascent for the week to over 7,000 feet, enough to justify a cheese scone at the cafe.
