Another Year Over: A New One Just Begun.

Too many words? Video here.

New year: new intro. Cast in order of attendance during 2022, attending twice is the criteria for featuring in the intro - so, if you are not in there - get your finger out. The Youth has already guaranteed his re-inclusion with an astonishing two rides in the first week of this year.

January is not renowned for being the balmiest of months, this year the temperature barely scraped into double figures on any of the days. We had cold and sunny, cold and snowy, cold and misty, cold and windy, not forgetting plain cold. Frozen mud made for easier riding some days, unfortunately it didn’t last and many rides saw us slithering and sliding through the slop. Plenty of riding was done though, maybe not massive mileages but I was out fourteen days and only six of them alone, which is probably a result of the nationwide January Exercise Spike. This month’s top attendee was Simon T., who managed to drag himself out four times. International jet setting playboy, The Breadlad, only managed a couple of rides, spending the remainder of the month raping the planet with jet fuel, performing his duties as Cultural Attache for Crumpets and Bagels, spreading the Warburtons word around the world.

The remaining two rides of the month are blogged below,

Out On The Wild Windy Moors.

And boy was it windy, not gale force, push you off your bike windy but constant velocity, never relenting type wind. Owing to some mediocre route planning the latter half of the ride was spent battling into it. Things started well though, from Birk Brow car park and I rode along the Quaker’s Causeway like a cycling god, lulled into a false sense of achievement by a helpful tailwind. Once I reached the road, tarmac was followed to the Sean The Sheep bus shelter, where Robin Hood’s Butts begins (or ends depending which way you’re going) . Mr. Tailwind once again gave me a helping hand, at least as far as the turn off for the Sis Cross track, a ribbon of singletrack cutting through heather on Danby Low Moor from Sis Cross Hill, punctuated by the peat hags and boggy puddles. In reasonable condition for January, a bit wet and claggy in the occasional spot but mainly rideable. From the road where the Sis Cross trail ends, I made a deviation, across the moor above Danby, which eventually brought me back to the road. Following the road brought me to the other end of Robin Hood’s Butts, which I rode in its entirety, that previously helpful tailwind now firmly in my face, coupled with a damp, draggy track meant no records were broken today. I was content to amble along in the sunshine with only curious sheep and vocal grouse for company; eventually Sean The Sheep came into view for the second time today, signalling the end of today’s off road riding. The return to Birk Brow was via Stanghow rather than the Quaker’s Causeway because there were a couple of spots I wanted to check out on the way, not because I am one of these riders with an arse like a delicate peach who can’t face the buttock-battering causeway twice in one ride. It wasn’t long before I was back in the car park indulging in the delights served by the butty van.

A Good Drying Wind

Another windy one, but pleasantly sunny. Me and SImon T. arrived at Hutton Village to find numerous other people also avoiding the Pinchinthorpe parking charges. I think the teachers were on strike or something, as history repeats itself and we find ourselves in another winter of discontent - a phrase noticeable by its absence from the media this time round. I was a teenager back in the early seventies (which makes me on the verge of middle-age now), when everybody and his dog went on strike, Opec cut oil supplies to the west and the government took drastic measures to prevent the country collapsing. There was a three day week for those not on strike, speed limits were dropped to 50mph, scheduled power cuts occurred daily, business boomed for candle makers but not many others. Imagine the effect nowadays, no WiFi for two or three hours every day, there would be a meltdown. Then again, it’s not like teachers can ever hold a country to ransom like other workers and all the kids I know are less than devastated at the disruption to their education. That seems like an awful lot of words to say Hutton Village was busy. But we got parked and rode into Guisborough Woods to have a scrounge about the trails, most of which are drying up nicely considering less than a week ago they were a frozen mass of ice. There are very few people in the woods, which makes us wonder what everyone parked up might be doing. Not bothering us, that’s the main thing. After a couple of hours shredding a carefully curated selection of trails, in between inevitable bouts of climbing, this is Guisborough after all, if you’re not going down, you’re going up, we headed back to (a now largely deserted) Hutton Village to enjoy our tailgate picnic.