Surprisingly Dry

Here we go, the start of another week in the life of a retiree. Get up, stand up, I haven’t got any funky stuff to strut, so I have some toast and coffee before getting my bike out and heading for the hills. Regular haunt, Great Ayton again, on a slightly overcast but pleasant day. I head directly to Guisborough Woods to see if any trails are rideable after the weekend’s rain. Not many is the answer, not in the wood anyway but the moors are surprisingly dry, areas usually submerged, losing their puddles and displaying dry earth for the first time in a while. At the Superman Steps in the woods, so called after The Youth’s display of enthusiasm outweighing ability, mixed with an icy morning, when he performed a perfect superman flight down the steps after parting company with his bike. He refused to replicate it for the camera. Anyway, a trail has appeared, cutting across the top of the steps, being of a curious mind (in more ways than one, according to my nearest and dearest) I dragged my bike up the trail to see where it started, encountering a few jumps so far out of my league they may as well be in the Red Bull Rampage. Definitely one for a dry day then. Everything in the woods is slippery and greasy, I left the woods to firm up a bit and headed out for a scrounge about the open moors, which were much more amenable. Nothing else of note to report really, until I reached Great Ayton and found the bakers again lights out, no one home at two in the afternoon. Could it be permanent? Am I destined to be limited to choosing between two pie shops for my post ride sustenance?

From L.A. to...Hamsterley.

For the second time in a week we find ourselves at Hamsterley Forest, me and Simon T. that is, this time we have a guest, Simon’s cousin Matt, who is going from shredding the dry loam of California to surfing the mud of County Durham. At least Hamsterley’s man-made routes hold up well in the wet, as opposed to the trails in North Yorkshire, which are predominantly unsanctioned and built without the benefit of hard core or other armouring, leaving them at the mercy of the elements. Introductions made, we set off on our latest hot lap. Matt is a mere twenty nine years old and several XXL’s short of being a proper American, he set off up the first fire road at the sort of pace us two gentlemen on the verge of middle-age couldn’t hope to replicate. Plodding up to Windybank Road, in a headwind, which soon dragged along a rainshower to join the party, soon calmed him down. Welcome to England. At least the rain was behind us for our first trail, Section 13. We gave Matt a cursory safety briefing. “It’s a red route, nowt to worry about. You’ll be alright.” It seems Matt likes England so much he wanted to see a bit more of it than the confines of the trail allowed and had two or three unscheduled detours into the undergrowth before we reached the bottom. Seeing as he’d managed without us having to call on the services of the air ambulance, we treated him to a bit of Hamsterley off-piste, which, at this time of year, generally involves slithering down a mud-filled chute until a wet root throws you sideways into the trees. Today was no different. Alien conditions to Matt but he fared no worse than the rest of us. Two of the official routes followed, Special K and Brainfreeze, both rocky enough to hold back the worst of the mud. These were followed with the second climb of the day, an interminable ascent from the valley floor to K Line worth every ounce of sweat and muscle strain for the quartet of quality - K Line, Transmission, Accelerator and Nitrous. The set can be started with Polties Last Blast to make it a quintet but we didn’t bother today. A varied collection of trails, ranging from smooth and fast to chunky rock steps, it was heartening to watch Matt bouncing over the rocks, swearing like a true Brit - at least we’ve taught him something. A bit of flat riding along tarmac took us to the fabled “last hill of the ride”, another slog, this time to Pike’s Teeth for our final runs of the day. Pike’s Teeth is graded black but to be honest Stevie Wonder could probably manage it on a tandem with Stephen Hawking. Another slice of Hamsterley’s finest off-piste completed today’s ride, where I was kind enough to demonstrate to our visitor the correct way to fall off in mud - aim for the softest, deepest bit.

Dora The Explorer

Finding myself unexpectedly free today, there seems to be nothing better to do than whack the bike in the roof rack and head out for the third day running. Guisborough with a difference today, I parked up at Hutton Village and rode along the old railway track to Charltons and Slapewath, all very amenable before ascending Birk Brow, all the way to the top. Tearing myself away from the delights of the burger van, I headed into the woods above Margrove park for a bit of an old explore. Avoiding the trails we regularly ride, I had a scrounge about and found a whole network of nice, loamy downhill tracks, never too exciting (i.e. dangerous) but nonetheless very pleasant. Eventually, I reached the bottom of the woods and made my way to Margrove Park ponds, passing the ponds and continuing up a muddy bridleway to join the Cleveland Way on Airy Hill, it was pretty airy too. On the way down I detoured into the woods above Slapewath to check out the state of the place following the fire which smouldered on for about six weeks last year. Devastation, blackened trees, fallen trees, beneath a layer of last season’s pine needles the earth is ash and soil. It looks like the Mekong Delta after a napalm attack; even the trails through the woods have gone, except for a few lonely remnants lingering in the carnage. All that remained was a reverse of my outward route, back along the railtrack to Hutton Village. If I had been really keen, I could have climbed up into Guisborough Woods and slithered down a few trails but the sandwiches and coffee back in the car proved too strong a lure to resist.

The Battle Of The Breeze

Scored myself a companion for my fourth ride of the week, international jet-setting playboy and King Of Crumpet Creation, The Breadlad found himself on home turf long enough to swing his little legs over the crossbar. Danby was our venue of choice, predominantly owing to the proximity of the Stonehouse Bakery. Our route, a clockwise loop, through Danby Park and Box Hall to Foul Green, alternatively helped and hindered by a gusty wind strong enough to have the trees swaying a shedding dead wood. From Commondale, we rode up Sand Hill Bank, with a tailwind, 100m of ascent in a mile took us to the Shaun The Sheep bus shelter on Three Howes Rigg. Sticking with the tailwind, we continued along Robin Hood’s Butts to one of our favourite bits singletrack, the Sis Cross track, the tailwind became a side wind, pushing us sideways as we tried to negotiate the narrow trail through winter heather. At least the wind is going some way to drying up the track, there are a few muddy patches which require an actual drought before they dry up but the remainder of the track was a treat as always. Finishing on the road above Danby, we could have made like cafe-seeking missiles but our mileage was brief and the extra loop came into play, which explains how, a short time later, we were being buffeted by the wind at Danby Beacon. Opposite the beacon, a 4x track leads down to the road at Oakley Walls, usually home to the sort of mud and ruts which would not be out of place on a first world war battlefield. Traffic has been banned for quite a while now, so we hoped things might have improved. And they have, some major resurfacing work has improved things to the point of blandness, the former technical descent is now merely a wide dolomite track with all the fun and excitement of a suburban cycle track. The rocky descent of Oakley Walls which follows is a bit more like it, with enough loose rocks and encroaching gorse bushes to keep things interesting before we headed back to the calorific cornucopia on offer in the cafe.