Post Storm Pedaling

It’s been so long since I had a ride, The Breadlad has fitted in a week’s skiing, came home, recovered and joined me for a pedal out of Great Ayton. Two named storms for the first days of this week haven’t helped matters but today is pretty much okay, not a bad day to choose for my singular ride of the week. We had a fairly standard scrounge about Guisborough Woods, visiting the usual spots, cherry-picking dry trails. The storms haven’t had too much of an impact on the trees, nothing compared to the ongoing felling anyway. A lot of heavy duty gravelling and tarmacking is happening on the forest roads, as well as some ominous new highways being bulldozed through the trees, close to some of Guisborough’s classic trails. The place will be a wasteland by the time they have finished. Most of the wood is going to a local biomass power station, I believe, it seems odd to spend 30 years growing something for it to be burnt away in a few hours. Solar power is the answer but obviously it won’t happen overnight. Eventually we rode down to Fletcher’s Farm and enjoyed some pastry-sheathed goodness sitting in a barn.

The First Of Fabulous February

Once again I am joined by The Breadlad, who is just filling time between trips abroad and keeping the nation supplied with crumpets. We began our ride in Swainby, powering up the hill to Clain Woods before hauling ourselves and our bikes up the infamous walk of shame which is the Clain Wood steps. Further climbing took us up the road to Sheepwash, the dog walking capital of North Yorkshire, we splashed through the ford and up the steep bank onto High Lane, where things levelled out slightly. We hit tarmac again near Chequers, the former coaching inn not the country house of the Prime Minister, which is somewhere else, south of York, so I am a bit vague on the whereabouts. The road leads to Square Corner car park, which was rammed because it seems to be the first reasonable day for a while. We continued on the Hambleton Drove Road for a short distance, thankfully turning off before we reached the torture of the ascent, taking the track into Silton Woods for a quick spin around a couple of tracks. More tree felling has been happening in the woods but the fire roads have been kept clean and we weren’t hindered. Retracing our tyre tracks, we dropped down to Cod Beck reservoir, for a pleasant bit of waterside riding on the wide, gravelled track. Evidently not wide enough for some of the dog walkers, who seemed appalled that we were even in the same county as their precious fur babies. After the reservoir, we amused some onlookers by riding through the stream, rather than using the bridge. Heading back to Scarth Nick, the steep bank above Swainby, which was either a waterfall from a vast lake that once filled the Sugdale Valley or a nick cut in the landscape by Wade The Giant with his axe. There is a short bridleway through the woods at the side of the road, which gives a fun descent and a change from blasting back down the Clain Wood steps. Due to a planning error, we had chosen Swainby on one of the days the cafe is closed, so it was directly back to the vehicles to eat the emergency rations.

I've Been Mountain Biking Every Day This Month.

Back on my lonesome today, The Breadlad has returned to keep the wheels of the yeast products industry turning and everyone else is, well, not here. It is not my place to speculate on the deviant pastimes they are indulging in when they ought to be out biking. Even Chad, my imaginary American expat biking companion, couldn't join me today. He is at home nursing a few injuries sustained in a misunderstanding, after a bloke filling out his betting slip in Wetherspoons asked Chad if he had a rubber. A lovely bright, blue-sky sort of day, however the old forty plus winds were forecast for later in the morning. So yet again, I opted for Great Ayton as a starting point, keeping low through the valley to Kildale before panting up the Yellow Brick Road from New Row, despite a bit of wind assistance. Continuing up Codhill Heights with a hand from the mighty Njord, I soon arrived at the back of Highcliffe Nab, which is high above Guisborough Woods and today, the target for every bit of wind. Some of the more open singletracks were challenging to say the least, random sideways gusts made riding more akin to bagatelle than the usual Terra Trailblazers’ elegant carving of the singletrack. It was a little more sheltered, lower down, in what is left of the trees but the accompanying creaking was ominous and it wasn’t long before I was headed down The Track Of Pure Filth to Aireyholme Farm. Less putrescent tracks took me to Fletchers Farm shop for another of their pastry-wrapped slabs of heaven, before I battled the wind on the road back to Great Ayton.