Lakeland Monster Miles 2017

Cross Bike Ride.

The Fireman

15th October route

A wet weekend in Keswick is not an uncommon occurrence but Keswick excelled this weekend, managing to precipitate for the majority of the four days we were there. The weather gods must have admired our tenacity because they rewarded us with a weather window for this year’s Lakeland Monster Miles, the sun even put in an appearance.

The start line was moved to the other end of Fitz Park, to the more solid ground of the council car park, there were fears the sodden sward at the museum end would suffer from the feet and tyres of 850 cyclists. Me and The Fireman joined the lengthy queue, waiting for our turn in the exit cache and the safety briefing, which concentrated this year on the numerous route changes owing to ground conditions. The long route had been cancelled and everyone found themselves doing the mini massif. A few blows of the horn and we set off to a symphony of beeping timing sensors, adrenalised riders jockeying for the front even before we had left the car park, perhaps eschewing pacing because it is only a measly fifty miles. Older and lazier wiser, we pedalled through early morning Keswick, deserted apart from a few hundred cyclists and climbed up to the Castlerigg Stone Circle, the first ascent of the day thinning out the riders before we plummeted down to Threlkeld. Normally the start is much more amenable, along the old railway but some of the bridges are still down following the 2015 floods. The next part of the route remains unchanged, from Threlkeld to Scales, then on the gated road to Mungrisedale, before turning north to Mosedale, following the gently climbing road beside Carrock Fell to Calebreck and an unexpected food stop, in the even more unexpected sunshine.

A quick sugar hit and we were off again, venturing off road on a rocky mining track which climbs forever upward, through a couple of splash and dashes, which this year were more walk and wade. Eventually, a welcome downhill arrived, disappointingly it was too muddy for the speedy, swooping descent we imagine is our usual style. Green is grip: brown is slip, arms aching from braking, slithering through squelching grass, we proceeded downward somewhat slower than we went up it seemed. A mixture of tracks and tarmac took us to the second food stop, where we sat and watched some of the hares who had zipped past in Keswick staggering in.

We were sure Setmurthy Woods would not be included owing to the ground conditions: we were wrong. The usual finish, from the woods, down Watch Hill was not included, instead diverting through the woods on a fire road which climbed interminably through an unchanging landscape of green trees, grey gravel and panting cyclists. The road through Cockermouth came as relief, even the long drag on the B5292 seemed amenable. More climbing took us to the outskirts of Wythop Mill, where, we ascended some more to Wythop Woods, where the route reverted to fire road, beginning with a steeply descending and loose track, complete with whistle-blowing marshall and riders choosing the discretion over valour option. The novelty of ascending had long since worn off, our discretion may have been left behind somewhere near Over Water, the excitement of speeding over sketchy ground was soon dissipated by a cruel trick of memory. I was sure it was downhill all the way to the shores of Bassenthwaite from here but no, every bend revealed a new hill, grinding the pedals around in grim circles we plodded onward and upward, an asteroid strike or nuclear holocaust was beginning to feel as though it would come as welcome relief, the descent finally arrived and caution was again thrown to the proverbial as the limits of skinny tyres were tested on the bends, skittering over gravel, finally exiting the woods mud-splattered, drenched but happy the end was in sight.

The thought of only a few flat miles between here and Keswick livened us up better than any gels could manage, just as well because finding a part of my body that did not ache was becoming difficult. Legs aching from pedalling, arms, shoulders and back suffering from gripping the bars, an actual bruise on the palm of one hand from the rocky battering it took on some of the tracks. At Portinscale, the compulsory dismount for the suspension bridge came as a shock, cramping legs having their first go at walking for a few hours. Minutes later we were riding through the blow up arch and I was collecting my fifth Monster Miles finisher’s medal.

The medal felt hard earned, the ride more difficult than previous years, no doubt due to my lack of practice at long routes lately but my Garmin tells me the amount of climbing in the mini massif has increased by well over 500 feet from previous years. Shortly after arriving back at our rented house the Keswick weather reverted to type, heralding the arrival of storm Ophelia, it didn’t matter, pubs make the best umbrellas.

The Ten Day Breaks Have Recommenced.

The Ten Day Breaks Have Recommenced.

Despite heralding the approach of winter, the first ten day break after the summer period is always as eagerly anticipated as an eighteen day break. Knowing we're only incarcerated twelve days a month and have the remainder to go out and play makes the season of mists and mellow muddiness bearable. The first batch of riding days was planned out, Benny The Brawl opting for an unprecedented five days out of ten, plotting to get fit and show the old blokes a thing or two.

Mountain Bike Ride.

The Breadlad.

11th October 2017 route

Benny’s enthusiasm faltered at the first hurdle when he was too tired to turn up at for our first ride, Great Ayton, texting some unlikely tale of being awake all night. That just left me and The Breadlad and a bit of route rescheduling, now we didn't have a gigantic teenager moaning about tree roots and steep, muddy tracks. The few miles of ascent we began with wouldn't have suited him either, we weren't that keen to be honest but plodded up to the top of The Unsuitables, The Breadlad hampered by a binding brake which gave him a bit of an extra workout.

From The Unsuitables, a foray into less-travelled conifers seemed like a plan, so a slow pedal into the wind took us to some trails around the FloRida area. Surprisingly muddy in the trees to begin with but things improved as we made our way down, weaving between trees on a blanket of pine needles. Crossing a fire road, the track continued onto a recently felled area; the trail had not survived the clearance, soon deteriorating to a tangled mass of branches, brambles and swampy puddles. Against our better judgement we carried on, quite literally carrying at some points until a fire road we recognised came into view. Back in more familiar territory, an enthusiastic but ultimately style-less descent of Stripes followed, before we climbed back up into the forest and made our way, via a couple more off-piste tracks to Roseberry Common for the varied descent around the side of Roseberry Topping, joining Brant Gate, to the road by the car park. The car park of nocturnal assignations between canine walkers.  Or so I've heard. Time constraints saw us pedalling down the road, directly to the most important part of the ride - Stamps cafe, followed by a pie from Stokesley Butchers.

Mountain Bike Ride

Benny The Brawl, The Fireman, The Breadlad, Trainee#2, The Youth

12th October route

The next day saw a better attendance probably because it was Hamsterley and a chance to ride down the mighty fine line that is the K-Line line (to paraphrase Lonny Donegan). Benny The Brawl staged a recovery, The Breadlad was spotted mingling with paying customers in the car park, The Fireman joined us, along with Trainee#2 and The Youth came along to reduce the average age of our posse to below forty years.

Our route was the usual Hamsterley hot lap with some off piste variations, away from the official tracks it is still surprisingly dry in the woods, a few muddy puddles about but all rideable. Benny is beginning to improve due to our 'coaching’ which is predominantly a combination barracking, abuse and encouragement and the ever-present possibility of £250 from You've Been Framed. It won’t be long until he reaches the same standard of mediocrity as the rest of us. We managed to break some kind of slowness record, over four hours out to do less than thirteen miles, without accident, puncture or mechanical, it's difficult to explain where the time went but we were having fun so it didn't matter. Especially seeing as the 68 Cafe has began staying open a bit later.

September 2017 Round Up and Video

September 2017 Round Up and Video

Video click here

A month of few rides unfortunately, mainly owing to a bit of much needed rest and recuperation by the Black Sea, Guisborough, Danby and Hamsterley were the venues for the three mountain bike rides we managed. Oddly enough, as we embark once again on that slightly cooler but equally wet and muddy season called autumn, more riders are returning from whatever pastime they have been indulging over summer and returning to the world of fat tyres, profanity and incompetence we call the Terra Trailblazers.

Highlight of the month, if not the year, has to be our mass trip to try the new route at Hamsterley - K Line - an awesome addition to our usual Hamsterley Hot Lap. Swooping berms, floaty jumps and tabletops whizzing along in a blur of grey track and green trees. Well, whizzing along as fast as someone on the verge of middle-age can manage.

Damp At Danby

Mountain Bike Ride

25th September 2017 route

Trainee#2, The Breadlad, The Fireman, Benny The Brawl.

The return of The Breadlad.

He put on his blue suede shoes and he boarded the plane, touched down in the land of the delta blues, I don’t know if it was in the middle of the pouring rain but he brought a few spits and spatters to Danby with him when he returned from his sojourn in Memphis. It was almost like a reunion today, first ride with The Breadlad for months, Trainee#2 has rejoined the fold and The Fireman reappeared. Our quintet was completed by Benny The Brawl, who managed to find his way to Danby on time and without a detour through Huddersfield or somewhere. The sun did not put it’s hat on to welcome us back, in fact the sun was probably trying new hats on in a land far away because it did not even make an attempt at breaking through the clouds all day.

A straightforward pedal up Ainthorpe Rigg opened our lungs and the drop down the other side was fun as always, except for Benny who seemed to think it was something normally encountered in The Red Bull Hardline and opted for the pedestrian option. Continuing into Fryupdale, we had a quick detour to The Yorkshire Cycling Hub, which is now open and looking good, even the Terra Trailblazers can’t justify a coffee stop after less than three miles, so we continued for a few speedy road miles to Houlsyke. Climbing again, we made our way, somewhat more slowly, up to Oakley Walls, the weather taking a turn for the mediocre, too hot and clammy for a coat but raining lightly nonetheless. We took the track to Clitherbeck, where a shoot delayed us for a few minutes, we stood and watched grouse mainly avoid being shot before we were allowed to continue. Benny seethed with impatience at the 3 or 4 minute delay, a bit strange for someone who can see nothing untoward at spending 6 hours on a Playstation, and stormed off up the road towards Robin Hood’s Butts.

Entering Robin Hood’s Butts brought back unpleasant memories for Benny, part of the worst day of his life but this time he was saved from the physical and mental trauma by a right turn onto The Sis Cross track. A inviting singletrack line carves through the the heather, the usual muddy patches becoming more moist following the mediocre attempt at summer Britain dealt out this year. Everyone enjoyed our slightly damp spin down the track, even Benny managed to look marginally less glum. A quick spurt up the road took us to a puddle-strewn Lord’s Turnpike, the pleasant downhill at the end depositing us almost at the door of The Stonehouse Bakery, where Benny looked at the menu then took the jump in the car and vanish option - it's almost as though he's embarrassed to be seen with a bunch of sweaty, mud-spattered old blokes.

First Ride For A Month.

Mountain Bike Ride.

Trainee#2, Benny The Brawl, Oz, The New Bob.

19th September route

I’m finding it hard to believe myself but this will be my first mountain bike ride since the 19th of August, mainly owing to lounging on a beach by the Black Sea or lounging in a control room to facilitate the social lives of my colleagues. We managed a reasonable size crew for a change, as well as the regulars, Oz and Benny The Brawl, Trainee#2 has reappeared and we’ve found ourselves a new kid, who shares the same name as the legend that was The Pensioner, so he had immediately became The New Bob. We met in the car park at Pinchinthorpe, the mainly empty car park at Pinchinthorpe, it looks as though the revenue raising idea of tripling the car park fee hasn’t been quite the money spinner it may have seemed to whatever bunch of paper-shuffling desk-jockeys dreamt it up. Geese, golden eggs and so on and so forth.

Benny The Brawl being the one who lives the closest naturally arrived late, somehow managing to divert himself through the centre of Guisborough, for future reference, the clue is in the words Guisborough bypass. His shiny new bike was admired by all before we eventually pedalled away from the car park and embarked on the fire road climbs which lead to the good stuff. We had a fairly standard slog, making our way to Roseberry Common and introducing The New Bob to the concept of hauling his bike up the steps to Newton Moor. Regrouping at the top, we basked in the unaccustomed feel of sun on our bodies, it seems like September is not panning out into the indian summer everyone hoped for but we couldn’t complain about today. Glad to be finally on relatively level ground we had pleasant pedal along the moor and around the Lonsdale Bowl, before the gentle climb up Percy Cross Rigg and down the the other side to The Unsuitables, four fifths of our quintet eager for some challenges of a more technical nature. Benny, realising we were about to embark on The Secret Path became most vocal in his displeasure, heaping opprobrium on one of Guisborough’s most popular routes, which, let’s face it, is hardly a tester, not particularly steep with a scattering of rocks and roots, every bit rollable for those of a nervous disposition. Definitely not the abhorrent (his very word) waste of land Benny made it out to be.

Some time later we reached the fire road, ceasing the vituperation from the back - for a while at least. A brief but sharply uphill pedal saw us regrouping beneath Highcliffe Nab, ready for the singletrack leading to the Lover’s Ledge area. This turned out to be a little muddy but still rideable, a couple of jumps and berms thrown in for good measure, continuing along the open hillside, the track is much improved since the trees were felled, we took a right turn onto the track we call Rod’s Ridge and followed it downward. Benny was blooded here, finding out the hard way bare skin and prickly bushes are the quickest to becoming Mammy’s Little Soldier. From here, a gruesome fire road ascent took us back into the forest, perversely Benny seems to enjoy these more than the downhills, more fire road took us to our penultimate trail of the ride, Les’s 3, more amenable than Les’s 1 and 2, just follow the groove to the bottom. It became apparent that all the cycling talent in Redcar has been usurped by Danny Hart because like Benny’s home town predecessor, The Captain, the concept of riding a bike down a hill does not seem to be in the realms of possibility. We waited at the bottom, on the verge of sending a search party back up the trail to see if Benny might have been abducted by aliens and probed for any signs of intelligent life when he appeared, apparently having taken the opportunity for another impromptu trackside lie down but actually on his bike, which is a major improvement since a month ago when he walked down the same track.

A mainly fire road blast took us back to the Branch Walkway Cafe for suitable refreshments following a gruelling almost twelve miles, The New Bob has yet to master the inter-word swearing and general misanthropy of the old Bob but I’m sure we can train him.