Spring Has Not Sprung

Mountain Bike Ride

The Bread Lad, Rod.

2nd March 2015 route

Twenty four hours after being at Highcliffe Nab with two youths and a pile of climbing gear, I was back with two slightly older youths, all of us on bikes, the excellent track I’d promised them now resembling a luge course from the winter Olympics. How had a bit of drizzle developed into six inches of snow? The second day of March, the day after the beginning of Spring or almost three weeks until the beginning of Spring, depending which newspaper you read, either way it was most unseasonable. After a pitiful attempt to descend the luge track, using bikes as expensive Zimmer frames at some points, we filled in the remaining hours until we could justify a visit to the cafe exploring some of those likely looking tracks, often spotted but never investigated. Our time could definitely be considered an investment for the future, we found some tracks which will be brilliant when the mud and slop dry out, let’s hope it is not too long before the leaves appear on the trees and start sucking the soil dry.

An enjoyable hour or two was spent in this manner, slipping and sliding through the woods, saving stuff for better days to prevent it being trashed by being ridden in a swampy state. Procrastinating or just downright chickening out of sections, steep mud, wet roots, tree stumps, brambles, wrong tyres, wrong bike, puddles; every excuse in the book was trotted out. All this enjoyment had to be paid for and the return to Kildale up the road from Hutton Village, followed by The Unsuitables, then Percy Cross Rigg was suitably expensive in leg and lung power. A quick digression about the wartime building passed on Percy Cross Rigg, variously described as an air raid shelter or observation post, a little research on the excellent Hidden Teesside website, tells us it was a Starfish Decoy site, to fool Luftwaffe bombers during WW2. The descent down to New Row, which has now been christened Yellow Brick Road by Strava sectionistas, gave us a last bit of enjoyment, the shelter from trees meant it was largely clear of snow, merely a little greasy.

At the road junction, a herd of sheep must have imagined we were three wise men bearing turnips and within seconds an ovine stampede was heading our way, flocking to the gate as more and more joined in like a crowd of One Direction fans hoping for a glimpse of  their youthful idols. Three mud covered men on the verge of middle age, with not a turnip between them, must have been quite a disappointment, they stood at the field gate bleating their disapproval not realising how lucky they were that the Ginger One was not with us. Darlington boys and their predilections for shapely ewes are an unfortunate fact of North Eastern life.

As we replenished our barely depleted calorie reserves in Glebe Cottage, a blizzard appeared out of nowhere, we were unconcerned, being practically back at the cars. The weather could do its worst.