Mountain Bike Ride
The Fireman
The weather man he speak with forked tongue again, sunny with light wind was only half right, at least it was the sunny part he predicted correctly. Not that he would be bothered, he was not the one having to start a ride by pedalling three and a half miles uphill into a buffeting wind. Look on the positive side - it would be behind us on the return leg. This ride covered some similar ground to last Friday’s except we began from Chop Gate village hall car park, plodding along into the aforementioned headwind, up the Raisdale Road before veering left to Beak Hills and onwards and upwards until we were shouldering the bikes up the path to the top of Cold Moor - living up to it’s name today.
A quick breather, then we were heading downward to the bridleway which leads to Garfitt Gap, some muddy ruts and a couple of technical sections make the bridleway an interesting ride down, at the end always the proviso - “It’ll be great in the summer.” A little more downhill before it was carrying time again, as opposed to carrion time which was how I would feel a few miles further on, legs still suffering from riding up to Captain Cook’s Monument on the cyclocross bike yesterday. For the second time in four days, we found ourselves at the Wainstones, this time looking for a barely remembered track I used many years ago which leads to Garfitt Quarry above Hasty Bank Farm, where I was once stung on the palm of my hand while climbing during a “boulder and bike” day out. That made holding the handlebars for the remainder of the ride “challenging”. The path was initially elusive - an anodyne way of saying we blundered about a bit until eventually it appeared, surprisingly well-defined for a path which, according to the Ordnance Survey, does not exist. Like the previous bridleway, it will be better in the summer, today being a little too muddy to be fun. Things improve massively after the quarry where it heads more steeply downhill through old shale tips before joining the Hasty Bank path at the gate.
From here we were heading to Lordstones on the well used lower path we call The Fronts (because it runs along the front of the the three hills, Hasty Bank, Cold Moor and Cringle Moor). This initial section above Broughton Plantation is muddy at the best of times but we were relying on the winter weather to have frozen the mud so we could glide over it - about as stupid an idea as relying on a government. By the time we reached Lordstones, with a sackful of mud each splattered about our persons and hanging off our bikes, one of us was ready for the undertaker, fetch me the body bag and I’ll climb right in. Of course, the sensible option from here would have been to ride straight down the Raisdale Road back to Chop Gate but I didn’t get where I am today by being sensible, after a quick energy bar and a chat with The Pensioner, who randomly appeared on his way to some sort of walking adventure, we were plodding up the old Gliding Club track on the side of Carlton Bank, legs screaming for the granny ring, their stern master denying them, berating them for their feebleness. The drop down to Brian’s Pond came as a relief but before long we embarked on the last climb of the day, Barker’s Ridge, the wind at our backs now, pushing us up - hang on a minute, where’s the wind gone? The buffeting near gale of three hours ago now a gasping zephyr, as much help as Stevie Wonder on a darts team.
Cock Howe came into view marking the start of our last mile of riding, downhill all the way to the car park. Trenett Bank, one of North Yorkshire’s finest and The Bread Lad’s favourite, and there he was knocking out crumpets while we slithered down his favourite track, February muddy today but still rideable all the way for those with the necessary skill and courage, okay, I may have stepped off the bike once or twice but only because I’m a bit of a nancy. The last section through a labyrinth of steep-sided gullies is fast and furious and always fun, until it deposits us, mud-covered but grinning into the car park.
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