The Curious Tale Of The Christmas Ride

Mountain Bike Ride

The Breadlad, The Ginger One, The Fireman, Rod.

(No young ones - strange that)

18th December 2018 route

“It's Christmas time, and there's no need to be afraid

At Christmas time, we let in light and banish shade

And in our world of plenty, we can spread a smile of joy”

Pinchinthorpe car park in the rain and gloom, if someone really could let in light and banish shade we’d be thrilled, we might even stretch to a smile of joy. A gathering of unique individuals, ready for the annual Terra Trailblazers’ Christmas ride. Uniquely stupid some might say, to turn out in rain and fifty mph winds all for the reward of a festive toastie and a mud-splattered face. 

Next year’s Xmas ride is going to be in July, the weather might, just possibly, be marginally better. Or we could stage a mountain bike nativity, we’ve got the virgin but three wise men might be a bit of a struggle. We haven’t got a carpenter but one or two members say they have wood, normally something to do with cafe waitresses. Joseph and Mary arrive at an inn on their mountain bikes, looking for a room for the night, only to find the inn has been taken over by the R.R.A., the militant branch of the Rambler’s Association, the Rambler’s Reproval Army. They’ve painted a mural on the gable end of the inn, depicting a thirty strong band of ramblers trudging uphill, glaring at a descending mountain biker, beneath the slogan The Struggle Is Real, emblazoned across the bottom of the mural, He Should Have A Bell On That. Their policy: mandatory execution for cycling on footpaths; their weapons, the mighty sword of walking pole, the shield of map-case and the hard stare of disapproval. The last forty metres to the inn is not a bridleway, Joseph and Mary are forced to look elsewhere and stumble into a swingers’ club Christmas party, where Mary is welcomed like an old friend and Joseph begins to have his doubts about the whole virgin birth business. 

Anyway, this bike ride. Six redoubtable cyclists in a wet car park, one soon realising he’d left his wheel skewer in the garage and bailing on the ride, while the remainers were left doubting the veracity of his story and/or admiring his subterfuge. Oz drove off, back to central heating and civilisation, while the rest of us donned waterproofs and pedalled into the forest, eventually arriving at the gate on Roseberry Common, where the art of the drystone wallers provided a handy windbreak, while we decided on a route. The consensus being “let’s get back in the trees.” So we shouldered the bikes and hiked up the steps to Newton Moor, mainly to see if it could get any windier higher up - it could. 

We tacked a zig zag path across the moor, buffeted by a side wind until we reached the top of The Unsuitables, setting off down Black Nab, the wind gradually moved to our rears, not from our rears, as is more usual. We regained the sanctuary of Guisborough Woods and began enjoying a few of the less muddy, off-piste tracks, the usual combination of wet roots, mud and incompetence amalgamating to make us twenty year veterans look like novices. Or maybe we are the living embodiment of “all the gear: no idea.” 

After a relatively small amount of miles but a copious amount of fun and laughter, the cafe was calling and we began to descend using a combination of fire roads and favourite tracks. In the shelter of the conifers it was quite calm, only grey sky, rain and swaying tree trunks reminding us of the weather higher up. One sheltered section of fire road which looked as wet as the previous bits turned out to be a couple of hundred metres of sheet ice, Rod kindly skidded along it on his back, a graphic way of warning the remainder of us to be cautious. 

And then came the highlight of the ride, festive pigs in blankets toasties in the Branch Walkway Cafe, a Christmas concoction of bacon, sausage, stuffing and cranberry sauce, in a toastie. Just the thing after a hard eleven miles in the sort of conditions which would have kept Ray Mears and Bear Grylls confined to their five star hotels in case their make up ran.