Another Before Work Quicky - For One Of Us.
The bitter weather is continuing, roads closed owing to drifting snow, windchill colder than a Tory’s heart and sheets of ice still blanket roads and paths like the sugar coating on a Krispy Kreme doughnut. If the sugar coating tasted of salt and dog shit. According to the questionable veracity of my phone, it is minus fourteen celsius when wind chill is taken into account. The silence from the global warming faction is deafening, the government is probably thinking of ditching the emissions taxes and looking for ways to tax sledges and de-icer. Another local ride for us, me and La Mujerita, a quick scout about before she goes for a late shift at something called work; a dim and distant memory for me. She works in a residential home for children with challenging behaviour, which was similar to my employment, except they weren’t legally children and they didn’t live there, although some of them would have liked to. Other than that pretty close, especially the apprentices who scraped in during my latter years, whose concept of self-reliance didn’t really extend far beyond putting their phones away when a manager came in the room. Looks like I’ve digressed a bit again, whoops. Back to the ride, one good thing about the freezing weather, it has thinned out the number of pedestrians and dog walkers meandering across the paths. We rode alongside the A19 to Newport and over the bridge, dropping down the ramp - a lot more cautiously than usual, to pick up the cyclepath on the south side of the river, making our way along to the Tees Barrage. Beyond the barrage, the path follows a network of frozen canals leading to and from the river, unfenced canals, iced up paths, a You’ve Been Framed moment waiting to happen, further cautious riding required, I don’t need £250 that badly. We crossed Victoria Bridge to make our way back along the opposite side of the river, stopping to have a gander at the swans, which in the curious world of ornithological collective nouns might be described as a gaggle, bank, bevy, whiteness, herd, eyrar or gargle of swans but never a wedge unless the group is flying. Realising we hadn’t brought bread, they soon lost interest in us and continued drifting serenely, waiting for someone more generous in the sliced white department. We refrained from mentioning they can break a man’s arm with their wings, which seems to be the only fact everyone knows about swans, that and you can’t eat them unless the Queen has a bite first or something. I wonder if swans ever look at humans and think, “I bet I could break his arm...” Maybe they have a local league table and the one who breaks the most arms gets to be King Swan until they are overtaken by an ex-special forces swan, trained to break a man’s arm by countless devious methods. Arms thankfully intact, we continued along the riverside, the usual audience of smackheads and winos absent from the picnic tables, too cold even for them. More icy riding took us back to Newport Bridge, from where a convoluted route of pedestrian crossings led us under the A19 to pick up the cycle track on the western side and a steady ride back to Billingham.
Snow Drifts Or Dancing On Ice?
Following a weekend of sub-zero temperatures and gale force winds, snow has drifted over many roads, rendering them impassable, even to 4x4 drivers. However, some roads are still open, the sun is out, the sky is blue, there’s not a cloud to spoil the view and it’s not raining in my heart (not yet anyway) because me and my new baby are getting out in the countryside for her maiden moors voyage; leaving behind the tedium of red tarmac, intransigent dog-walkers and surly road bikers. The Breadlad is beginning an extended break from work, his usual shaken not stirred, eating caviar from the bellybutton of a naked supermodel, jet setting lifestyle curtailed by an invisible virus, so he was thrilled to be switching the pistes of the Canadian Rockies for the equally cold and wet snow of North Yorkshire. Just to ensure we actually pedalled a few miles, we rode from Great Ayton to Kildale before heading up to the moors via The Yellowbrick Road. The verges of the roads were piled high with rapidly melting snow, seeing as today the temperature is scraping into double figures. The Yellowbrick Road is the ideal place to try my new 52 tooth rear cassette and after The Breadlad had finished using the facilities, (does a bear shit in the woods? Not as much as The Breadlad.) the attempt was on. Short lived attempt. Extra teeth on the back cog don’t conquer ice and snow and it was not long before pedestrianism reared its ugly head. We made it to the top and continued along Percy Cross Rigg, the tarmac section to the gate onto the moor curiously devoid of snow despite the extra height. From the gate to the Unsuitables was a different story, a tale of water, slush and snow stickier than the pages of the magazines we used to find in the bushes near the bus shelter. Climbing up to the wartime building was a struggle, the descent worse, short sections were rideable but mainly we were stymied by snow, deep but not crisp or even, usually with a side order of water running beneath it. Finding it hard to believe we’d had to push and carry most of a downhill track, we arrived at the top of The Unsuitables, encountering two equally bemused cyclists, who had travelled up in the opposite direction. From them, it transpired, our options were “snow drifts or dancing on ice”, the ice bit being a descent of The Unsuitables or a bash through the drifts on the top track. We opted for the drifts, it wasn’t easy but it did lessen the chances of an unscheduled strain on the NHS in the form of an old bloke who should have known better. Newton Moor was a little better and we managed to pedal most of the way to Fingerbender Bank, or Fingerbender Force as we have renamed it for today, as every bit of water in North Yorkshire appears to be pouring down it. The gullies are rapids and the drop offs have become waterfalls, it didn’t stop us splashing down it like an afternoon at Wet And Wild. From here we descended to the road at Gribdale and carried on back to Great Ayton, pausing only at the butchers to reimburse our calorie expenditure.
At Least Me Feet Stayed Dry.
The following day, lesson learnt, our efforts were mainly tarmac based, although some off road had to be included, just to ensure we’d had a proper ride. Me and SuperBri rode to Ingleby Greenhow, from Great Ayton - I’ll be paying council tax if I visit that place any more often. We continued up towards Clay Bank, roads awash with melting snow but thankfully the ice seems to have gone. Turning off into Greenhow Plantation, we began removing layers, the ambient temperature has improved by again. Soggy fire roads through the trees took us to Bank Foot farm, the fire roads are so soaked with water it is like riding over a damp carpet, sucking the tyres down, making what is usually a pleasant blast into hard work. At Bank Foot, we turned right at The Grim Sheaper and powered up the hill towards Turkey Nab, my 52 tooth SRAM Eagle cassette being tested for the first time. Disappointingly, ascending wasn’t that much easier, the larger chainring on the front and the draggy track almost cancelling out the benefit. At the gate we headed into the woods to check out the trail called Borrowed Time, a green graded run we originally found on Trailforks. The start has suffered from some tree felling but we pressed on hoping it would improve, which it did but only in small sections before vanishing completely in an imbroglio of wood cuttings and undergrowth towards the end. It goes without saying we weren’t lost, only temporarily misplaced, especially when we came to a roaring stream I’ve never seen in my life. Unlike Hansel and Gretel, we managed to find our way out of the forest without a cannibalistic witch trying to get her teeth into our flesh (sounds remarkably like a night out in Darlington) and rode without incident back to Great Ayton.
Watch Out For Overhanging Branches.
Third day on the trot, we gave the village of Swainby the benefit of our company for a change, rather longer than we would have liked, as we waited for The Breadlad to enter the same time zone as the rest of the UK. Most of the rides from Swainby begin with ascending the steps in Clain Wood, why should this one be any different? Well, it was slightly different only in that The Breadlad didn’t stop at the top to lay his usual cable, maybe a touch of constipation or perhaps more to do with the group of lady ramblers enjoying the view from the seats. Luckily for them today’s vista didn’t include a squatting crumpet maker. On to Sheepwash, across the ford and up the newly graded (ruined) track; it did yield first ever ascents for all of us though, pedalling the whole way. Along High Lane to the road and continuing to SiIton Woods, where we rode sodden fire roads and the top section of the downhill track, which wasn’t in too bad a condition, before retracing our tyre tracks to High Lane. A few of Rod’s tracks came next, dropping down through the woods to Cote Ghyll, some of his best efforts have been destroyed by tree felling, even the infamous gorse bush alley has suffered. From Cote Ghyll, a couple of miles climbing on tarmac brought us to Arnecliffe Wood, where we rode around the edge of the trees to Scarth Wood Moor. Concentrating on negotiating a patch of snow, I almost failed to see an overhanging branch, the last minute duck was enough to save my Hollywood heartthrob good looks but it caught my bag leaving me briefly hanging while the bike continued riderless along the trail, before dropping me, still in the seated position, into a puddle. The only concern of my companions was that the whole sorry incident hadn’t been captured for posterity. So, with laughter-induced rib-cramp (them) and a wet arse (me), we rode down the paved bridleway crossing Scarth Wood Moor, especially good with today’s tail wind. Reaching the road at Scarth Nick, we decided to explore a track we had spotted earlier in the day, running through some scant woodland at the side of the road. What a piece of serendipity, even in its present winter condition it was a superb bit of track, running parallel to the tarmac, an off-road alternative to the steep bends of Sneck Yate Bank. Twenty odd years I’ve been riding past this spot and never noticed it before. What a finish to a ride.
Dicking About In The Mud.
A slightly iffy weather forecast saw us flinging four quid in Redcar council’s direction for the privilege of parking at Pinchinthorpe Visitor Centre, ready for a scrounge about in Guisborough Woods. Predictably, it was raining lightly when we first arrived, so The Breadlad waited until it had ceased before joining us, ensuring we wouldn’t have to ride in rain; his kindness and forethought are unlimited, the bread factory’s loss is our gain. Our route consisted of riding up fire roads soggier than the Spongebob’s square pants, the only exclamations between the panting being;
“By it’s draggy”
“Does my back tyre look flat?”
“This is hard work.”
“Is it time for the cafe yet?”
What goes up must come down, usually slithering in muddy ruts which are decent trails in the summer. A few of the higher trails were still filled with (deep) snow, as we found to our cost but generally the lower we went the better things were. The weather turned out surprisingly good, apart from the gale force wind and a grand day was had by all - if sliding about in mud and wading through knee deep snow drifts is your idea of a grand day. It was a brief route, low on miles but big on smiles, with a disproportionate amount of ascent, so pretty standard for a Guisborough ride out. And the cherry on the top? The cafe is open, takeaway only, of course, apparently there's a virus or something going round, so we have to sit in a field to eat our food, which is no hardship really, looking at the state of us, wet and mud-covered we shouldn’t be allowed indoors anyway.
As usual the route names are the Strava names. Strava pseudonym Lordy Lardy.
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