Warm And Wet In North Yorkshire. Terra Trailblazers. July 2021 Round Up And Video.

Video here for those who don’t do words.

Warm and occasionally wet just about sums up July, some heat teasing us with the promise of summer for a few days, then temperatures retreat back to the teens and a full day of rain moistens everything again. The trails I mean, from dry and dusty to slippery and greasy in 24 hours, puddles and mudguards. In July? Global warming allegedly. The Breadlad rejoined the flock, now his back has seen some improvement but he’s taking things cautiously with a few easy rides to break him in gently. Despite being rained off a few days, eighteen rides were managed this month by yours truly, others were less enthusiastic, Rod and SuperBri the top two ride buddies for this month, in fact SuperBri has stormed into the lead in this year’s attendance stakes, with 24 outings, putting The Breadlad into second place with 22 rides, a strong third place is Keith, who has managed 14 rides this year so far, undeterred by the drive down from Sunderland.  

 

 

Another Day Successfully Wasted.

The Breadlad is having another cautious outing, we rode from Great Ayton to Guisborough so he could test it on a few gentle trails. Well, as gentle as Gizzy Woods ever gets anyway. The warm and wet weather has given the vegetation a boost, whole sections of trails have vanished beneath a jungle of greenery - bracken, nettles, thistles and brambles. Not the sort of place to be wearing shorts and short sleeved tops - doh. We still managed to squeeze in a few tracks, finishing with the Brant Gate bridleway around the side of Roseberry Topping, a nice, long, downhill to finish the ride. The mighty Roseberry Topping was busy as usual, people trooping to the summit of the Cleveland Hills’ only peak, as it was described in contemporary news reports detailing its collapse in 1912, owing to mine workings beneath its slopes. Prior to that date, it was a conical mound, standing out from the surrounding countryside, as these old pictures show.

The Gentle Pitter Patter Of Little Tiny Raindrops.

To paraphrase Roy Orbison, “Only the lonely...get to have a bike ride.” And that sums it up. I arrived at a surprisingly quiet Square Corner, the forecast for rain in five hours time must have put the fair-weather adventurers off but it was pleasantly warm when I rode into Silton Woods. A straightforward descent of the downhill track was, well, straightforward, no surprises and it wasn’t long before I was pounding the tarmac toward Kepwick. From the crossroads in Kepwick, I could have turned left and whipped up (hah, maybe some exaggeration there) Kepwick Bank, onto the Drove Road but it would have made the ride way too short, nothing to do with 700 hundred feet of ascent in less than a mile and a half. Turning right, I pedaled through Cowesby and continued to Brickshed Cottage, where I left the road to push and carry up the rocky bridleway, which is ridden downhill as part of the Sutton Bike red route. Most of the track is down to bedrock nowadays and probably comes as a shock to anyone who is only used to the groomed pistes of trail centre red routes. Eventually the angle eases and a steady climb heads up into Boltby Forest, never too steep but it was still a relief to reach the top of the forest and the Hambleton Drove Road. Where it was time to take on some calories, lounging in the sun against a conveniently placed marker stone, chatting to the occasional cyclists or joggers passing by. Back on the bike, I had the mandatory play in the bomb hole - a genuine bomb hole too, apparently, my dad lived in the nearby village of Hawnby during WWII and German bombers would often jettison their loads over the moors after they had failed to find the industrial towns further north east. The local kids would come up onto the tops the following day looking for fragments of bombs and other ordnance, intact bomb flights were a particular favourite, they would be thrown into the air because they whistled on the way back to earth. Simple pleasures with instruments of death and destruction and not a Playstation or XBox in sight. Heading north on the Drove Road, I was soon at the top of the Mad Mile, black clouds were hovering ominously while I chatted to a walker who was wondering how much farther he’d be able to manage before he got wet. No such problem for me - only a mile to go and downhill all the way, steady today though, the broken ribs don’t seem to be broken anymore but I’d rather not find out the hard way. Back at the car, I managed to get the picnic stuffed into my face before the first drops of rain spluttered out of the clouds. It never became too heavy but it put an end to the picnic - and probably signals the end of summer. In the proper British tradition, we mustn't grumble, we’ve probably had about fourteen decent days this year, not consecutively of course, that would be too much to expect.

Pursued By Precipitation.

“Another lonely day, no one here but me-o...” Message In A Bottle. The Police. 1979. I know the feeling. Some people are at work, some on holiday, the rest are just couch-jockeys. Rolf Harris has spent more time babysitting than The Ginger One has biking this year. The forecast is a bit suspect too, which does nothing to tempt people out of the front room; so it’s Great Ayton yet again and heading for Guisborough Woods, working on the theory trees make good umbrellas. Varied the start a bit today though, from Dikes Lane, I rode up the hill to Gribdale, continued on the road and up the even steeper hill at Nab End to get to Percy Cross Rigg. Crossing Codhill Heights toward Highcliffe Nab, the first shower began, taking me from the rear but blew through before it could do any real mischief. On top of Highcliffe Nab, I planned a spot of selfie filming but the wind was doing it’s best to blow me over the edge of the cliff. Lower down, in the sunny intervals, things were pleasant and the forest was quite busy with other bikers and the odd walker, or should I say, occasional, walker. Far be it from me to infer that walkers are odd, although they don’t have bikes, which is strange in itself, going downhill at pretty much the same pace as you went up is bizarre behaviour by any standard. I kept on, knocking off a good number of trails before hunger drove me back to Great Ayton. Deciding to squeeze in one more trail before I headed off, I plunged into the darkness of Homage To The Loamage, using some of Rod’s logic, that it should hold up okay because it is sheltered. After the <<chevRonzz>> incident it was obvious Rod’s logic is somewhat flawed and today was no different, puddles, wet roots, sliding down the trail barely in control - and it’s not even a steep trail, welcome to the British summer. A last climb to Roseberry Common was accompanied by another attempt at raining which blew over before it started properly, then it was all downhill to Great Ayton. Today’s dilemma, butchers or bakers? Cooplands meal deal is hard to beat. No families thronging the riverside today despite it still being relatively dry, all the benches were empty, I chose one under a tree to enjoy my meal deal, the rain came in again, this time meaning business, dog walkers scurrying for cover as rain lashed down like someone emptying buckets from above. My tree did a good job of keeping me dry. 

Clicking on the route names will take you to the Strava page for the route. Where you can marvel at how slow we are.