First Ride For A Month.

Mountain Bike Ride.

Trainee#2, Benny The Brawl, Oz, The New Bob.

19th September route

I’m finding it hard to believe myself but this will be my first mountain bike ride since the 19th of August, mainly owing to lounging on a beach by the Black Sea or lounging in a control room to facilitate the social lives of my colleagues. We managed a reasonable size crew for a change, as well as the regulars, Oz and Benny The Brawl, Trainee#2 has reappeared and we’ve found ourselves a new kid, who shares the same name as the legend that was The Pensioner, so he had immediately became The New Bob. We met in the car park at Pinchinthorpe, the mainly empty car park at Pinchinthorpe, it looks as though the revenue raising idea of tripling the car park fee hasn’t been quite the money spinner it may have seemed to whatever bunch of paper-shuffling desk-jockeys dreamt it up. Geese, golden eggs and so on and so forth.

Benny The Brawl being the one who lives the closest naturally arrived late, somehow managing to divert himself through the centre of Guisborough, for future reference, the clue is in the words Guisborough bypass. His shiny new bike was admired by all before we eventually pedalled away from the car park and embarked on the fire road climbs which lead to the good stuff. We had a fairly standard slog, making our way to Roseberry Common and introducing The New Bob to the concept of hauling his bike up the steps to Newton Moor. Regrouping at the top, we basked in the unaccustomed feel of sun on our bodies, it seems like September is not panning out into the indian summer everyone hoped for but we couldn’t complain about today. Glad to be finally on relatively level ground we had pleasant pedal along the moor and around the Lonsdale Bowl, before the gentle climb up Percy Cross Rigg and down the the other side to The Unsuitables, four fifths of our quintet eager for some challenges of a more technical nature. Benny, realising we were about to embark on The Secret Path became most vocal in his displeasure, heaping opprobrium on one of Guisborough’s most popular routes, which, let’s face it, is hardly a tester, not particularly steep with a scattering of rocks and roots, every bit rollable for those of a nervous disposition. Definitely not the abhorrent (his very word) waste of land Benny made it out to be.

Some time later we reached the fire road, ceasing the vituperation from the back - for a while at least. A brief but sharply uphill pedal saw us regrouping beneath Highcliffe Nab, ready for the singletrack leading to the Lover’s Ledge area. This turned out to be a little muddy but still rideable, a couple of jumps and berms thrown in for good measure, continuing along the open hillside, the track is much improved since the trees were felled, we took a right turn onto the track we call Rod’s Ridge and followed it downward. Benny was blooded here, finding out the hard way bare skin and prickly bushes are the quickest to becoming Mammy’s Little Soldier. From here, a gruesome fire road ascent took us back into the forest, perversely Benny seems to enjoy these more than the downhills, more fire road took us to our penultimate trail of the ride, Les’s 3, more amenable than Les’s 1 and 2, just follow the groove to the bottom. It became apparent that all the cycling talent in Redcar has been usurped by Danny Hart because like Benny’s home town predecessor, The Captain, the concept of riding a bike down a hill does not seem to be in the realms of possibility. We waited at the bottom, on the verge of sending a search party back up the trail to see if Benny might have been abducted by aliens and probed for any signs of intelligent life when he appeared, apparently having taken the opportunity for another impromptu trackside lie down but actually on his bike, which is a major improvement since a month ago when he walked down the same track.

A mainly fire road blast took us back to the Branch Walkway Cafe for suitable refreshments following a gruelling almost twelve miles, The New Bob has yet to master the inter-word swearing and general misanthropy of the old Bob but I’m sure we can train him.

August Round Up And Video

August Round Up And Video

Video click here.

Apparently August is now the second wettest month in Britain, we could easily believe that evidenced by the amount of drenchings this month, the incipient hypothermia came as a bit of a shock though. The summer couldn’t even manage to be warm and wet, some days temperatures could only just manage double figures. Naturally, it didn’t stop us riding, culminating with The Worst Day Of Ben’s Life, most other rides this month were unremarkable and went unblogged, the highlight being finding a dead adder on the road to Danby Beacon.

We did take in Whorlton Castle one day, allegedly one of the most haunted places in Britain but we remained unmolested by denizens of the netherworld. Although the place does look as though it has been visited by denizens of the knobhead world. Another day saw a visit to The Yorkshire Cycle Hub, on the verge of opening, it is well and truly open by now, it looks like a good set up and we wish them well. More cafes can never be a bad thing.

Here’s hoping for an Indian summer.

The Worst Day Of Ben's Life.

Mountain Bike Ride.

Oz, The Youth, Benny The Brawl.

12th August route.

Obviously it didn't begin as the worst day of Ben's life, in fact it began quite well, he managed to find Birk Brow carpark and meet the rest of us. The usual downhill blast with the Whitby bound traffic took us to a quieter road to Moorsholm and that is normally the worst part over. After crossing the Moor Road, a farm road took us alongside Freeborough Hill, the curious hump of soil which, according to legend, holds King Arthur and his Knights ready to arise in a time of dire need. We were not (yet) in dire need, so we pressed on to Dimmingdale Farm, passing through the farmyard, pausing to give the friendly dog a stroke, before heading through the gate and over Middle Heads towards Three Howes Rigg. Parts of this track do have a tendency toward the moist end of firm and this being the most mediocre attempt at a summer since, well, 2016, moist may be a bit of an understatement. This brought out all of Benny's OCD, imagining the water dampening his tootsie's was host to the sort of faecal bacteria which wipes out whole populations.

After a lot of chuntering, we eventually reached Robin Hood’s Butts and had an almost pleasant, wind-driven pedal through the puddles, a bit of tarmac and short paved trod later and we were passing Clitherbeck Farm on the bridleway which was surprisingly firm today. More tarmac led us to Danby Beacon, where took a breather before heading down the rutted 4x4 track to Oakley Walls, with the odd pause to wait for Benny The Brawl to catch up, although how he could become so far behind on a downhill track is a mystery. Unfortunately, the rain caught us up faster than Benny could manage, a bit of futile sheltering in a grouse butt happened until the rain passed.

From the end of the 4x4 track we reversed our route to Clitherbeck and back to Robin Hood’s Butts, this time into the wind, at which point proper rain appeared, some celestial joker flinging buckets of water on us as we battled along the track. Half way along it became apparent that Ben was so far behind Marty McFly’s De Lorean would struggle to find him. I stopped to wait, the other two, Oz and The Youth, pedalled past, quite happy to leave Ben to the elements; gradually a picture of utter dejection appeared, pedaling into the wind and rain, water streaming down his body and he had somehow been afflicted with a water-borne strain of Tourettes. I didn’t have the heart to tell him this was merely a qualifier for the Quaker’s Causeway. We found the other two sheltering in the Shaun The Sheep bus stop, doing the opposite of a rain dance, which appears to be standing very still, staring sullenly at the rain and morosely chewing energy bars.

We convinced ourselves the rain was easing and rode toward the Quaker’s Causeway, cloud and mist now descending to meet the road, I took out my phone and checked the calendar - yep, definitely August. At the start of the causeway, half of our merry band, again disappeared into the distance while I took on the duty of care. Some time later Ben appeared out of the mist, wet and despondent, his enthusiasm for the thousand year old paved pathway across the moors somewhat waned since we discussed in the comfort of the control room. We forged onward, through the mist and drizzle, the best way to tackle the causeway is with aplomb, momentum and full suspension are your friends, Ben had neither and I had to backtrack several times to make sure he hadn’t been swallowed by a bog or abducted by aliens. Apparently, in Ben’s opinion, our situation was similar to hobbits being led through the Dead Marshes of Middle Earth by Gollum; I guess that makes me Gollum. The hobbits, unlike Ben, did not have Tourettes, his has entered an acute phase by now, everything was shit, or sometimes shite and then it became the worst day of his life so far.

“There can’t be anything worse than this.”

“There must be worse things than this.”

“I can’t think of any.”

“What about being murdered? That must be worse.”

“Umm, I don’t know. I’d quite like someone to come and smash my head in with a rock right now.”

Is this really the country that gave us Scott, Livingstone and Ray Mears? We reached the car park on the verge of hypothermia, that may not be quite the exaggeration you imagine. It’s August for God’s sake, the glorious twelfth, in fact. Oh, it was glorious.

July Round Up and Video

July 2017 Round Up and Video.

Video here

Despite the exhortations of the tabloid press, summer did not begin in July, in fact it may have rained more days in July than stayed dry, it certainly felt like it. By the end of the month we were in danger of becoming some sort of cult club whose main attractions are a reckless combination of amphibious masochism, viewing days where shoes did not requiring pouring out at the end of the ride as a bonus. Many of the less well-surfaced trails are in the kind of condition normally reserved for late November. Some of us still managed the thick end of 300 miles, dedication or stupidity?

Benny Does Bilsdale.

Mountain Bike Ride

Benny The Brawl, The Youth, Oz.

25th July 2017 route

The totem of television standing high on Bilsdale West Moor, visible from miles around especially at night owing to the red lights running vertically up it’s length, supplier of the modern opium of the masses, worshipped by generation - TV, Bilsdale mast, 1,030 ft high, scraping the clouds. Benny The Brawl expressed a desire to be in close proximity to the Teesside icon, we warned him it was a brutal climb. Today he would find out what a proper climb feels like.

We began at Chop Gate village hall car park on another typical July day, drizzling slightly, grey clouds blanketing the hilltops but too warm for a coat. Almost a huge team today - a whole four of us. Some speedy tarmac gave everyone a false feeling of athleticism; this did not last, we turned off onto the private road, passing a farmer spreading a huge pile of ordure over a field, the smell was all pervasive, not unlike some people’s lockers at work. The road rises gradually, peaking at a hairpin bend of about 18% gradient, then relenting to a mere 15% for half a mile or so before becoming shallower to the summit, 1.3 miles in total. My legs felt every inch of those 1.3 miles, Benny did a good impression of The Captain, someone who probably stopped riding before he was born - there are those who wonder if The Captain actually started, such was his ponderous pace. Benny joined us at the top, faint and nauseous apparently, looking decidedly unimpressed by the mast, while we reminded him it had been his idea in the first place. The top of the mast lost in cloud, various antennae and dishes work their way up it’s height, cables the width of forearms act as guy ropes, keeping the all important Jeremy Kyle and Loose Women beaming out to the sort of sluggards who see nothing awry with watching television during the day instead of tempting cardiac arrest riding a pushbike up a hill like normal human beings.

A wide track, newly resurface took us across the moor to Cock Howe where our first downhill section awaited, Barker's Ridge always more welcoming in the friendly gravity direction. We regrouped at Brian’s Pond, Benny remarking on the inclement conditions, meaning damp tracks and the odd puddle, God knows how he’ll manage in December. Probably shave his vagina and take up road riding.

A steady slog over Carlton Bank was followed by a rapid descent of the old gliding club access track, the gate at the bottom provides a NSP (Natural Stopping Point) for us to regroup again, ready for the two hundred metres or so to Lordstone’s cafe. Seconds later we were sat at a table wondering how difficult it would be for our firm to find a new apprentice, as, somehow, Benny The Brawl had managed to become Benny The Missing. A quick scout along the road failed to spot him, a plan was formed as we waited for our food - we couldn’t be expected to search on an empty stomach - which mainly consisted of me riding back to Chop Gate for the car and then scouring the road between Carlton and Chop Gate in the hope of spotting a disoriented youth, while the other two ‘waited’ in case he returned. Just as leg was swinging over  crossbar, in strolled Benny, none the worse for his time alone in the wilds of North Yorkshire, evidently so excited by the thought of a bit of downhill tarmac he’d failed to see us turn off into the cafe.