Sunday 16th July and after a frantic early morning of phone calls and texts whizzing in and out of MidAirCrisis HQ, with first John, then Jason, then Andy pulling out for various reasons, only the poor Gollum was left for today's ride. Leaving the cave at Holystone at 9.20am it was a mad dash (legal) west to Allendale, pulling into the pretty village's centre at 1 minute to 10am, the scheduled start time of the ride.
After ride leader Fatboyreiver had gathered everyone on the village green to dictate the rules of the ride, Golly and the eleven Reivers set out up the nearest incline, as is the Reiver's way. This took us up a winding tarmac road past the Fire Station and out onto Hexhamshire Common up Glen Hill. There was a wee bit of walking ahead, and not just for Golly.

  A couple of riders suffered punctures but the weather was just about pleasant enough to lie around waiting for the repairs to be done at 29 degrees. Trouble was there was no shade at either incident, just a punishing overhead sun. Luckily there was a light breeze on the moor tops, otherwise we had to reach a decent speed for a breath of wind to blow some sweat away.

The Gollum was the only one to have his arms covered, and can highly recommend a light coloured Airtex top for heat reflection, such as his 661 Downhill jersey. Also a bonus was the plastic stand-off shield fitted to his Camelbak Rocket, which pulls the centre of the bag away from your spine allowing air to circulate between the shoulder and waist pads, very effective in this sort of heat.
 

The other thing that was effective against the blazing heat was the ice-cold H20 the Gollum was sipping while everyone else's had turned to steam. Looks like the refrigerator boom hasn't hit Morpeth yet. And I suspect that he was also the only one applying Factor 15 during the ride - never mind, when they're old like Golly they'll learn eventually. His water was still cool at the end of the ride. The only supply to suffer was the extra liquid carried in his front fork-mounted water bottle, there because the Barracuda has a stupid frame design that doesn't lend itself to the normal bottle cage attachment. However, as the frame only cost what most riders pay for their footwear and it performs like a Whyte 46, who cares? Depending on the terrain you're covering this is a very workable solution, here's a piccy showing it strapped in place, using two straps borrowed from some old roadie toe clips.

We had a lunch stop around 1.00pm in the wilds, and another one at 2.00pm at Allenheads.

Here's Tom playing, boys will be boys.



More verbal garbage coming soon...

meanwhile, here's the album (4.5MB .wmv video)

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