I expected the start of this ride to be somewhat confused and I wasn't disappointed. Trying to guess the likely outcome on Saturday night I rang new recruit Mick, another ex-cycle speedway rider from the '60s and '70s to tell him to expect to be picked up from his North Newcastle home "around 9.00 to 9.30am" Sunday morning. Mick had volunteered to accompany us on the Great North Forest Ride as he was actually signed up for it with wife Angie, but she wasn't able to do it due to injury. I'd rang John and asked him to come down from Cramlington to Newcastle for 8.30am. And also Michael and Dave who would meet us at the start around 9.30 aswell. All of this was to try and guess when Jason's plane would get back from Rhodes as he was determined to do this ride after missing the Great Milk Stout Ride at Hamsterley while returning from his stag do in Amsterdam.

John and I had our three bikes loaded by 9.00 and were going to wait for a reply to our texts to Jason. However, when it got to 9.15 we decided to pick up Mick first. We were approaching his place when Jason rang. He'd just arrived home from Newcastle Airport, but now he was on the opposite side of the city! After collecting Mick we retraced our steps to pick up Jason and his bike and on the way got a call from Michael's wife to say he was at the start and where were we! We told him to sit tight. Jason was just about alive when we got to his place after going without sleep for almost 2 days, but he did manage to fill his Camelback and had his bike ready to load. When we reached the event car park in Dunston we got another call, from Dave this time who was now sitting frozen with Michael at the start on a chilly, drizzly, overcast morning.

A few minutes later the four of us had joined them, so six of us started the ride, our biggest turnout for some months. Although this is billed as a "fun" event, new boy Mick found it tough right from the start. He wasn't used to riding up hills (yeah!) and a few minutes later discovered he wasn't used to riding off-road either. Riding uphill AND off-road was a totally alien concept and it wasn't long before we started our morning walk.   Strange people, strange surroundings, strange bike (Barracuda) with strange gears and disc brakes all made this a less than easy task, but he certainly got it wound up on the downhill sections, and by half-way round had just about mastered 27 speed gears after struggling for years on 46-18!

It was a shame about the weather though - this was the first wet, cold GNF ride we'd done and it had to be Mick's first taste of MTBing. Soddy's Law. Anyway, we all got round it with no dramas and amazingly, after recent events, no punctures. The weather didn't lend itself to stopping for a chat, and we'd started the ride AFTER the first bunch of fast lads had RETURNED! Don't know how many of the expected 600-ish riders were put off by the weather, but the organisation, marshalling and signposting were up to the usual very high standard, and as a bonus I got this shot of Mick letting off steam with his mate Thomas as we passed the Tanfield Railway. 

Although this is in the wrong place, here's John trying out Mick's luverly new cycle speedway bike...4MB .wmv vid.

And some pics of the ultimate in bicycle acceleration.