At last we had a full squad of MidAirCrisis Men out together, those being Terry, John, Andy, Jason and Derek. And coincidentally, it also gave us the chance to hold our first full committee meeting of the new Newcastle Mountain Bike Club and discuss a couple of relevant items.

We were too late to get entries in for the official Great North Forest Bike Ride, in aid of the Chris Lucas Trust, but compensated the previous day when Derek and Terry rode with their spouses in the Waggonways to Health ride, and we'll be selling as many of their raffle tickets as we can to raise money for this very worthwhile Cancer support Trust.

We arrived at Whickham Thorns Outdoor Activity Centre well after the last rider had left and started our own ride around 9.50am after a couple of small "interactions" with the very officious car park man and a very small person with a clipboard who asked for our race numbers. When I told him we were freelancing he proceeded to warn us not to take on water at the feed stations, that we weren't insured, and not to feed the children along the way. Prick. I told him about fcuk and we rode out proudly onto the main road.

Now I don't know whether these two cu... cu... cu... , er people just got to me with their stupid "I'm the All Powerful and you'll do what I tell you" attitude, or the fact that Ironman Andy was behind me, but I stretched the group out widely up the first set of climbs without realising it. What they didn't realise was that I was spitting blood and my eyeballs were glazed over with the effort I needed to do it. All I could think about were the previous few year's GNF rides when I was pushing very heavy freeride bikes up here while the other 999 participants, apart from John on his 46 pound Saracen, were on nice light Cross Country metal. This new thing, my DDG Mutha homebuild, just makes it so much easier to climb. And the first couple of miles really is an uphill workout, that's why there's so many bottlenecks if you start with the main bunch as there are literally hundreds of bikes being pushed up here clogging the narrow off-road trail sections.

I dropped to the back for a breather when it levelled out after they all came past calling me stupid for belting away like that. Andy threatened to teach me a lesson over the final 10 kilometres, so I was looking forward to that! The marshalls were still there in place at each checkpoint and we'd gone off at such a rapid pace that we were well amongst the slower riders by the time we reached the first Feed Station at Tanfield Railway. And we didn't accept the water that was offered by the much more normal marshalls doing the real work along the route. Of course, as experienced MTBers, we always carry our own - do you? We'd picked up a bit of mud on this first off-road section outside of Whickham. Naughty Derek ignored the nice policewoman's advice to dismount and walk across the "dangerous" road outside the feeder, but only because he wanted to try out her handcuffs.

John and Terry followed the other three for the next few miles until we were approaching Beamish. There's a lovely muddy, rocky, fast downhill section in the trees here and the Gollum struck again, taking everyone by surprise and mashing through the mudbath into the lead again. It wasn't long before he was in more trouble with officialdom, as a couple of marshalls half way down here shouted "slow down for the runners!". We'd arrived at the one piece of the route that was also being used by another group of athletes, these ones mounted on Nikes with Air Springing. Heh, heh, no match for the MidAirCrisis Mob who just hurtled past them spraying mud in their faces. Luckily, they all disappeared into the grounds of Beamish Museum before they could catch up and spank us with their sandshoes. And we had just as much mud on our faces, more than any other participants after our high speed dashes through the gunge.

The hill outside the Museum is a good stamina tester, and here Andy was on home turf, romping up the hill easily. Derek gave chase followed by Jason and John, with Terry now slightly subdued after the effort of getting down the mudpile safely. About a mile away was the 10 mile mark and the second feed station. It was quite busy when we got there, but we didn't stop. Gollum couldn't stop anyway - the filler plug on his front Hayes HFX 9 brake lever had lost it's top and the fluid was belching out - no idea why. That made the rest of the ride fairly interesting on the fast sections. Just after this the heavens opened. Proper rain, this, not your cissy shower. Golly suggested we all rest under a nearby bridge until it passed over. Great idea, until Andy pointed out that the bridge was in a hollow and there were two dirty great lakes either side of the thing, just daring any passing car to drown us. So we rode on until Derek remembered a nearby barn at the roadside where we could shelter. This bloke's been all over the place, very handy!

We stopped here to take on some nourishment and let the worst of the rain go past. Ten minutes later we were off again, having to re-pass the riders we'd already barged out of the way by brute force. We did this the easy way, downhill over rough ground again when everyone else was being a bit careful. The rain didn't ease and stayed fairly heavy until we'd reached the finish, same as last year. We were now climbing up over Kibblesworth Common when disaster struck the Gollum's Mutha. A front wheel puncture! Now this happened on Thursday night in Gosforth Park, when the tyre came off the rim. All I did then was puff it up again with John's magic hand/foot pump. This time it worked again, and off we went but only for half a mile when it deflated again. John shot off to warn the front runners Andy, Derek and Jason, but when he got to the end of the old railway line they'd disappeared! No doubt having another race up the incline. Sods.

So John and Golly whipped the wheel off and shoved Golly's spare tube in. That's when he noticed the almost total absence of the Stan's No-Tubes latex goo, most of which had been lost in Gosforth Park! Should have topped it up at home, really. Stupid little Gollum. Anyway, all's well and we trundled up the track to the end where the other three were balling "where've ya been man?". Sympathetic blighters. Another slow road road climb from there proved that Andy was indeed keeping his word from his earlier promise as he stayed in front over the run to home. I did manage to dive into the lead again just before we entered the woods at Sunniside and stayed ahead until we hit Whickham Highway. Andy nicked past again and got down Duckpool Lane to finish first, as he said he would.

Dirt Devils

Jason and I did a side-by-side flypast over the Finish Line and skidded straight into the car park. Derek spotted Reivers Ray and stopped for a chat, while John and Andy both got arrested and a good talking to for not having any competitor numbers on. Yep, it was the same little officious maggot who'd encroached on our private space earlier, and he was ignored yet again by these two. Probably went home and kicked his poodle. A lady competitor kindly agreed to take our team photo at the end and once we'd got Jason's frock on we headed for home.

John shows off his Creme Egg bulges while Jay gets changed for the party

Alien vs. Predator How's it look from the back, ladies? Done

John's bike PC said 18.8 miles and we were out for an amazingly short two hours five minutes, way quicker than I've ever completed this testing little route. Subtracting the flat tyre time makes this the fastest ride I've ever done. Thanks for the push gents.

***by the way, the times shown on some photos are 17 minutes slow! A bit like the Gollum...

Keep watching and if you fancy a ride out with us, drop us a line here: bailout@midaircrisis.org.uk