John and Terry were once more the only ones out on a "normal" ride today as Jason and Andy were up at Newcastleton casing the joint for next weekend's races there which they've entered. We may get a couple of pictures if they took the camera. David decided to do other things, so once again John got to exercise his Coiler.

We set off from terry's place out the back onto the farm roads, taking us down the side of the A19 through Hadrian Park, back up past the Atmel (Siemens) factory then over to Silverlink Business Park, where there's a big bump in the ground. To get down from the top you can do this -

Terry descends first 2.4MB       then John 2.4MB

From there we headed north to Holywell Dene but it was a bit muddy so we didn't hang around. We proceeded west to Dudley, and a bit further to Wideopen where we had a few minutes to banana. Back south past the extensive land workings at Weetslade Colliery - wonder what those little trails are all over the ex- pit heap? From there we moved east emerging on the eastern edge of Gosforth Park, down to West Moor then over to South Gosforth. We took the old Tram Track to Little Benton Farm, the site of Newcastle United's training ground. Perhaps they should spend more time there? Just beyond this we surveyed what is left of the Powder Monkey BMX track in Wallsend after the local council bulldozed it, apparently to stop motorbikes using it. Baskets, it was a great little playground for us normal bikers!