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Sunday 29th October 2006, a lovely morning at an amazing 10 degrees with the prospect of a nice day ahead. Terry collected Jason and John and headed north a few miles to hook up with the Reivers again at Longframlington for a ride around the Thrunton Wood area. There was another good turnout - perhaps the Reivers have twigged that local rides bring out more of their less regular members?

Fourteen or so of us kicked off at around 10.10am heading west out the back of the village, then turning north in search of greenery. We found that at the first of many gates we'd have to open (and close!) and also found an incline at the same time. This put us in a field following a very vague bridleway across a soft green pudding with hidden aquatic delights, ready to drench any probing sock with a horrible stale stench of animal toilet. A few members succumbed to its delights, and there was plenty more to come later!

Ride Leader Gavin points the way to Thrunton: And, as has become the norm, here we all are walking the bikes around the wettest bits of Northumberland, yet again: At last we reach what looks like a forest:  Somehow I managed to get up the odd hill in front of a few others to try and catch those memorable grimaces: And a few hours later we hit the northern entrance to Thrunton Woods

This is what we three MidAirCrisis Men were waiting for, but we still didn't know if Gavin was going to take us along our favourite Black Crags for the eminently enjoyable but somewhat rough descent to the river. That's where we ended up, however, and after a very short (too short) lunch stop atop the Crag in superb weather with a fantastic view, we were off to keep ahead of a bunch of hikers (!) and give yours truly the chance to embarrass himself by sailing straight over the bars in a classic "flying W" as the old brain fell out of gear. Never mind, that was at the top, so there was still the ridge and the descent to come. So, ignoring a bulging right knee cap and buggered ankle, the Gollum motored on to pass as many fellow riders as possible. Just what the ReCoil was built for, superb. It's pretty rare that we get this sort of opportunity on a Reivers ride and I just had to maximise it. Apologies to anyone I forced off line on the drop, but you were all stopping and I wasn't.

Here's a set of slightly blurred (my adrenalin rush hadn't settled properly) shots of the end of the descent:

A short while later we were All Stop after Tom's rear derailleur hanger decided to have a fit of the bends which took a good five minutes to fettle, then it was back to the bike pushing contest.

There was one more treat left for us before departing the Evergreens, and that was the lumpity bumpity fireroad from Callaly Crag down the side of Thrunton Crag where we reached our top off-road speed of 31mph, the three of us locking handlebars at one stage as we covered a good stretch touching each other (family show, that's all the info you need). There were, at last, plenty of smiling faces at the end of that stretch. We were now back on tarmac and the thin black ribbon ahead took us down, down, down very quickly through Thrunton hamlet onto the main A697 for half a mile before turning east and then south again to Edlingham. We trio of wannabee downhillers were totally knackered by this last set of road climbs, but Gavin had further punishment to inflict as he took us off-road yet again for another bike walk through Edlingham Woods to Glantlees.

I couldn't get the camera ready quickly enough to catch this colleague emerging from the river - just his acknowledgement to his admiring mates! 1.2MB .wmv vid.

Now then, I'm really disappointed in this 1MB video clip, but I was riding left-hand-only, taking a left hand bend, doing 25 mph, and trying to keep the camera trained to my right on a rampaging BULLOCK! I was gutted when I got home and saw the result, not realising I was direct into the sun, but hey, use your imagination (I do have a whole bunch of witnesses who can confirm the speed of this two-ton bovine super-stud as it chased us across it's field!!! The last gate of the day, and now we were back on tarmac again for the final horrible, although very slight, upslope drag back into the east side of Longframlington and home to nurse the wounds at 5.00pm. Pretty good ride again, shame about the sodden bridleways that caring MTBers and Bridleway Protectors should really avoid.

John's computer said 27.76 miles/4hrs 22mins ride time, mine said 27.77/4hrs 14 and my Garmin Etrex Legend GPS said 27.9/6hrs 11 total time, so I reckon we covered around 28 miles in about 6 hours!

Just a few observations now - the Reivers rule book seems to have gone out the window - no waiting at gates, no more "safety" walkie-talkies, no proper food halts, no "last man gets his breath back" waiting, and a grimly rapid pace up front at times. Still, that's progress, and I'm just an outsider, so ***k me I suppose.