Andy was on his second weekend shift at work, and MidAirCrisis resident wine taster Jason was indisposed after a Saturday night's wine tasting session, where I believe he was testing Neuchatel Brun '07, which left John and Terry to ride with the Reivers on this fine but cool and windy morning, Sunday 28th January 2007. The Reivers had arranged to meet at Alnwick then travel in convoy to the start, a few miles north of South Charlton on the A1. Six Reivers were there to meet our two brave souls on this occasion.

The ride started roughly on time, just after 10.00am, thanks to Jason's absence, with ride leader Gavin herding us inland through West Linkhall farmstead out towards the woolly wilds of East Northumbria, Land of the Gods. It took about 80 metres for us to get lost, but we were soon on track thanks to some accurate guesswork. The first obstacle looked innocuous enough, a dual track between hawthorn hedges. We reached the end of it half a mile into the ride, and sure enough, it claimed one of the Reivers front tyres as its victim.

Here's the poor unfortunate Reiver, I'll call him Punk 1.

Here's Gavin perusing his map while it looks like somebody's sent for the SAS to help out, or ordered a box of Milk Tray.

While the owner duly set about the repair, the rest of us discussed the merits of various "un-puncturable" solutions. Just to save you searching the Web, I've been doing this for the last few months and the consensus is that ordinary wire-bead tyres (NOT tubeless, or UST) partnered either with Stan's No-Tubes kits or a similar setup called Eclipse are the best to try. I'll be giving it a try after my current theory is proved unworkable - that is, filling my Presta-valved standard tubes with lush green Slime from a standard bike pump. Tricky but it will go in past a standard valve with persistence. You may end up with bright green dots all over your face, walls and floor like I did, but hey, what if it works?

Here's the next rubber fatality - Punk 2, while those men In Black are still cruising around...

A bit further on, we heard the sound of hundreds of hooves galloping behind a ridge high up at the side of the bridleway. The sound got louder and louder, and we were now quite scared, expecting a hail of arrows coming over the brow! When we looked up, we saw that we had been surrounded. We'd ridden straight into a trap!

I had to look twice, so I did. And so can you!

Anyway, on we went, finding decent bridleways for once, not the sodden, six-inch deep ones we've been used to lately. Quite a pleasant surprise, but would it last? Well, yes, sort of. There has obviously been a lot of wet stuff hitting the ground this winter, but it must have started to drain at long last. Once again, however, we were to be heading out over heather and gorse that only giraffe riders should tackle. There were also to be two more punctures, thankfully for different people, and thankfully I wasn't one of them. Here's a sign you don't want to see - the dreaded Banana Moor (unless you're on your giraffe). And it was here that your trusty Editor, the Gollum, almost met his maker. We really had to struggle over very difficult ground, avoiding the bananas, and ultimately we could have avoided this little loop altogether and maybe saved a life, or at least not shortened mine considerably. After mowing the meadow for yonks, with most folk unable to ride at all, we arrived at a spot where Gavin decided we shouldn't have arrived at. Never mind, we could cross this "field" and get back on track. Except that the "field" was a marsh, and the Reivers started lifting their bikes over their heads! Now Golly can't do this with the Barracuda, as although he's got it on a diet, at 33 lbs it still prefers to be rubber-down. And with his scrawny little limbs fast approaching retirement age, it's just a no-no. So when the going gets tough, the Gollums get stuffed! It took me so long to join the others at the lunch stop atop the moor that John had to volunteer to come looking for me, as I was hidden in the undergrowth after trying to find an easier route up.

  Here's Ray searching for a way across the marsh and the group avoiding what Golly has just ridden across while Gavin points "the Hand of Fate" over that way and Golly realises where he has to go when he'd rather investigate a lost golf ball Finally he managed to reach the shelter of this small crag, and plonked down to recover when he was joined by the others for lunch, all but Tom and Gavin who had scurried over the next tract of impassable greenery Look to John's left in this shot and you'll see Gollums heart. It marks the spot we past two hours ago in a massive loop just to get into this jungle. Cheers, Gavin!

 And here's Ray just as we leave the lunch stop, proudly proclaiming he never gets punctures. Half an hour further on, here's Ray becoming Punk 3!!! Further on still, just a mile and a half west of Eglingham, we had to cross the River Breamish at a ford and a bridge. Most of us chose the bridge as the water was flowing fairly quickly. Here's Tom doing it the hard way and here's Derek following, this shot showing his foot as it slipped off the pedal and almost netted us £250 from "You've been Framed"

Here's a duff little vid of Ray starting the crossing 800KB QuickTime mov file

It was now time for a very rare, and very short short spell of relaxation as we zoomed down the B6346 into Eglingham before beloved Ride Leader threw us up a huge tarmac climb onto Eglingham Moor to find another horrible stretch of bridleway, "just to fill out the ride". Yeah. Here's Gavin suffering at his own hand while Tom manages to stay mounted and a last food halt for the troops

Saving grace for this ride was the presence of a couple of high speed single and dual track descents which actually put a smile across the Gollum's facial crevice, probably just enough to be able to declare it a "good ride", and the weather was amazing from midday.

GPS (Gollum's Personal System) said 22.4 miles, max speed 36.5, average 5.8 mph

Moans: have you ever seen a horse rider dismount to open and close a gate? No, you haven't. You see, they don't need to. They just hang off the beasts to do the locks. And that's precisely why the ground at every gate is churned and mashed to Hell. These country twa*s rely on us bikers to come and smooth out the lumps for them, and I'm getting sick of it. Perhaps we should do as the Belgians do and just eat the muts.

Up the Reivers.