Sunday 10th February 2008 saw a real pea souper descend on Holystone for the start of this "Mystery Tour" led by the Gollum. Amazingly, Mick H, currently enjoying a short break from his normal duties in the cockpit of a Stealth Fighter at an RAF base some way south of Toonsville, managed to find the Cave on his first visit with no directions - shame he wasn't leading this ride with navigational skills like that! (see later). And most of the usual suspects were present - with the very welcome addition of Arthur on the sister Decathlon to Gollum's there was Jason, John, Terry H and Steve W. Strangely missing were Derek, who was duff the day before and taking medication for those mad feet of his, and 24 Hour Race Skipper Steve B, who was laid low with something all weekend, and probably never left his bed.

Anyway, by the time we'd waited 15 minutes to see if Derek did appear it was 9:15 (brilliant, Golly) so off we trolled in search of exercise, adventure, fun and the totally invisible Sun. Terry led out the back of Asda down through the Rising Sun Country Park and over familiar ground through Battle Hill, under the Coast Road and then Gollum took over as we plunged through the Burn the easy, fast way as we had a long way to go!

We headed up to the Tyne Pedestrian Tunnel and bombed through that, but as we reached the top of the escalator, Drama One raised it's head. Now you all know by now how the whole group has been abominably plagued with punctures over the winter. Well, it was time for another. However, there was a twist this time - it was Terry's Fox Shock that had sprung a leak, not his tyres! He had a couple of goes at recharging it with Gollum's shock pump, but to no avail as it just wouldn't extend. I know the feeling.

Turning west on the south side of the river we drifted along the Keelman's Way behind Terry and Jason. Passing the Millennium Bridge instead of crossing over it may have given a hint to some of where we were headed, but probably not, as Golly ushered Terry straight on along the Gateshead side of the Tyne. We climbed to the Gasometer at Teams and back down the hill to Dunston Staithes, and were soon weaving our way along behind the Metro Centre.

Now around here it had been Golly's intention to head directly south and get up towards Whickham Thorns Outdoor Activity Centre where the Gateshead Council-run annual Great North Forest Mountain Bike Ride starts. However, he must have been enjoying the chat and sunshine too much and we ended up at Scotswood Bridge. Never mind, recovery easily possible from here, so he took the lead again and ducked underneath the Swalwell road underpass to correct his error. The rest followed, but so did Drama Two as Jason managed to throw himself down the road, falling from his singlespeed hardnosed hardtail in the very slippery leaf-strewn tunnel. He wasn't too thrilled about being in the wrong place when he found out!

Gollum, keen to put things right and get back on track, headed for Swalwell through the Business Park and found himself alone, waiting for the others to catch up for some minutes. They hadn't fancied his chosen route over broken glass and old prams so had gone another way to get around the obstacles. Eventually we all met up again and proceeded to the foot of the Derwent Walk.

After one wrong turn across the River Derwent, we found a much more suitable path heading in the right direction and followed Terry across a narrow wooden bridge to the foot of a steep muddy bridleway climb. Half way up here it levelled out and we stopped for a much needed rest after the walking few at the back caught up with the mounted leaders. It was here that, amazingly, the Two Terrys simultaneously noticed something strange about John's bike. The Kona Kikapu had the now beaming sun bouncing very brightly off it's fork crown, and this is what attracted their synchronised attention. Not because they like shiny things (although I don't know?) but just how shiny it was. Unusually so. So unusual, in fact, that the thing was definitely back-to-front! Yep, sure enough, John's forks were the wrong way around, and he swore he couldn't tell, and they'd been that way for weeks!!! Now either my calendar is out or today was indeed 1st April.

When the giggles and p/$$ taking finally subsided, we moved on to reach the crest of this man-sized climb, not exactly the one Golly had promised, but a great substitute, and it was off-road. This took us high up onto Gateshead Fell and into Fellside. Before that, however, we found a very pleasant trail junction with a nice sunny clearing to park in for a long-awaited lunch stop. We stayed about 20 minutes when Arthur got set to return home as his deadline had been reached just after midday. That meant he got the sheer pleasure of a wonderful off-road steep descent, bummer! The remaining sextet of us then continued through the housing estate behind Gollum, again sizzling up the banks to the road crossing at Sunniside. We were on track now and the rest was straight forward - just complete the GNF course and return home. Easy Peasy.
 

By now everyone had shed at least one layer of clothes, and Johnny was down to his undies. Next stop Tanfield Railway and a couple more pictures before hitting the trail out towards Beamish via Kibblesworth. The first couple of nice fast singletrack sections passed by serenely and speedily, the only disturbance coming from Jason who, at each junction, told the assembled that Gollum was leading them the wrong way! How dare he. As it turned out, he was right, but only at the third such road crossing. This meant we actually dropped down the super high speed old coal railway line embankment instead of riding up it in the other direction. No big deal, but Golly's attempts to get back on track for beamish failed miserably and we ended up at the Stanley/Tanfield junction south of Sunniside again.

As some compensation for missing the one decent rocky downhill (just as well with Jay on his un-suspended rattler) Gollum took the tribe back along the road to Tanfield Railway and we treat ourselves to the faster reverse-run singletrack back into Sunniside. Nearing the end of it, Jason discovered another lush little section through the trees that spat us out at the traffic lights in the middle of the village where we'd started. We then had to follow Gollum back up the Stanley road a few hundred metres until we could re-join the singletrack back down into Whickham. This was the fastest off-road section of the whole day and unfortunately it vanished behind us far too quickly as all but Jason kicked their Big Rings into life. Back at Whickham Highway we parked up until Terry had visited the nearby garage for water, then Gollum again led the mad blast down Duckpool Lane to Whickham Thorns again. Still flat out we dived through the park where the organised ride starts and finishes, and did the Alpine Descent down to the Metro Centre again underneath the A1. From there it was just a case of cruising the Keelman's Way the way we'd come out, and crossing over the Millennium Bridge, where stupid, ignorant pedestrians abound.

  two innocent lady bystanders take Jay's fancy 

Only thing left to do now was complete Hadrian's Cycleway as far as Royal Quays then head north up through Silverlink, arriving back at Holystone at 3.15pm, still in brilliant, and warm sunshine.

Landmarks more famous than the Angel Jason tries the suicide dive through the middle of Terry and John to get revenge for the Druridge ride and finally, I thought I'd better display the underpass damage to Jason's undercarriage after his mishap in the brown stuff

Quite a pacey ride with John's bike PC declaring just under 45 miles and some fairly tired legs. Terry H had another 8 or 10 miles to add to that by the time he reached Cullercoats, but hey, he can take it.

Just heard from Arthur, he did indeed lap up the downhill run on his way back home after leaving us at Fellside and even had time to participate in some old Chinese liquid customs in the west of town as he passed through!

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