Mexican Swine Flu strikes MidAirCrisis!

Yet again numbers for a Sunday outing were, er, not massive. By 8:45 there were two people waiting at the Cave - Ian M and Golly. BY 9:10 there were still two, so off we went to see if we'd got the date wrong.

We arrived at Chris D's at Highfield near Chopwell at 9:25 and there was no-one there either, although we didn't expect to get there with half an hour to wait, such has become the loading ritual at the Cave these days. Eventually, our fears were allayed as first Jeff, then Chris D, then Tim and finally Ride leader Chris K arrived to swell the numbers by 300 percent.

Sky was a mixture of grey threat and blue welcome as we set off behind Chris to get up to the very top of Chopwell Wood as quickly and directly as possible. Oh joy. Somehow it seemed to arrive fairly quickly and after our first tree-wetting session we left the top of the woods bound for Chopwell itself by road. That's a fairly long fast road descent and because I had the Commencal out with Maxxis High Roller Super Tacky 42a tyres fitted, I had to pedal down behind Chris K as fast as I could to keep up with him. So what? Well, he was freewheeling all the way down! The grip would prove valuable later, however.

From the edge of the Wood we started a four file tarmac stretch on B roads, and Chris had indicated that to the best of his knowledge (12 years since he did this ride) there would be 50% tarmaccing. This first leg took us up 350 vertical feet until relief came. Our first chance to escape it came at Cockshot Hill to the west of Hedley on the Hill, where we took to a decently wide dual, and the fun began. This run through Westriding Wood was extremely damp after the recent downpours although there were enough dry stretches between the puddles to allow some decent speed to be built up. We'd got well into it and were covered in mud from head to foot and loving it. Just as the trail turned down a bit more it also turned greener and there were three distinct ruts to aim for. Unfortunately Ian chose the wrong one, and after a very exciting looking broadside slide for about ten metres he finally had to submit to gravity as the BeOne tipped him off. He landed fairly hard, giving his leg a good knock but the mushy state of the ground probably saved extensive damage, as the whole show started at a shade over 25mph!

Chris K paused once or twice as we blazed through Ryehill Wood to check his GPS tracking, and a short while later at Spring House we began the somewhat narrower and very much wetter singletrack over to the road at Broadoack Quarry. Now before all you eagle-eyed trail spotters out there start shouting "you weren't legal" let me tell you that we had it on very good authority from a local that we were going the right way and the funny green signs were wrong. So there. As true as I'm lying here. And when we popped out of it the grins were as wide as Glentress Grins, so bollox to it.

Onward, as Chris then led us into the undergrowth for an unlikely looking bout of tree bashing which turned out to be brilliant aswell! This was a great test through Hepper Hill Park Wood for about a mile and a half before we hit road again at Ebchester with a few tired legs amongst us. Bad time to develop fatigue though, as our next target was straight up a bloody great hill to Leadgate climbing 550 feet!

We spent a very pleasant 15 minutes having lunch in the blazing hot sun in a concrete clearing at the Sewage Works (honest, it was lush and fly-free!) before heading out again looking for a secret entry to some more woodland. We were put off by a couple of "Private Land" signs but just around the corner things got a bit friendlier, so we piled over the locked barrier in search of even more goodies.

And we certainly found them again, thanks to Chris and his insistence on sticking with his trusty Garmin GPS and his pre-programmed route. We did accept one slight variation spotted by the Gollum which presented us with a lovely fern-based slalom into Billingside Plantation's Underworld. Unfortunately it only lasted a few minutes as the trail ran out. We were then forced to get ourselves and the bikes either over, under or through a nasty high barbed wire fence before reaching another dual along the treeline of Billingside Wood.

It was three whole miles before we met tarmac again as we cruised, wandered and at times gushed through Bradley, Pontop and Struther's Woods, one after the other in a blaze of greenery and - mud! Still, it did serve to keep the sunburn away. Along the way there were a few tricky sections over wet tree roots but we hardly saw a soul which prevented any possible rights of access discussions. And we weren't in uniform. Still we weren't done though, with what was to be the final blast of ofroadery up to the A694 at Steelclose Mill still to come. The vote taken there was to just mosey on up the road back to Chris D's and call it a day.

An Irish "Okey Dokey", however, didn't quite mean "the end" as after dragging ourselves up Lintzford Lane, Chris D decided to treat us to one of his secret treats on the edge of Chopwell Woods, his own private forest, lucky ba.... This you'd have to describe as somewhat technical, with a wee bit of pushing half way through but we're used to that on the Thursday nighters, and what a great way to finish the ride, knackered but blissfully happy.

We got back to the cars around 2:00pm after 20.5 miles on Jeff's GPS, and thanks to hiom for the lovely trace, as usual. It hadn't rained and Chris K's threatened 50% road stuff had been a fraction of that, and there's no way I would have expected so much off-roading or especially singletracking out here. So thanks to Chris K for the idea and leadership, and Chris D for his input of a few bits he knew about, and of course Jeff, Ian and Tim for the usual levels of entertainment. And to the Ramblers Association's anti-MTB Rangers who took the day orf.

Here's the route. No pictures as the latest GollyCam (the fifth to die in battle) is expired.