The St Valentine's Day Massager

Amazingly there were NINE riders willing to give up their Lurv Duty today, Sunday 14th February 2010, meeting at the Cave around 0900.

Go West - again!

Just like last Sunday Hexham was the target but Terry K had something a bit special in store for his riding pals this time. Chris D was waiting at the Riverside car park for the arrival of Francis, Chris K, Matt, Steven Wa, Tim, Jason, Peter and Terry and we were ready to ride at ten. Or we would have been except for Chris the Elder (K) deciding that his posh Hope headset could do with a slight tweak. The slight tweak resulted in one snapped adjuster bolt and a short delay while we all formed a human pyramid on top of his stem to hold it down while he tightened the stem bolts! (semi-successful).

Once again the golf course and Bridge End singletracks provided the initial entertainment before Terry took the wrong route up to the A69 to begin a climb that would consume the whole morning. This had us heading north to Low Gate (ha! which idiot named this place?) up some decent inclines which proved fairly energy-sapping given the ground conditions off-road.

Let's try that.

The aforementioned inclines led us first along a few hundred metres of the dreaded A69 before correcting that particular error at Coastley, where the landscape brought back some memories and reduced the need to rely on the maps. From the ford it was a 350 vertical foot climb to the Low gate junction but it felt more like metres (no, I exaggerate, yards). Steven had his map out here before Terry caught up, and suggested leaving the upcoming Cushalt Lane bridleway intact instead of hitting the ghastly, dangerous B6305 half way along it, so we decided to do the whole thing. We didn't know how difficult that would be until we reached it and started the steady upward pull.

It was extremely wet and boggy, and really if we can remember will make a brilliant singletrack descent in the other direction, wet or dry. Relief came once we'd crossed the 6305 to part two which was much kinder tarmac, although it pains me to say that. There were already some tired legs amongst us by now, so it was good to complete this section and take a short breather while Jason took that giant front wheel out of his Trek 69er, dunno why.

And they're off!

We were now on the skinny tarmac ribbon on the northern edge of Hexham Racecourse, and Terry was promising some payback after Steven pointed out we'd just done 4 miles of uninterrupted climbing! A nice, gentle, freewheeling drop had us turning off the black stuff and onto the Racecourse Bridleway, and after another mudplugging session we arrived at the edge of the course for a photo opportunity.

After pointing the way down it was time to plunder whatever gravity could provide as we headed south for the Woods and Grin Time. Unfortunately, anticipated descent speed was cut to about fifty percent as we struggled to maintain our momentum on the heavy, muddy grass, but at least we didn't have to fight the slope any more.

I've been shot!

We didn't have much of a breather after we'd gone through the gate at the bottom of the meadow, with Matt immediately vanishing onto the super singletrack through the trees. The rest took off in hot pursuit as payback beckoned. However, we'd only travelled a few hundred metres in when a shot rang out -very short, very sharp and very loud. When Terry who'd been last to leave the gate arrived on the scene, there were the others, standing around looking somewhat dazed. Christopher Columbus, surely there wasn't someone in here letting off small arms live rounds?

Fortunately, no. However, what we could see was Steven standing next to his Trek, staring down at the rear wheel, and a nearby tree to his left splattered with bright green paint. So had he just ridden through a paintballing shootout and got caught in the crossfire? Well actually, no. But he had burst his back tyre big style, and it just happened to be carrying a Slime tube inside itself, the contents of which had now Picasso'd the landscape. But this was no ordinary puncture. I've never heard one go off quite as loudly as this before, and it had blown not one, but two four-inch rips in the sidewall of the tyre, about eight inches apart and on opposite sides of the wheel. Amazing, unbelievable.

No sweat.

Time for MidAirCrisis Madness to produce one of its famous ad-hoc fixes, so the greatest brains in MTBdom got straight down to it, leaping into action and descending on the stricken Trek. Cries of "you'll never fix that" were given the respect they deserved as bits of metal, plastic and rubber were dug out of every Camelback this side of the Suez Canal. With the repair going full speed ahead, it was halted by Tim, who suggested swapping the duff tyre onto the front of the bike Looking round at the wise old faces now homing in on him, he surely expected a tirade of abuse, but got exactly the opposite as his plan was immediately put into action with universal agreement. Nice one, Professor!

Two inner tubes, two toothpaste tubes and thirty five cable ties later the Trek was rolling along again as we tackled the claggy but enjoyable wall ride along to the road, which seemed to take an eternity and just about finished off the morning's energy store for many of us. Terry decided the river would be a nice place for our lunch break and zoomed down to the nearby bridge, hopping the wall and settling down for a bite and a snooze. The others weren't far behind once they'd realised he was staying put.

After bait and a short discussion on which direction we were taking we climbed the short bank again and headed straight back into the woods the way we'd come. This was supposed to be the downriver downslope but was just as neutral as it was in the opposite direction - up and down all the way. The front runners took a break at the meadow gate to await the regrouping, then Terry pointed not up to the Racecourse again, but east into the other end of the woods, warning of possible dodgy drops ahead as he'd tackled them 4 or 5 years ago. A passing foursome of locals confirmed this and also gave us a bog warning and advised us to cross the river at the little bridge rather than proceed straight through.

Crunch!

Off we went again slogging up the remainder of the climb but not far before it definitely started going downward, and how. This section of trail presented a rocky gully with a very narrow cut in the bottom containing some hefty boulders. At last something to get our teeth into. Everyone seemed to relish this and most were gone out of sight when Terry at the back came across Tim, crouching by the trail side with his arms folded, and not looking too clever. I mean not looking too good. He'd pushed the Mongoose over a high root step but probably too slowly, and paid the price as his front wheel buried itself in the hole with the inevitable result of a forced dismount. Unfortunately, on his way off the bike, Tim's saddle had clattered into his ribs, reviving an old Scottish trail war wound. It looked really sore.

He was ready to resume after a couple of minutes and the obligatory crime scene photos, so we continued over the rest of the root and rock infested drop to join the others waiting at the concrete bridge. Activity there centred on washing the bikes in the stream and adding a couple more cable ties to Steven's bursts, just to be on the safe side. Then we crossed the stream and half rode, half pushed up the steep rocky bridleway on the other side until we emerged on tarmac again for the run back into Hexham.

Ride Wild, Ride Free!

While that local bunch I mentioned had indeed put us off doing the finishing section of this footpa er, I mean bridleway we weren't quite ready to head home yet. Popping out of the woods onto tarmac, Terry was off up the first hill when Tim asked him where his Camelbak was. Certainly not on his back where it should have been, Bummer! He'd obviously left it in the leaves while fishing out those last cable ties for Steven. So he did an about turn and began pedalling back down the hill furiously to retrieve it. He didn't get very far, however, when that famous MidAirCrisis group shout went up - and looking back up the hill, there was Tim with the Camelbak dangling from his hand and above it a grin the size of Tynemouth. The bu@@er!

Reaching the top of the hill for the second time, and from out of the blue, Terry produced another sheet from his map collection and within ten minutes we were galloping off into more woodland pausing only for Steven to inject a bit of air into his rear tyre.

This section turned out to be totally unexpected in terms of the treats it offered with plenty of wiggly singletrack which ultimately led us on to some great downhill runs and then some freeride stuff including tabletops, berms and even a couple of log jumps which Matt and Terry decided to take on, just evading damage on the very greasy surfaces. Only the final stint back into the south side of Hexham to finish now, and we got back to the cars at 1500 with something less than 17 miles on the clock but feeling like a whole lot more.

pix here and a bite here and a bit here (ignore the rider, take in the scenery!)