The morning of 16th December 2007 started with a text from Terry H to the Gollum at ten to nine to tell him Terry and his pal Dave would meet him at Thrunton, rather than collecting at the Cave. Just after that, Golly was outside hooking the trailer up to the GollyMobile in the faint hope there'd be more than one bike to carry after last Sunday's total drop-out by the regulars, when a big black automobile screeched to a halt outside. Inside that was the first surprise - our Ian F!  Just after that, Golly saw another new attendee arrive down the road at the Wheatsheaf and turn onto the Great Lime Road, so he leapt on the CoilAir and galloped off to catch him, failing miserably. He was turning back home when the car returned and Golly flagged the driver down - welcome Steve W for his first taste of MidAirCrisis thrill seeking, courtesy of the NMBC web site.

Now in this strange world where the locals can't be dug out of their hibernation holes for Sunday morning rides, how on earth can it happen that three others turn up out of the blue with a bit of distance behind them? Steve, admittedly, had only come from Whitley Bay, but he'd had to make a reasonable effort when he could have stayed in bed or got up and watched X Factor repeat number 23. Then Young Ian (sorry, Old Ian!) landed from YORK, of all places. And due to meet us up the road at Thrunton, Dave had just blown in from CANADA! So c'mon, you lazy locals, get it on!

We all met as arranged and after a short discussion left the cars at the top (according to Terry) car park or bottom (according to Gollum) and began the ride around 10.20 am in the cool frost. The ground was rock hard and the top half inch of the puddles frozen stiff. They sounded great when we broke through them and remarkably suffered no punctures as a  result of this insanely childish behaviour. Terry slightly reluctantly agreed to start the ride on Golly's favoured route which would take us down the extremely enjoyable, potentially life-threatening downhill gully off Black Crags, so we weaved our way up and around the south west edge of the Woods to get the blood moving.

Oh, I forgot to mention both Dave and Steve were on - you guessed it - Specialized bikes! Dave's an eminently capable Enduro Expert full susser, and Steve's a Hardrock hardtail. Terry was on his new Fusion Floyd, Ian on his Orange Mr XC and Golly on the plush Coiler. We stopped once or twice on the way to the top of the descent with Terry pulling us up there reasonably gently. That meant at least the Gollum still had a bit of energy left which he was to use up deflecting rocks as his puny little body was dumped off the Kona not once, twice of thrice, but FOUR TIMES on the way down! Ian and Dave also bit the dust (well, ice powder) but the Fusion got Terry down very rapidly without incident, as far as I could see while trying to catch him.

new boys Dave and Steve

We had another little rest at the foot of the main drop where it was generally agreed by the three that had done this before that the gully was now cut very savagely and much trickier than it used to be. Terry and Dave put it down to natural erosion but Gollum professed that Enduro motorbikes may have had a hand in it aswell. Whatever the reason, it's a pretty good technical challenge, and you should have a go yourself some time. If you ever get your bike out, of course.

Steve, risking his life but still grinning!

We then followed Terry and Dave down the original "downhill" drop to the stream below, and this was another stretch where Golly tipped himself off again. It was super fast but pretty difficult to slow down on with the steep, wet, rooty and now icy surfaces to contend with. Great fun and this was turning into a brilliant little ride already. It was fireroad climb time after crossing the little wooden bridge but only until Terry dived off to the left onto yet another singletrack drop which would take us up the sandy, ice-covered path towards the far end of the Crags. This is as far as the ever-grinning Steve could go today as he had an appointment at a certain rugby ground in the early afternoon. They won 39-0 so I guess he was glad to take his son to that one. Soon after, Ian had time to dump himself off again at a small stream gully then we faced the climb north over the moor to the top of the Woods at the north west corner. We stopped up there for our lunch break beneath the trees beyond Castle Hill in a lovely sheltered spot overlooking the valley below and the hills spreading out to the north beyond.

whose tyre track was this? no-one's!

Then it was on up to the oil tank, another of Terry and Dave's markers, and a false trail offered by Gollum but rejected as being unsuitable. After a bit of searching we finally came across another track known to the pair from a distant-past visit and we scooted down that one, equally as tricky and ever ready to dump you over the bars. Managed to get down this one while keeping the Floyd in sight for once. Another climb on a very countrified under-tree canopy firebreak took us gently along some distance below the crags where Terry yet again began searching for more singletracks. Amazingly, he found another, and just as confirmation, a hundred metres from it's end was a log jump, obviously constructed by the local tearaways.

poser

We were on proper fireroad now and climbing steadily this one brought us to the end of the main access road. Joining tarmac we overtook some of the downhill kids with their heavy race rigs, walking up the road for their next play session. We reached Terry's "bottom" at 1.10 pm. After making sure Ian was OK for a bit longer it was time to climb back into the woods and seek out some more singletracks, and again the combined memories of Dave and Terry came up trumps. The first one we tried even had wire mesh covered boardwalks between some of the low take-off ramps, with plenty of fast tyre evidence. This was superb, and unfortunately it caught out poor Ian once more as he walloped his shoulder on the deck with a thud that shook the whole forest. Up he jumped though, and just got on with it again.

Yet again we were spat onto fireroad, and this looked like end of game. But it wasn't, as a wee bit further up it there was another barely visible trail dropping into the trees. This one was a good bit steeper and really did put the lid on a fantastic ride. I just hope I can remember some of it next time if Terry isn't around. Because of the Gollum's questionable starting point we ended up at the caravan site in the massive dip between the two main chunks of the woods, and that meant a nasty pedal up the hill to the cars. That happened fairly slowly, and it was great to get back to the cars, but if we'd found a few more sections like the last few I'd have played out a bit longer.

I'm making a pure guess as to how far we travelled based on the map shown which is an extremely rough estimate as we had no tracking GPS today, but it looked like about 15 to 16 miles covered in about 4 hours. As far as I could see only Terry escaped a forced landing, jammy sod!

 

Videos coming soon, and last Thursday night's ride!

 

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