Derek, John and Terry were early birds for this local trek to allow for various Father's Day celebrations to take place afterwards.

We started out at Cramlington at 9.15am with grey threatening skies above but semi-dry ground beneath our tyres. Terry led off as the trio trotted along steadily over to Plessey Woods Country Park. After doing the legal waymarked trail through there, and suffering the horrendous climb and carry up  we emerged onto the Hepscott road and cut through to Nedderton by bridleway. We stayed on it until just short of Hepscott before turning east towards Choppington. This is when we started chasing our tails and completing a couple of loops of the same trail. Some would say we were lost. Others would claim that we were enjoying ourselves so much in the trees that we couldn't have cared less! The others would be correct.

We eventually ended up in the biggest corn field you could ever hope to find - should have noticed the Kellogg's sign in the north-eastern corner! It was Terry who led this far, but Derek who spotted a track down the edge of it. So He led followed by John and Terry. The plant life started around two feet high. Fifteen minutes later we caught up with ourselves coming the other way! Not only had we done a whole square lap of this thing, but we'd been chased by the farmer's daughter who was training her horses in the adjacent field! When she got within a hundred metres of us Derek's reaction was swift and decisive - he took off! We attempted to stay with him and reached our point of entry totally knackered. Apart from the obvious danger (she was BIG and we heard shotguns not too far away) the wheat at the other corner was as high as an admittedly fairly short humanoid - see here.

From the field we backtracked to higher ground where Derek selected our next landmark to chase. We emerged on Barrington Lane and rode west into Bedlington Station where we once again dived out the back and into the trees. More superb, dense undergrowth and stinging nettles to negotiate left their legacy on the legs of John and Derek who were wearing shorties. The Old One was totally covered, but still didn't escape attack completely. After a few circumnavigations of Choppington Country Park and a nice sunny lunch stop, we were off again, and again Terry led the three into a dead end. That was enough for Derek who took the helm again and got us back to Bedlington.

A short tarmac ride past the birthplace of Terry's DDG Mutha took us down to the riverside on a nasty, wet, very rooty, very slippery, off-camber slope that Derek knows pretty well. Quite an exciting finale to an already tricky, technical day's flatland riding. Humford Mill stepping stones were in flood, never seen so much water down there, and six wet feet was the result. We climbed out the short way and back onto the road into Shankhouse, with perfect timing for John's father's Day celebrations. We left Derek in the centre of Cramlington Village and arrived at John's about 1.45 with 22 miles and 4.5 hours on his bike PC. Another amazingly good ride right in the middle of Urbania, or almost.

***just to explain about the bike - about 6 months ago John and Terry were out in this area. Returning up the bank behind the bike above, Terry was too knackered to ride his Barracuda any further, so John offered him a ride on his Kikapu Deluxe. After flying up the hill no problem Terry decreed he must have a lighter bike, hence the conception of the 25lb Mutha at this very spot! Romantic, eh?

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