It's been a fairly traumatic time for the Gollum lately. Nowt to do with bikes directly, although that's been painful enough, but certainly the means to transport them to our rideaways. After making what looked like a reasonable purchase, a 2003 model Peugeot minibus/minivan combi, it turned sour on the way to Carlisle and it's price doubled when a whole new fuel delivery and injection system had to be fitted. In order to guarantee the work, the local Peugeot dealer in Newcastle had to fit more parts than may have been strictly necessary, and I had to buy a new tyre as the almost new nearside rear had a nail in it too close to the sidewall to repair, but that's water under the bridge now, written off and put down to experience. However it may well have had an effect on how we do away days from now on.

I've always said I'd get anyone, well, as many bodies as I could, to our rides. Up to now that's only cost me an arm and a leg in terms of paying for it, my philosophy being that I was going anyway, so filling the car with people and bikes cost me nothing extra. Anyway, that still leaves one arm and one leg. Today, Sunday 20th April 2008 however, even after allowing for the generous offer of transport for bodies and fuel shares we still couldn't carry all the bikes. Idea! Use the van (which was bought to save what's left of my car after it's been battered by bikes for years) and also use the car. Brilliant! Five bikes and their owners in the van, four of each in the car with Jason kindly volunteering to drive it. So far so good. Off we trolled to Kielder, see story a bit further down. Half way back at Kirkwhelpington my own car fired a rock at the van's windscreen and put a tidy little hole in it, with quite a loud bang! It's also booked in for a fairly expensive cam belt change on Wednesday to try and offset the next possible problem. Now is this Someone Up There trying to tell me something?

First Executive Decision (my wife carries one more vote than me) is that I now use ONLY the van. Fine. I can carry four passengers (legally) and five bikes (including mine). That means from now on some other poor s@d is going to have to participate with their four wheeler. As I said upstairs, there were a good many offers of financial support after and during the ride today, for which I am grateful as ever, but as this was my idea I deserve to pay. But we have to make a change. I will be investigating further safe transport for the bikes (another 4 or 5) on a decent bike rack for the van but that's a bit in the future and we'll still need seats for bums somewhere else. We could do as some other groups do and just meet at the ride start, wherever it is, but we'd lose a bit of the spirit we've built up as a group, so I'm not thrilled about that. You'll soon all have details of how to access our Web Forum so I'd welcome a discussion on there.

That's (most of) the downbeat stuff covered. Now the brighter bits! First - the weather. After a crap month of very wet spells and soaked ground we got a reasonable morning to start this ride in. Secondly - we welcomed Ben T, Mike T and Joe C into the fold. They've all just been waiting for the right time to join us and today they made it together, possibly with a bit of prompting from our ex-Marine, Keith! Once more we've come up trumps with a nice bunch of lads who seem committed, like we are, to just enjoying their mountain biking in what I hope are (were) friendly, fun-loving conditions.

Completing the line-up at Kielder Castle were Chris, Terry H, Jason, Steve W and Steve B. Oh, I forgot to mention - none of our three new lads rides a Specialized! Joe has a Giant NRS XT in need of some TLC, Mike rides a pristine '03 Whyte 46, and Ben has a super-light Turner, but I didn't get the model. We set off at 11:15 ish, all smiles, and after a loop around the skills area as a warm up were off up the hill on the Red Trail. The first two downhill swoops through the trees didn't shed any blood - good sign. Next comes Horrible Hill (not it's real name) to get us up to Kersey Cleugh and the start of the rough stuff. and that sure took the sting out of a couple or four sets of legs with Ben, Steve and Terry bombing away up front to leave the rest of us trailing in their wake.

We regrouped at the top of Kersey. Not far from the start Joe had a coming together with Mother Earth after Gollum led off onto the singletrack. Joe emerged slightly (well, thoroughly!) muddy from the kneecaps down, but shook off any injury that may have been lurking. Don't forget, it's tradition to take at least one fall on your first ride out with MidAirCrisis - and so far I can't recall anyone not complying except possibly Terry H but he's made up for it since. With everyone else down safely to the middle of the section the time had come again, all too soon, when we needed to gain height and the next bit, 3 Dog Climb, gives you just that opportunity.

Around 12:30 we had all reached the fireroad at the top, and stayed in the trees for our lunch stop to keep out of the howling wind outside. Plenty of idle gossip, Irish jokes courtesy of Chris, and bike inspections by Jason followed, before we were brave enough to venture back out and up again. Now we've only ever done the Deadwater Trail loop once - and we did it the hard way - climbing the dog-rough rock path to the Radio Masts and descending via fireroad. Don't ask why. Today, just to put a bit of extra length on the ride, we did it once more - but anticlockwise as it's designed. The result of that was, again, a very long wait at the top for the fast lads but sure enough we all got there eventually, although the gathering hurricane did it's best to stop us.

The descent was manic, as you can go as fast as you dare down this thing, and the usual suspects did exactly that. After a short rest at the foot, Golly took to the singletrack and dived a few hundred metres to get to a suitable camera position. Unknown to him, the rest of the crew witnessed his very untidy dismount from the CoilAir as he picked a spot for pictures but couldn't stop quickly enough. Good job he's way past embarrassment now.

Here's the squad descending bit by bit - different styles pretty obvious.

Terry H    Ben T    Midfielders    Steve B

With everyone past and on their way to the end of the trail it was time for Gollum to mount up and follow them all. Half way down the remaining rock garden/drop-off strewn stretch of bliss he came across Mike, pulling the Whyte up the side of a berm. "You OK?" he shouted, and on hearing "Yeah" just continued on his merry way to join the arrivals at the bottom. It was a wee while before Mike arrived, and he was limping! Two down, one to go!!! Once more, it seems that anyone who isn't a soft old Gollum just gets back on their bike without whinging, well done Mike (although we knew he was hurt a bit, and he had drawn blood from his left knee which The Doc, Steve W,  was just dying to practice on.

Time to drop down over the little wooden bridge and hit the Black Trail where it splits off from the remainder of the Red. That was another nice walk up to the timber boardwalk which half of the troupe tackled and conquered, and half failed (OK, OK, I admit it but I was suffering from wind). After a short break to allow Steve B to trot back and retrieve his lost shades it was again time for Gollum to blast ahead and find a suitable spot to take pictures from. Here they are, sorry about the amazingly naff quality.

Ben    Terry    Jason    Skipper    Doc & Chris   

Two more Black drops to go, same M.O. with the camera carrier going first and waiting for the action. Nearest we came to damage here was Gollum again with a nose dive on Section Two, so keen was he to make sure he had time to find the camera under his long johns before the first arrivals. But even that didn't work as Ben and Terry chased his panting tail all the way down, b@stards, and were past before he was ready. Maybe they're shy. Everyone else got away with it at their own comfortable speeds, even our Wild Boar Skipper looking in control until the very last rock step on the middle stage where he ran into our poor photographer on a previous trip here! This time Golly put a tree between them, heh, heh.

Jay & Skippy    Doc & Chris    Joe    Mike   

There was one bit of excitement provided by our Emerald Islander - we always take care here to post someone at the foot of the final black downhill because there's a gully cutting across it just near it's end, but although it's small you need to jump it or die. So there was Gollum, taking videos and shouting out the dangers. When young Chris arrived, he took it on, pretty slowly but committed fair dinkum, but when he landed on t'other side there was an almighty clatter as his rear wheel smashed down a wee bit short of the ideal landing spot. result - the only puncture of the day, but hey, he cleared it!

Terry    Steve B    Jay    Doc & Ben    Chris    Joe     Mike

Goodness, there was only one stretch left now for Ben to come a cropper on and uphold our Medieval Maxim, our Latin Law, Us Dous Harmus. He was wearing leg armour and getting plenty of air, so it had to be on the cards. But no. After a nice long rest following the final Black fireroad climb, we all flew back to the Castle with no sign of carnage. Crap! So Ben enters the record books for all the wrong reasons. let's hope he makes up for it next time out!

We were back at the car around 5:30 pm, I think, and after loading up again off we peeled to the far end of Kielder reservoir and that canny little Tea Room at Falstone. After the longest wait in the history of the Serving Wench, we got our coffees and a Marshmallow very kindly provided by Mike. That went down very well, and a few short comedy sketches later, and plenty of advice for Joe on upgrading or buying a new bike, we were on our way home.

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