Northumbria Beckons - again!

Only six riders for this one as we continue our recent batch of away days while remaining within striking distance of Tyneside's very capable Emergency Services, just in case. Meeting at the Cave and ready to roll by 0900 were Ian A2 out for his second dose of MidAirCrisis Medicine, Mick, Tim, Jason, Chris D and Terry K. We pointed the vans at Wooler and set off north on a very crisp Sunday morning, 21st February, almost Spring.

That's torn it.

We'd just about managed to assemble all the bikes and a few of us were still getting dressed for a cold ride when there was a disgusting blurt just outside the GollyMobile. Looking around at each other and sniffing the air very carefully, there was nothing nasally apparent, and then Chris let out an hysterical roar and pointed towards Tim's nethers. It wasn't flatulence after all, but poor Tim had just managed to rip the arse clean out of his shorts when the Mongooses saddle tried to get intimate with him! Unfortunately the Prof didn't have anything else to wear so he had to continue with a gaping air vent just where he didn't want one.

Please lads, no more laughs today, not even Jason falling off, eh?

I think it's that way...

Like the last two Hexham rides, Terry had come well prepared with a set of eight A4 sheets in a waterproof binder, each covering a section of his proposed route, carefully printed from the relevant OS 1:25000 map and clearly labelled for each section of the ride. Brilliant forward planning. Even a fool could navigate around the place with this level of geographical sophistication available to him.

Somebody once said "There are so many wrong turns, it hardly matters which one you take".

That someone was me, and I just said it. With this as a strategy how could anyone possibly go the right way? And so it proved.

Mick's fault.

Yes, I am laying the blame squarely on the Fast Lad, wor Mick. For it was he, not me, who pronounced "There's a bridleway off to the right just there, into the trees" before we'd even left the car park at Wooler Common at 1010. Now after all these years of following a rigid plan with military precision there's no way the Gollum is gonna pass up the chance to get lost among the trees, and this one even had a chance of taking us roughly where we needed to be, so no contest.

In we dived, tentatively at first as the ground was a bit ripply. Terry took the lead and managed to find a route through the undergrowth until it brought us out onto a wider path which by sheer fluke turned out to be St Cuthbert's Way. Excellent! It was even on our map! Unfortunately it led to a near vertical climb well before older legs had got warmed up sufficiently, but Mick let rip straight up to the gate at the top of the hill. Once again, his fault we went up there, he just can't resist a bl@@dy climb.

We surveyed the first map sheet and although this path wasn't headed exactly the right way, we decided it looked too good to pass up and we could curl around behind the massive hill in front of us which would have us rejoining our route at the right place.We crossed a field or three in a couple of inches of snow and then had our first mechanical of the day when Jason decided he needed a shock pump to inject some wind into those crazy, downside-up, rubbish Maverick Duc forks on his Trek singlespeed 69er. What a waste of a good chainset this heap is. I suppose the handlebars are decent. If it had a bell that would be its outstanding feature.

Zooom!

There followed a very nice, somewhat dodgy descent on rough dual with a bit of snow and ice on it just to keep us alert. It seemed to last for ages as we sped down madly until a gate stopped us, although we'd been forced to slow down earlier by a pair of dumb walkers who Jason had almost mown down. They didn't seem too happy to share the bridleway with us. Pathetic Earthlings. And didn't the female version then go and blow her daft whistle to get her stupid Spaniel to come back to her, running full pelt up the hill in random zigzags like the stupid muts do, as we tried desperately to scrub off speed on ice to avoid it. Jehovah.

Err, that way.

Not only were there fantastic maps available to us, but Terry was also carrying two GPSs aswell, just to make absolutely sure he'd look a fool if he got lost. You can guess the rest. MIck and he stopped at the unfamiliar road below to peruse the map and decided we'd come the wrong way completely and should go back up the hill and start again. Now half way up was another bridleway with a gate we'd whizzed past, and when we reached it Terry thought it looked good and still offered us a crescent-shaped option to get back to our rightful path, so we took it.

This provided us with singletrack options either side of the main drag, and snow-free so we relished every piece of it. In fact we were relishing it so much that a good mile had passed before we thought about taking another positional. Maybe we should have done it sooner. Anyway, we decided just to continue straight up a mighty incline facing us, with no other option than a complete backtrack. But we don't do that, oh no. We plod on regardless. We decided to cut our losses and head cross-country over the moor grass rather than dropping all the way back down, and the ground we had to cross was very rideable, not boggy at all which came as a pleasant surprise. We lifted the bikes over a wall and wire fence and were soon back on the main drag we'd missed earlier.

Wow, this is high up!

The result of this little escapade was that we ended up climbing/pushing up Humbleton Hill, which at a mere 1000 feet isn't such a brute considering we're in the Cheviots. However, it was something of an unnecessary brute as we shouldn't have been anywhere near it, and there were other brutes waiting patiently for us further south! What a view off the top though, with a full 360 degree panorama of central Northumberland.

As some of us were a bit tired after the climb, we sat down behind the stone circle refuge of the Currick at the top and took a short breather before Mick and Jason started looking for another way off the thing. Luckily there was a footpath marked on the map which was plainly visible, so we saddled up and pointed ourselves earthwards again. What a descent this turned out to be! We all came close to wipeout on the way down, it's as steep and fast as you'd care to risk in snowy conditions, and the bikes made some of their own moves on the way down. Gathering at the bottom, Ian reckoned he'd almost spent his brake pads getting down safely, but it was poor Chris who became the only casualty, and that was right at the top as he hit the first rock garden way too hard and paid the price. That's two rides, two falls, and it's years since he did that!

Incidentally, Mick's rather heavy Gary Fisher Cake 4+ suffered a minor irritation in the gear department which caused it to stutter a bit on the steeper climbs. A secondary function of this fault was that it also retstrained his climbing ability enough to keep Mick in the same county as the rest of us, thank goodness.

Deja Vu.

So here we were, back at the point we'd left an hour and a half ago, ready to start the ride proper at about 12:30! Not willing to suffer any more nonsense from a half blind nearly-pensioner, Mick tore the map from Terry's hand and stuffed it in his own pocket. "I'll look after that", he snarled. Further perusal had us on another lumpy dual, dropping like stones as we weaved through the gorse on either side of this magic little trail on our way down to skinny tarmac below Brown's Law. Over the twin fords very close to the cars it didn't take Mick long to get us out onto open moorland as we swung west towards Broadstruther. Half way along here we were treat to another brilliant, sweeping dual descent down to Carey Burn at the foot of Watch Hill, and that's where we paused again for official luncheon to be served.

It was bad news for Terry as we resumed after about 15 minutes of sheer tranquility, apart from a yell from Ian when he stepped into a deep puddle and chilled a foot bone. Because we now faced a long haul up another 300 feet of climb to Broadstruther. As we neared it the sky blackened and the trail steepened. Snow began to fall steadily, with the flakes getting larger. Consequently Terry decided to opt for a shortcut above Sticky Bog so we turned east again for home. Somewhere along this next bit, Chris noticed that the rear tyre on Terry's Trek looked a wee bit soft. And so it was, with bubbles of Stan's fluid emerging from both sides of the rim. Too much of a last minute rush to get the bike ready last night, maybe.

With Terry choosing to ignore the problem, Mick dragged him back and swiftly produced his CO2 injector, giving the Maxxis High Roller a much needed injection. Maybe a bit too much? Anyway, suddenly the bike was much easier to pedal as we headed back with the snow getting thicker as we went. And didn't Jason wait until we were almost home to produce the most spactacular get-off of the day? This was on the final, seriously quick drop off the hills and he was nailing it when his front wheel must have skidded on a wet rock and down he went like a ton of excrement. Result was a bit of a shakeup and a badly battered right shin bone, so I hope he doesn't have to crawl about too much at work tomorrow.

Short, but Sweet.

After a bit more walking and waiting (for Terry and the Others in that order) we got back to St Cuthberts Way again and the entry to our Finale. In Days of Yore another group of bikers used this for their annual bit of Downhill sport, and Terry remembered it, first thing he got right all day. He also managed to get onto the top of it first and led the way down through the trees over rocks, roots and snowy off-camber obstacles with Jason pushing extremely hard on his tailpipe, he's amazing on that singlespeed wreck.

We emerged at the bottom unscathed at about 3:00pm and must have covered about 11 or 12 miles, I guess. I think we were all relatively happy with our day's workout and the finish put some icing on it.

pix here