The weather forecast for the north was pretty bleak for Sunday 22nd June 2008, but when the team began to assemble at Holystone around 08:30 am it was unhealthily warm with a blue sky and light breeze! Could we be lucky and get away with this one? Participants today were stalwarts, Team MidAirCrisis Captain Steve B, Blog Maestro and Big Stick Wielder Keith, thankfully back in the fold for a while as he's working locally just now, Chris D, aka The Rubber Man (due to his insatiable appetite for inner tubes - not what you thought) and the scrawny Gollum. Hovering around waiting for more bods we were pleasantly surprised to see the arrival of Steve W's mate Michael again after his painful re-introduction to off-roading in the North York Moors on 8th June. Not only was Michael back, refreshed and raring, but he'd brought another masochist with him - welcome to Russ, another hardtail warrior. Ouch.

That was it then, and the six of us proceeded to follow the traffic over the A69 towards the Wetlands of Cumbria. The morning remained dry until we'd virtually reached the border past Greenhead before the sky darkened and began to flick a few spots at the windscreens. We plodded on and reached the Visitor Centre at Whinlatter Forest just beyond Keswick in fairly persistent precipitation. OK, it was @issing down. Keith, as he usually tries to do, was first to the car park ticket machine and wouldn't be reimbursed. Our ride started at about 11:00 after the same lad had been forced to purchase a wet suit from the newly-built bike shop. He could well have been the first customer to spend over 200 quid. Nice coat, though, reminiscent of the lovely Karrimor one lost by Gollum in a certain Newcastle river somewhere last year.

The signage is good here, at least most of it is, and you can't miss the Trailhead - see below. Golly followed the others off on this, our first visit here as the trails are born and extended - currently there's only a 10Km section completed, but we weren't waiting to read about it, we were here to sample it brand new after it's opening on the Monday before. The first 20 metres didn't present too well - it was like yellow glue and a real drag to ride through, literally. However, there were plenty of tyre marks on it/in it/through it before ours so we'd just have to see how it panned out.

The first section was a bit of a tease. It got firmer away from the start as the singletrack wrapped itself around the hillside and swerved through the sparse tree coverage. If this had been dry it would have been a great start to the trail. It then pushed you out onto a fireroad where the fun really starts - you go up, then up, then up, then... When you reach the top of this drag of a climb (not at all nice for flatland lovers) you turn right and go up, and up, and up on more boring fireroad. I'll stop myself there. Stop, Gollum!

...snore

Oh, sorry - I stopped because maybe I'm not being fair. We get so spoiled with either brilliant, fast-flowing manmade single such as Spooky Wood at Glentress or fantastic natural stuff as on the last two Sunday rides in Yorkshire and Northumberland that maybe we take these places too much for granted. So, there's a bit of fireroad to climb. It could be worse, couldn't it? (that doesn't mean I'll stop moaning, Terry!).

So, we get to what we think is the top, impossible to go any higher, right? Not quite. This is where the Trail Builders earn their praise. We are now into more and more singletrack sections, the surface varying from claggy clarts to obviously-still-not-bedded-in rock chippings. But they all have one thing in common - they're great to ride! As in some other notable spots (Kirroughtree for instance) they've managed to get you hurrying along with the impression of flat or downward travel, while in fact the trails are carrying you ever higher up the hillside, but unlike the stuff at say, Innerleithen, it's actually a great part of the ride as it doesn't feel like a constant battle against gravity.

One section leads very quickly into another and the goodies come thicker and faster. There's loads of stuff here to keep you alert at all times - you can't rest or take your eyes off the trail if you want to make rapid progress. If you do, you'll get what I got. A whoopsy. My fault entirely, as there's no point trying to keep up with Skippy when he's in full flight, just to get some movie footage. For one thing, the new camera is crap, as you'll see later. But worse than that, you really should remove your sunglasses if you can't see through them, otherwise you'll have a whoopsy. Luckily I fell against the bank side so I was still straddling the Trek somehow, could have been a lot worse. That's two problems to overcome, but the third, trying to stay with this loony was the most difficult obstacle. Obviously it was his first visit here. To watch him go, in these utterly crap conditions, you'd think he'd built it himself. Nutter. About half way around we came across the first really tricky down-slope with two pretty tight and very slippery switchbacks to negotiate, and this cost Michael a fall and Chris a very-nearly just after him!

We probably have a few selfish criticisms - some of the switchbacks (hairpins to you and me) are way too tight on the climbs. Some of the switchbacks are way too tight on the descents. There are too many tree stump ends lying too close to the sides of the trail - but of course it's still under construction, so this may change. There are already one or two places where the trail will not remain intact in weather like today's, a bit like some of Ae Forest was a year or two back. Anyway,

There's nowt to tell you that you're almost home, except for one thing - SPEED! The final descent takes you on what seems an endless journey through berms, over rock gardens, over tabletops and some very tricky triple whoop-de-doos on such a fast section - only the brave will jump these little bu@@ers. There's only two trails I recall that come near this thing. One is the Climach-X Trail at Machynlleth in North Wales and the other is the A-Line at Caddon Bank, Innerleithen. Apart from the triples which can ruin it for groundhogs like me, as you have to reduce speed a good bit to roll them as they have sharp points, this one gets my vote as the new Number One. To coin a currently popular phrase, "it's totally mental!". You'll find, within this site, mention of Kielder being considered perhaps the most fearsome Red Route, as it verges on Black in many places. Well, it may be about to lose it's crown to Whinlatter. There again, maybe anything's do-able at walk speed rather than warp speed!
We had a very welcome, warming cup of coffee back at the Visitor Centre, thanks very much to a defiant Stevie who bought for everyone and wouldn't take "no" for an answer. By the time we got back around 1:30 pm my fingers were frozen and I wasn't looking forward to doing a second loop, as we'd threatened on the way here. I don't think I was alone in making that decision.

After the coffees, Michael and Russ retreated homeward, while the other four of us had an extended swan around the bike hire shop, or outside of it under cover, until we decided to sniff out a possible sighting of singletrack down to some village or other. We could only find what is now a footpath, and the main fireroad drop which just happens to be part of the Coast to Coast route. So we did a few minutes worth of exploring until we ended up on the first singletrack section of the Altura Trail again. And it was here that the Crazy Gang, in other words Chris and Steve, decided to play on the wet timber run. It's only about 15 metres long but looked evil with this much water lying on it. We'd avoided it on our initial run as you're almost past before you see it. You can just about see what happened to Chris in this video snippet (shortly).  And yes, it did hurt him, so he became the day's only real victim, but hey, at least it wasn't a puncture, eh Chris? And aren't Rubber Men supposed to bounce?

As you may guess, the weather didn't spoil it for us, as hard as it tried. And the place was packed out, so it will definitely prove a big hit with UK Mountain Bikers, as well as foreigners when the word gets out. Goodness knows what the final outcome will be when they get the planned trails built, but it already has more than a head start, and at just under 100 miles from the centre of Newcastle, everyone from the Borders down to Yorkshire is within reasonable striking distance. Looks like a genuine challenger to the Seven Stanes and Welsh centres.

When we got back to The Toon, the popular vote was to Jetwash the bikes, which we duly did, and yet again Steve had his hand in his pocket once more to pay for that. If you're a Charity Case it would be well worth becoming Steve's friend!

Here's the photies   Vidz here now, see below (but very poor ones!)!   

Michael Tips It    Steve Slips & Slides    Chris does it the Irish Way    Then the Wrong Way

and finally, if the bl|@@dy camera had been decent, this bit is better than Caddon Bank at Innerleithen (3 files, total of 50MB!)     second bit        third bit

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