Sunday 25th October 2009.

So, Chris D rolls up to the Cave about 08:50, and he and the Gollum look at the sky, look at each other and prepare for a pretty quiet ride together. With a few minutes to blast off, however, the Monorail appears out of the west with t'other Chris (K) inside. The Three Musketeers, much more social. But wait - what's this? Jon and Justin also arrive pedalling from opposite directions soon after the deadline. That's five, enough to almost guarantee some sort of mechanical failure along the way.

At this point, and because I'm running out of suitable nouns, I should explain that "Monorail" is just my twist on Chris K's new motor - actually a Mondeo. The habit took hold of me at last weekend's Hairy Coo ride up in Scotland.

At about 0915 it was fairly obvious that bed was the best place to be this morning, it being very windy outside and the sky not looking all that welcoming. However, bed is for wimps, and we're the Men of MidAirCrisis so bring on that headwind and foul weather, won't you?

With Golly refusing point blank to tell anyone his planned (?) route, all they could do was follow him as he led out to the Land of the Rising Sun. We did the lower Edge Tree Canopy first then crossed to Station Road and down to the Powder Monkey. Next was the long straight tarmac of the old Tram Track (Coxlodge Waggonway) to South Gosforth, where Chris D forgot how to detach from his Crank Brothers cleats and fell over, to take in Bluebell Woods.

However, with Golly entering the woods first he soon decided it was too dangerous after just falling at South Gosforth a minute earlier, the Commencal meta still only having a front brake, absolute sh@t on wet leaves! So we edged around the woods and hit the bridleway up to Melton Park instead.

From there we did the Brunton Lane to A1 drop in reverse, turning it into a slight incline, then down towards Dinnington before quickly and quietly passing through some private land to Wolsington. We crossed the Bank Foot road at the Garden Centre and hit the bridleways on the north side of the A696, where after a few attempts we were forced back out of the singletrack through the ponds back to tarmac again to heave our way up through Black Callerton to Callerton Road Ends.

We struggled a bit against the slope and the prevailing westerly up Birney Hill to the top of Darras Hall before dropping behind Chris D, kindly giving Golly a rest at the head of the pelaton, to the turn in for Heddon on the Wall via East Heddon and the A69 underpass. We stopped at the garage in Heddon for Chris K to take on supplies before parking ourselves at the Downhill trail head for nosh.

Once refreshed, we were off behind Chris K who used to stamp around these grounds in his youth. This is brilliant through the trees, again tricky over the initial rooty climb for those with just a front brake, and deadly over the deep autumn leaf bed once the rapid descent started! How frustrating this was being on a mountain-munching six inch beastie (?) but unable to tame a gaggle of five inchers leaving it for dead! Must get that brake fixed soon.

The foot of this smashing drop left us on Hadrian's Way Path down to the north banks of the Tyne, where we freewheeled along with the wind behind us at last, through Newburn Riverside Park to the bridge. Golly led the MidAirQuintet over it to the Blaydon side and we stayed there down to Scotswood Bridge before re-crossing for the smooth cruise to the Quayside. It was around 1330 now but we didn't do a coffee stop, preferring to head up to Heaton Park instead for a bit more singletracking.

Once there the Gollum took the others on a strange and eventually impassable route under the trees before escaping to more useful park roads over to Armstrong Bridge. We turned off it onto the Coast Road, rode along that past Jon's place to drop him off, then continued up the side of the East Coast Line to the Powder Monkey, NUFC's Training Ground (bit pointless at the moment, eh fans?) and finally onto Whitley Road and along to the cars.

here's Justin's GPS data:

Total Distance 38.14miles
Total Time 5:00:55:33
Avg Speed 7.6mph
Max Speed 28.2mph

And the approximate route we took.

Hope the rest of you enjoyed your Sunday telly.