There were low numbers again for Steve B's Guisborough jaunt this Sunday, 26th July 2009. Steve kindly agreed to lead a ride when the Gollum said he had a prior commitment, but as it turned out, Golly felt obliged to duck the alternative in favour of supporting Team MAC and turned out anyway to boost the numbers to five! The others appearing were Ian M, Jason,  There was, however, another body to collect on the way, so we picked up Phil at Sunderland who was on a parental visit from the deep sarf (Peaks) and just happened to have a bike handy. Phil was due to ride with us some months ago but couldn't make it, so chose this ride instead.

We arrived at Pinchinthorpe Visitor Centre around 9:45 and started the ride fifteen minutes later in somewhat better weather than we had anticipated. With Steve leading off we followed him blindly as he sought immediate height gain, and it wasn't long before the Gollum was using a toilet stop as an excuse for being slow to the top.

A nice dual track plummet followed which led us to the edge of the Wood and the first muddy ruts of the day, a reasonable test of balance and fitness. Once into the trees Steve managed to unearth treasure after treasure as we covered a lot more super singletrack than we normally see here. The weather continued to be kind and indeed it got pretty warm on the climbs. Stevie had issued  an instruction to us all atop the initial climb, which went something like this:

"If you see something, go for it!"

What an invitation! And it worked a treat, as throughout the ride we kept diving off into unlikely looking leafy passageways. Of course, the major treats were all there - the Black Hole, the Roooty Trail and that climb to the Crag as well as many others. The strong wind forced us to stay clear of the moors, and just as well, as when we all followed Phil down the side of the moor wall it was hard to stay upright against the sideways blast coming straight off the heather.

It was soon after that section that poor Phil took an unfortunate excursion over the handlebars, ripping the front brake hose clean in half, as well as causing Phil a little personal damage! Steve to the rescue, however, courageously transplanting his own front brake onto Phil's stricken machine. What a hero, eh? But maybe not, as he is, after all, one of our pair of "local experts" down here (with Alex), so he knew where the dangers lay.

Two minutes later, Steve lay there WITH the danger as he screamed uncontrollably, way too fast, down an extremely steep and slippery chute, going a over t and clouting yet another helmet on Mother Earth with some ferocity. So much so that he cracked its shell and also tore a little muscle thingie in his right ear, which began pouring with blood! Unfortunately, Chris, Jason and Golly missed out on the spectacle as they'd gone on ahead (using BOTH brakes!) but Ian later reported that it was a reasonably "good crash".

Shaken but not stirred, Steve pointed us up to the Quarry where we stopped for lunch. We'd been there five or ten when little droplets from the sky had us moving again, as we were led over to the other section of trails above Guisborough town. After a shortish fireroad cruise Jason found yet another shot-off down towards the town so we tackled that, pretty steep again but this time Steve did the sensible thing and walked the dodgiest few metres!

Back up to the main trail, we were perhaps fortunate to come across a map nailed to a post which set us nicely on course for the next few bits. yet again, more tricky, rooty singletrack opened up for us and we lapped it up greedily. Eventually we had that windy wall ride to complete which got us back to where we'd had a short rest earlier. From there we were on the Rooty Trail and a couple of "private" extra pieces of trail before we headed back towards our start point. We got drowned for about four minutes as we returned from the final high point when we'd stopped for some more air in Chris' leaking sidewall.

So only Phil and Steve picking up any physical damage, but nothing requiring plasma, and yet another brilliant Guisborough outing. Cheers Steve.