Hexham - Trilogy

subtitled

Tim'll Fix It

or

What's in the bag, Steven?

It was Core members only for this one as the clock hit 0910 and only Chris D, Steven Wa, Tim, Terry K and the recently missing Steve B had shown up. We'd have expected a couple more but they'd put themselves through the mincer at Kielder the day before so were in no fit state! (see Mick's report here soon).

After three away days (Sunday rides) on the trot the camel had planned a ride from the Cave for this Sunday, the 28th February 2010, but an aire of mutiny caused a change of heart so it was left to Terry to come up with a solution, and double-quick! That solution was for an "exploration" of a recently uncovered treasure at Hexham so off we went.

We began the ride at 1000 with a nice climb up a muddy path which continued to decrease its angle to the perpendicular. Ok, it got steeper. So the top end became a walk. What, so soon after starting? Crap ride this was going to be then, eh? (wry smile spreads across the writer's chops).

Dizzy

Actually, no. We paused at the top at a very convenient crossroads to give Terry a chance to mark the position with GPS so we'd be able to get back more easily and from any direction. This was deemed important because we were about to squirt off into the trees in every conceivable direction as the mood and the terrain presented themselves.

We got dizzy with the choices exposed to us within the first fifteen minutes of our singletracking slalom over a mixture of muddy, dry and fern-covered trail. We did attempt to explore in a planned fashion, from one end of the place to t'other, first length-wise then across its width, but on a single ride there was just too much.

We crisscrossed several of the main trails running through as each of us in turn seemed to spot another inviting path through the trees. After exploring the eastern end, or some of it, we traced a course alongside the nearby river and it led us to a very sporting descent, which eventually forced us to dismount and push. Our reward was a riverside clearing with waterfalls, fast water, rocks and even a beach! It was too steep to reach even on foot and half an hour too early for lunch, so we hauled ourselves up and out to continue the quest westerly.

Busy

It was just above this point that the Professor, our Tim, decided to take on the almost impenetrable morass of twigs and creepers under our feet by staying mounted as the rest of us carried and pushed. He duly got his reward by having his rear derailleur snapped off the Mongoose! A fairly regular occurrence over the past few years to many of us, but today it wasn't the purposely weakened-by-manufacturer gear hanger, but the actual derailleur to hanger bolt that had sheared.

This created a unique problem for the rarely if ever defeated crew of the SS MidAirCrisis. Variously we came up with suggestions and the winner was the good old zip tie. getting to work on the fresh attachment, it took us two goes to get it right after Steven insisted we re-arrange the zippies to create a tighter fix. That done, the next problem was the oh-so-necessary tensioning of the cage. More thoughts were offered based more on space-age fantasy than good engineering practice until the Prof himself came up with the astoundingly brilliant idea of an arched tree limb wrapped around the gears and strapped to the chain stay and jockey cage in a tight arc.

He bounded into the forest armed with Steven's massive mega-tool (!) and returned soon after with what looked like a small crossbow less the straight shank down the middle. The Brethren gathered round in expectation as Tim carefully laid the twig in place and proceeded to strap it to the frame. Stage two was to curve it around the back of the derailleur and lash it to the jockeys, but just as he got it in position it let go with a pitiful "twang" and snapped.

Where's the Drawing Board?

Any more bright ideas? Well, yes, from the Oldie, and this involved Mother Nature again being asked to donate one of her organs as Tim was sent back into the trees with Steven's Black & Decker and instructions to come back with something more resembling a cricket stump than a drinking straw. Mission accomplished, and with Steven taking over the pruning job with that magnificent tool of his the ideal specimen was reshaped precisely and we set to work with installation number two.

Perhaps the story is best told in pictures?

Vid One. Vid Two. Vid Three. Vid Four.

And finally we were ready to resume, but not until we'd made the Professor carry the Mongoose out of this deadly trap:

Vid Five

Yes, it worked, and although we forcibly restricted Tim to one rear gear, we did discover back at the cars that the front changer would have worked as normal and given him more options, but better safe than sorry. And he managed perfectly well anyway! If you're wondering why we didn't just singlespeed it, well, we don't give up that easily. And it's never an easy solution with active rear suspension anyway.

After a good random blast and an uncharacteristic fall for Steve, his first on that new and ever-so-pretty carbon Stumpy, we traced a path back to the downhill treat we'd covered a month previous. It was a bit wetter this time and took a fraction more effort but was still fast and furious and none of us could see very well as we gathered at the foot to look for more options. Luckily Chris managed to miss his tree nemesis this time after it collected him big style on that first visit.

We climbed again with Steven managing to keep us oriented the right way and headed west past some stuff we recognised from last month. That enabled us to pick and choose exactly how to join the dots and we hammered every available track that was wide enough to take a tyre. Eventually we ended up at the far end again, pretty much at the foot of the woodland after we'd again done the log jumps we found last time.

It was around 1:30 now but we were reluctant to call it a day with so much still to uncover. So we made probably the longest drag upwards of whole ride to get us right across to the west side and for the next half hour we zigzagged the hillside taking every possible traverse until at 1400 we reached our initial climb again and dropped to the cars, well satisfied with the day's workout. We were back at the Cave for three o'clock, always nice to not have to travel far back home.

Got Chris to thank for "encouraging" another away day when really I couldn't be bothered this weekend after a pig of a week at work plus a heavy Saturday working on the van and a daughter's wiring, but after such a brilliant excursion I won't hold it against him! Thanks for the laughs fellas, nice one.

Pix here.