We suffered a slight reduction in numbers for this Sunday morning ride, 2nd December 2007, with only Keith and Paul C turning up at the Gollum's cave at the scheduled start time of 9.00am. Not very many turning out to wish Paul "Good Luck" as this is his last ride with us before he returns to Taiwan for the winter, hoping to be back in 3 or 4 months. It's been great having him. He's been a real good sport and got stuck in on very unfamiliar terrain, and with a set of uncultured barbarians to put up with. After a short discussion, the cumulative opinion was that it wasn't worth travelling too far, especially as this was Paul's final ride with us before returning home to Taiwan for the winter, and he preferred to get home early after the trip.

So we took an executive decision to cancel the Felton start and ride from Holystone instead! Now if you are my regular reader you will now that it's getting pretty damn hard to make local rides look different. This puts a real strain on the old Gollum's cranium, and here he was again stressing as he desperately searched the single, worn-out brain cell for a twist on an old route.

Starting out as on many other rides, we headed out the back of Holystone Farm, turning east to Backworth. We got onto the northward bridleway on the edge of the village which took us through a somewhat muddy stretch of singletrack to East Holywell and up the side of the old Backworth-Seghill railway line. From the Seghill/Delaval border we went back down to East Cramlington, and with only a couple of short stretches of tarmac covered we once again got off-road into the east Cramlington Nature Reserve, making this a completely different route to any done previously. Success. We kept going on the bridleway until Gollum spotted a rough track off to the right which led us to a dead end. Not too bad, though, as we only had to double back 20 metres to get onto another skinny, seldom-used trail through the evergreens to the A189. We only just nicked the road here, however, at Stickley Farm, before moving through Shankhouse and on to Laverock Hall. More bridleway took us through Low Horton Farm to New Delaval, and into the lower side of Blyth at the Golf Course, all on previously untraveled tracks (for us).

We then had to ride through the quieter streets of the new parts of Blyth through to the Sports Centre, then out just west of the Town Centre to Newsham and a very entertaining ride along the disused railway line. That's where we joined the riverside when Keith spotted the route through. We stopped for a moment to grab a picture in what was an amazingly calm scene for this particular spot, with not a breath of wind and a flat surface on the River Blyth Estuary.

We followed the river all the way through Kitty Brewster, under the bridge carrying the A189, and along on more familiar ground to Bedlington. We stopped under the bridge just north of Humford Mill for lunch at 11.45 ish when we felt a few spots of rain from a big, hovering black cloud. This is the first time for ages we've seen a river in flood, so dry has this year been in terms of rainfall and wet days. Paul gave us a potted history of China, Tibet, Taiwan and the place where all mountain bikes are made. Keith gave us an account of his spell in Canada at minus 34 degrees Celsius. Gollum ate his banana.

Here's a set of two-faced so-and-so's

We were underway again around 12.20 (I think) and we kept up a pretty reasonable pace as we tracked the river through the Riverside Park. When we got to Humford Mill Gollum made another change to what would have been our usual route out of the place. This maybe wasn't his most brilliant tactical decision, but it did at least give us a new trail to attempt. It also slowed us to little more than walking pace as we encountered loads of very slippery, dangerous wooden staircases and the odd fallen tree. Some time later we popped out in yet more familiar territory where we washed the bulk of the mud from our wheels for the second time in an hour. Plain sailing from here as we were on tarmac at East Hartford, then into Cramlington by the Fire Station before moving up from Shankhouse to High Pit by road.

synchronised head-stooping as Keith puts a bit more air in his rear

and then discovers a folded tooth on his middle ring!

fun, games and another jetwash jungle trekking

and Keith finds a frame to fit him at last, and it ain't a Spesh!

yet another bike wash session

now they're spoon fed at Cramlington and Keith exposes the damage to his pegs caused by Gollum's "secret trail" - ouch! Finally, we make a new friend

At the Bay Horse, or whatever it's called these days, we took to the fields again via the rainbow disco underpass beneath the Spine Road, then under the A19 into Annitsford and up to Burradon on tarmac again. We took another different route from the Meat Factory through into Killingworth before hitting the Gosforth Park/Sandy Lane roundabout road and the waggonway at Hillheads Farm. Paul took the front for his last blast down the bridle to Holystone Farm, and we were back at the Cave for 13:15pm. Once more we managed to stay dry, at least from above, and it was a fairly enjoyable ride with no drama or more importantly punctures.

Here's Paul's GPS data.

Good Luck Paul and Family, and although you don't do Christmas, have a good one!

And Good Luck to Keith who's left his job at Metal Spinners after centuries to become radioactive at a Scottish Nuke plant!!!

Look at the intense concentration in this short clip

 

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