It was a beautiful morning as one by one the brave souls of NMBC gathered outside the Cave at Holystone, waiting for the Gollum to awake from his slumbers. He finally appeared at the hole in front rubbing his eyes at 7:45 after sleeping in slightly.
We were forced to use Method Two to stack the bikes inside the van, following the decapitation of the bike rack's electric plug on the last trip out, and were amazed to find it swallowed every bike that turned up. Well, it swallowed six of them, with Ian B's motor carrying his lovely Commencal 55. That left two spaces on his rack, which we filled when we collected first Craig at Kenton then Dave at Ponteland. These two joined Mick, Golly, Jon, Stewart, Chris K, a very late Ian F and Steve B to bump the number up to 9 for another crack at Great God Glentress.
Steve was kind enough to drive the GollyBus with Dave, Stewart and Jon ensconced in the back seat, and give the BOF a rest in the absence of regular pilot Jason (where is he, anyway?) so off we zoomed up the road headed west behind Mick with Ian F and Chris in the car. It wasn't long before he'd vanished over the horizon, but we weren't that far behind as we pulled into the main car park at the Centre of the MTB Universe around 10:30am. By the time we were ready to ride it must have been 11:00 or even later.
This was Ian B's chance to show us some more of his hidden treats, and after starting up the first climb to the Buzzards Nest he led us first over the regular Red, first time Golly had ridden the new top section, and the whole thing is now much less painful than it was when the Centre first opened and you had to drag all the way up the fireroad. Today the cold air meeting warm down in the valley produced more stunning photo opportunities, but unfortunately Golly's oldest camera let him down, so I'm hoping Stewart managed to grab a proper photo on his MegaCam. here's what it did manage to capture pointing away from the Sun:
From the car park, and after a short rest to get our breaths back, it was time to get to the first Red downhill singletrack at Pennel's Vennel. This was attacked in great style, even in the somewhat moist conditions, by everyone, but at the bottom we had our first mechanical failure as the Gollum suffered rear brake failure. Chris K had spotted a detached disc pad while thoughtfully fitting Gollum's wheels back at the van but it was ignored as the Old Twit hoped it would hold together. Obviously it failed to do that, but the fault turned out to be with BOTH pads. These were bought from Superstar Components on eBay, and this isn't the first such failure the club members have suffered with these. I suppose you really do get what you pay for. Luckily, Ian NoBrakes F was carrying a spare set of Avid Juicy 7 pads and kindly donated them to the cause.
Off we went again climbing up to what was a picnic table but is now just a nice viewpoint, and it was just after we left this point that Dave R suffered Mechanical No 2 as his rear derailleur snapped off just below the main pivot on his Whyte 46 and his chain also snapped! Crikey! Steve and the Gollum set about a singlespeed conversion but couldn't get the chain decently tensioned in any suitable gear. The rest of the crew had vanished up to the fireroad above, but when Dave finally managed to reach them he decided enough was enough and chose to cruise back down the fireroad to the Hub and retire gracefully with a coffee in the sunshine. Pity - hard luck, Dave. Actually he's having a stench of a time with both of his Whytes, as his E5 is in for a frame crack repair. Just before we pulled away to start the climb up to Spooky Wood, Golly decided to use the short downhill stretch of fireroad available to give his new pads a few hard stops. he managed one OK, but when he jumped on the pedals for run two, his chain snapped! Please, no more breakages, surely? Here's the last picture of Dave in a happy state (note the picnic table on the left that the Gollum couldn't see!)
Up we trolled to the turn off the fireroad for the last climb up to Spooky, then off we trolled up it aswell, with Ian B making light work of hauling the Commencal to the top of every climb, although he's had plenty of practice with his son's Downhill career just ended after a good few years. We took another break at Spooky's launch pad and when the time came, the Gollum chose to do his usual spot of video recording and took himself down through the first couple of those fabulous switchback berms to the camera position. Now at this point I have to express my sincere apologies to those taking part here, as yet another GollyCam bites the dust, as you can see by the light it let in to this clip!
GollyCam " Dies at Glentress!!!
On reaching the bottom of Spooky, NoBrakes pleaded for another run down immediately, but Ian B, our Steerer, had other ideas. He led us up in the opposite direction on a short but steep and rocky Blue climb, which didn't look too inspirational to those of us who hadn't ridden it before. Minutes later, however, we were blasting madly down a slightly smaller version of the Black Route's Britney Spears run - fantastic! I've lost count of my trips up here over the last 4 or 6 years but I'd never even bothered looking at this before - after all, it's BLUE! It's most certainly what we'll be doing every time we come back, however, it was that good. We were dumped out near the horrible little Pie Run. We skipped it here though, and were dragged back up the hill by Ian again to complete the bottom end of Spooky's singletrack, again done pretty quickly.
So here we were again, and as much as the Gollum pleaded with everyone NOT to do the Pie Run, insisting that SOMEONE would surely get hurt, and for what? So off they went, the bu@@ers, and did it anyway! Golly had no choice but to follow the squad into this vile little pile of deep dips and high roots, but really could have done without the smiling assassin, Stevie B, behind him as last man. Why? Because Steve was the witness to the Gollum's "incidents". Yep, that means more than one, as he crashed nicely just 50 metres in, going off sideways, and then after righting himself and continuing, only got another 50 metres before doing a Keystone Cops stunt, straddling the Trek for two bike lengths with the back wheel above his head, the front under his passion fruits, and the handlebars pressed hard against the groin area. The giggling from behind made him feel pretty darn stupid, coz he is. But at least his prediction was correct, for once.
Here's Dave's gears as they should be and as they are!
We made our way up to the Ewok Village where Stewart and a few Ians tackled the seesaw (I may have missed someone as I skirted around the stupid thing) then it was time for Gollum to lead down the log piles and rock chutes back to the fireroad. We avoided the couple of short but pointless Black descents when we got back on the fireroad again and with no sign of Dave R and a hire bike, proceeded to grab a late lunch break (around 1:30pm) before hitting the return loop down the last few sections of the Red over the bridges, berms and roots leading back to the main drag up to the Buzzards Nest. Couldn't help but notice on this section that we have another Jason in our midst - Craig, it is, who kicks his back wheel out sideways when he takes off. Only difference between the two is that Jason does it accidentally!
We were almost done, but not quite! After that horrible little field crossing Ian made us climb the new Red singletrack to the car park again from where he led us onto the Blue once more, and here again there's a smashing singletrack drop back down to the road junction, as fast as you fancy, excellent fun. So now we only had the very last run to do - the new Blue finish, and if you poke around here you'll see what we thought of it a couple of months ago. It's even better when you go back for a second bite, and after we'd all sailed down, some of us in control, some of us out of the pedals (!) most of the lads spent the final ten minutes repeating the last jump! Why oh why did the camera choose today to pack up? This is what most of it's pictures look like:
Anyway, the conclusion was that apart from poor Dave, who had to sit in the sun on the veranda sipping tequila til we got back, this was a brilliant ride around some old favourites mingled with some of Ian's choice paths - cheers Ian, superb.
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