Well, the Great Day finally arrived! For the last couple of months we've been advertising today's little treat taking place no more than spitting distance from the ancestral home of MAC/NMBC at Killingworth Lakeside. Hence our total disregard of the odd request to switch this ride to somewhere further north or west. It's called committment, and following the result today maybe the Gollum should be committed!
The event in question? Cyclo Cross! Yep, following Manic Mick's seemingly ludicrous suggestion that we should attempt this race "for a laugh", it was eventually adopted, principally because we were due a local ride anyway, it was dead handy to get to, it sure would be a giggle and we could also have a proper ride before/after or both - plenty of sound reasons to stick to the plan.
Turning up for the "real" part of the day at 09:30 were Ainis, Iain, Peter, Stewart, Mick and Gollum. We set off towards the Lakeside just to see how things were shaping up. When we arrived there were quite a few cars and vans parked up at the west end of the big lake with bodies on bikes streaming all over the place, and strings of ticker-tape marking out the race route along the lakeside path and wiggling in and out of the trees. We rode through it just before the junior race was due to start and just beyond the fields who should we bump into but Derek, out after another lengthy lay-off due to lack of health and fitness. Great to see him out again and just as well he turned up, as Golly's intended ride would have had us too far north to get back in time for the crescendo!
We rode the little cut to the railway line, crossed it and continued north into Weetslade Country Park. There was time for a short excursion as we tried to find a way along the side of the Hill, Golly hitting dead-end after dead-end as Stewart, Mick and Ainis tried to follow. Plenty of groans heard along this bit, and most had a Scottish twang! Iain and Derek remained on the tarmac trail down below, no doubt laughing their faces off at the folly up above.
We took the bridleway up behind Wideopen before crossing the Seaton Burn road where again a slight dead-end required another bit of backtracking before getting into the singletrack up to Seaton Burn Woods. We managed to hit the right trail here and streamed through getting a bit strung out under the branches. When last man Peter emerged from the undergrowth it was about 10:45 and he decided to turn for his Whitley Bay home as he had an appointment at 12.
The rest of us crossed the Six Mile Bridge over the A1 and did the Fence Line singletrack into the back of the Big Waters. That's where the childhood attraction of thick ice on water captured our attention and one or two "experiments" were tried out, fortunately without major mishap. After scurrying about in here for a while we followed Derek out to Hazlerigg and into Brunswick before popping out the other side. Time for some more root avoidance and mudplugging as we entered Savannah Nature Reserve and a few more giggles in the trees. Good job it was icy today to keep the mud largely in check.
When we got sick of enjoying ourselves (!) the dopey Gollum chose a route out to the road which proved to be something of a challenge on the ploughed-up foundations of new roads for the Grerat North Park, which may never be finished now. This was enough to sap the energy out of a few already tired legs, but we weren't done yet, oh no. Time to hit Gosforth Park, but avoiding the gnarly bits at the west side as we only had half an hour to get back in time to register for The Race!
The Park was taken pretty rapidly and we headed back through Forest Hall and into Killingworth again, arriving at the Registration car with about 10 minutes left before the start. Although the Gollum pleaded with the lady in charge to close registrations for the day, she wouldn't, and after some soul searching, Stewart, Mick and Golly got their seven quids out and signed on the dotted line. We stuck our race numbers on and shuffled over to the start area, on the flat grass right next to the big lake.
There must have been about 50 or 60 starters for the senior event, and our terrible trio positioned themselves at the back of the field, a position Mick would later regret taking, as a good start would have been much the best strategy. Around 12:30 somebody made a noise and we were off! From Gollum's position, stone last, it looked like everyone else had been promised a favour or two as the rest of the starters just vanished out of sight. There was one soul left, one of the dozen or so riding a Mountain Bike, who did lag behind a little, and Golly decided he could take him out on the first muddy left hander. The bloke would, however, get revenge later on.
From the Gollum's position he could see Mick making good progress a few hundred metres ahead, but Stewart seemed to be hurting a little not too many bike lengths in front. We continued like this until we hit the first hill. Hill? At Killy Lakes? Yep, the organisers managed to find the only incline within 10 miles of the Toon Centre and boy, did it hurt! It only gains about 20 vertical feet but you should try it some time - as we will every Thursday night from now on!
Anyway, when Golly arrived with five or six of the enemy immediately in front, he couldn't help but notice how they were all dismounting and walking up the thing. He promptly dropped 20-odd gears and managed to pedal up it, passing his intended targets with ease! Crikey, first lap and ten percent of the field overtaken! The top of the rise marked the start of the clever singletrack they'd mapped out through the trees. Most of this was too narrow to pass on, which worked both ways - you couldn't pass the bloke in front but you couldn't be passed by the one behind! Until one of the several open-field sections of course. During this trial of personal determination, spectators Iain and Ainis decided to head for home, much better to ride a bycyle than turn into an icycle watching this.
Second time around, the climb did enough to convince Golly he was just about done. Although he still had Stewart in sight, Mick was long gone, headed for a mid-field finish, as impressive as ever under competitive conditions even after a few weeks off the bike. Three laps was plenty so the Old One bowed out gracefully and sat with our photographer Derek while Mick and Stewart battled on gamely. They were both very impressive, especially as we'd done a decent little ride beforehand, which now looked like a Bad Idea. But hey, it was just a giggle anyway, and by the time the two MidAirCrisis Gladiators passed the chequered flag it had indeed been worth having the experience of competing at Cyclo Cross. For the Gollum, it was very entertaining being passed by the lead bunch as they lapped him, and no-ones ever gone past him that quickly on an MTB!
Once the last man had been flagged home the competitors gathered at the cars for the prizegiving, and surprise, surprise - all three of us won something! No, not performance-related unfortunately, but first Golly, then Stewart and finally Mick all had their numbers called out in the Prize Draw and won a water bottle each! Perhaps more valuable, however, was the fact that once again Newcastle Mountain Bike Club was on peoples' lips, thanks to the highly visible NMBC shirts we were displaying and the conversations struck up by Mick and Stewart. Unsurprisingly Mick got a polite refusal when he asked if "we" were going to participate in the next CC race in Durham!
Photos here and possibly a slice of video later this week...
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