Sunday 3rd February 2008 was windy, cold and had a threatening sky, although the weather forecast was good until teatime on this side of the North East. Trouble was we were headed slightly west of the Toon, so it could be that put a few off. But surely not?

For once the Gollum had put the correct start time details on the web sites, confirmed by those who turned up today, so I make no apologies for the fact that we only waited until 8.15 am before disappearing from the start at Golly's Cave. Really, we shouldn't have waited at all once we were ready, but we're s-o-o-o nice.

So it was Terry H, Steve B and Gollum who departed for Jedburgh to do the Justice Trail. On the way Steve and Golly diverted to Cramlington to collect Derek and John before heading out to catch Terry. We started the ride from the centre of Jedburgh at 10.05 am and began the drag up to the north east side of the trail which more-or-less circles the town (in straight lines!).

There they go, leaving the Gollum trailing as usual But he got down this bit in front, somehow Here's the artistic shot for the day  

It was wet. The ground, that is. The river was in flood but delivering mainly melted snow from the Cheviots and lower slopes of the Lothians to the sea as the sky was managing to stay rain cloud free up on the high ground. The tracks at the start were dressed in a couple of inches of rich brown mud, and it would get a bit muddier and wetter as the ride progressed. Still passable, however, and Terry and Steve hardly got off their bikes all day while the other three didn't have the same staying power.

Amazingly, unbelievably, there was not ONE SINGLE PUNCTURE today, so whereas I could "advise" other local MTB groups that it sure was soggy, I couldn't say that there was much danger from the dreaded hawthorn cuttings, although as on the East coast of Northumberland, there had been a lot of it here, but maybe a bit earlier in the year and the spikes have been pulled below ground by now.

The long haul up through the woods Golly was almost out of his tree taking this piccy And this is in the thick of the singletrack action after the soggy bit Terry again suffered chain suck with the Fusion - could have had something to do with this clag

With Derek trying to fathom Golly's monochrome map printouts and wrestle with his own recollection of the route, we depended to a fair degree on the waymarks at the start, but they are pretty good. Once or twice, however, we strayed from previously covered ground, but in more than one case it was absolutely the right thing to do as we discovered and got the chance to enjoy some superb singletrack. This will be a great route in the dry so we will be doing it again. The best bit is off the Lanton Loop up to Timpendean Tower and I for one could have played on that section all day. Somehow Derek managed to keep us largely sheltered from the wind as his memories of the trail returned.

It was quite a while before anything of note happened, in other words someone's teeth made contact with Terra Firma. That was Steve, who managed to turn himself over on a tricky dip and hollow. Some time later as we climbed to include Derek's secret Downhill run, and quite unusually, it was Terry H who bit the dust after a slight mis-alignment caused him to slip off the side of a bit of timber staging. Then immediately Steve did the same and fell almost on top of him, getting his ankle jammed in the tangle of bikes and bouncing off Terry's front forks. He couldn't get up until help arrived to lift the bike off him. It looked sore but he's one of the hard lads and rode on without complaint. Not only that, but the pair of them insisted on correcting their errors by repeating the short timber section, no probs.

We then faced the rest of the climb to get to the top of this swooping drop through the edge of the local forestry so we could enjoy the return journey. John wasn't too happy at the back pushing up alongside the Gollum but at least we both knew there was only one way back down, unless Derek changed the plan at the top! He didn't, fortunately, so off popped the Gollum first to take up a useful camera position in order to get some video of NMBC in full-on Downhill action. When the videos appear here you can make your own mind up about the reality of that statement!

After Golly had snapped the others through a reasonably difficult obstacle he remounted to join them at base camp where  he also insisted on a short bite break before hitting another soggy moorland dual track with that nasty side wind like the one that plagued the morning last Sunday. The end of this took us onto the road back down to the south side of Jedburgh and the end of the ride, with the expected rain never appearing. Although John only clocked around 16 miles it felt much further probably due to the claggy ground conditions, and the aches from the Gollum's nether regions a couple of hours later were enough confirmation to convince him it wasn't an easy ride. We got back to the car around 4.00 pm and headed back to Byrness and a luxurious wedge of chocolate cake with coffee served by two, er, very pleasant young ladies. We had our first Committee Meeting of 2008  and discussed, among other things, chocolate cake and, er, young ladies. Nowt about bikes.

Now I said there were no punctures, but if you've been following our recent history you'll probably be a bit sceptical about that statement. And you'd be dead right. While we were taking John's bike off the GollyMobile® back at Cramlington,  there was Steve's bike with a flat rear tyre - unbelievable, but at least we got through the ride with none. Another good training ride with plenty of laughs and Young John still in fine form with the ad-lib jokes. Only down side was that I'm sure I look a bit pervy blowing on Derek's toes every time we stop to keep them mobile. Actually, there was another puncture. Can you guess what the crew is doing here? The garage behind won't give you a clue, or will it? 

No, dirty minded person, they're waiting for another pumper doing it's job pretty slowly Aye, even the GollyMobile doesn't escape an NMBC ride without the odd puncture!

Where were you, by the way?                        Vidz:- John's Crash - a bit of history!

Terry & Steve on their carpentry course

Terry through the eye of a needle

Steve follows suit

They are followed by The Beivers

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