Sunday 8th April and once more it was only John and Terry riding with no explanations coming from the others as to why they weren't, or where they were, or where they'd been. Same as usual.

We left Johns at 9.10 am and headed north at first, into the strong, cool side wind. Out onto the main road heading for Plessey Woods Country Park, where we turned into the woods on the bridleway at the foot of Hartford Bridge Bank. We followed this legally and walked the bikes up the horrible steps at its end, then completed the very short loop back to the Visitor centre and back out onto the road to Hepscott. Just short of the old garage there's a bridleway to Nedderton and we took this in preference to tarmac.

Just out of the village we caught a bridleway out into the trees, but not until we'd stopped for Gollum to repair a punctured rear tyre. My Slime idea didn't work for the second time in a month, so I was forced to patch it. The green stuff was attempting to get out of the tube but wasn't solidifying the way it should, and I'm pretty sure that's because I hadn't put enough of the bulky part of the solution in there. Must try harder next time.

some decent singletrack speed!

This bridle dumped us into Choppington Community Woods. This is quite a wide expanse of woodland covered with trails, marked and unmarked. Last time out here, but travelling in the opposite direction, we managed to lose ourselves a couple of times. Today we found another set of great singletracks through the trees, and ended up having a much better ride than we expected. And we didn't have to cross any bogs or carry the bikes up vertical rock faces. Weird!

John has something on his foot Glad we weren't under this when the lightning struck! Into the Choppington Everglades

I know some MTB people who should take a tip from this sign Buster Keaton never dressed like this

Back out onto the Stakeford road and we had lunch on a nice new wooden park bench on the A196 between Morpeth and Stakeford. We continued into Guide Post, then back on tarmac through Scotland Gate. Just over the railway crossing at Choppington we turned left onto Barrington Road, skirted Bedlington Station then dived down onto the riverside through Bedlington Country Park, where poor John really came a cropper on a particularly steep drop to the river when he wasn't expecting it  Escaping from Humford Mill onto tarmac again we retreated down to Shankhouse against the evil wind, and back home through Cramlington Village as usual.

We clocked 20.25 miles in about 2 hrs 16 mins, max speed 27.5mph and really enjoyed it, but I would say that, wouldn't I?

Have you Killed A BIKE THIEF TODAY?