Another splendid turnout for a Thursday nighter, October 11th 2007, although the fabulous weather must have been an incentive. Two teams met up in the middle of Forest Hall with Arthur, Craig, Derek, Ian A, Keith, Stu and Craig's mate out for the first time (on yet another Specialized!!!) backtracking along the Great Lime Road to meet the Two Terrys coming the other way to make nine.

Gollum suggested a slightly different route this time, trying to plot something decent for Stu and Terry 2 to not have to ride a hundred miles home after the finish, so we headed south towards the Rising Sun. As usual with these local dallies, Ian knows every cranny of the place and he soon had us scything through Old Forest Hall on tarmac and grass, finally emerging at the top of Station Road as dusk began to fall over the Rising Sun hilltop. That's where we headed next, scuttling along the bridleways, and once more being well stretched out. It must be the Moon, I reckon. Every time Speedian comes out and it's shining, he starts ramping up the pace, as if he can't help himself.

Golly had Stu at the back, hearing about his holiday mishap when, while scuba diving, he hurt his back trying to get back into the boat with 3 air cylinders on his back. So before we started he wasn't in the greatest of fettles. Carrying our bikes over the stile at the foot of the old pit heap, Gollum decided that Ian was taking the troupe the wrong, or long, or steep way up to the crest, so he took it upon himself to bomb straight up from the north west corner, as it's the flattest way up there. Arriving at the top, he was quite surprised to see no twinkling lights approaching, from any direction, for what seemed ages.

Now then. If there's anything that irritates a Gollum more than the tw@t that does the Big Brother voiceovers, it's INDECISION. Whether in life, at work, or worst of all while driving, getting people to be DECISIVE is incredibly difficult. So, after this extended, lonely wait at the summit, he decided to act - and flew down the widest grassy, then stony path back towards Station Road. After a dramatically quick run down, there were still no lights anywhere, and it was good and dark now. So he decided to scoot around the south end of the hill to the Barking Dog, facing the terror of the Chavas hidden in the grass along the way, as they jeered at the hyper luminosity of his lime green or lemon lemon leggings, being worn for a bet. Then bu**er me if there was nobody there either! So he faced another mad dash across the fields past the little terrors again, only this time he heard the invisible missiles landing all around him. And still no-one visible at the stile. Baffling - where could they have gone?

So what was the next best course of action?  Yeah, sprint over to Station Road and up to the farm at Benton. They were bound to be waiting for him there. So he did that, almost killing a couple of black dogs who just couldn't be seen in the darkness until you hit their tails with your front wheel. The owner didn't seem too pleased. And Golly wasn't. By this time, there were two mobile phones in Gollum's back pocket vying for his attention, but by the time he got under a lamppost so he could see the display, they'd stopped chiming, so he ignored them. However, looking back towards the pit heap, he could see a couple of red and a couple of blue LEDs shooting beams at him. Now that could only be NMBC up there in the pitch black, on bikes. Contact was established, as he knew it was Derek up there, the Hope front lamp on his Specialized moving across the top of the hill like a US Apache Attack helicopter scanning for a target. So he lifted the DDG and pointed his front lamp at the hill, using his hand in front of it to send a message in Morse code. The message read "I'm waving my hand in front of my lamp", at least that's what it looked like.

He leapt back onto the bike, and retraced his footsteps. Blow me if that bloke hadn't gone home and brought out his two spare black dogs for me to hit again! Bastards, all three. On reaching the stile at the foot of the rough descent, Derek was first to appear. So the pair waited. And waited. And... rode back towards Station Road to see if the lights were still on up above. They weren't! So they backtracked yet again. After a while there were lights homing in on them from all directions, and after 4 or 5 minutes, the pack was at last safely gathered again. Crikey, we'll wear out a strip of Station Road if we keep crossing and re-crossing it like this. Golly squarely takes the blame for this little upset, but on we went down through NUFC's training ground alongside the East Coast Main Line. We followed the bridleway over to Coach Lane, then through to Benton Road, and finally to Freeman Road at South Gosforth. Before we took the plunge into the depths of Jesmond Dene there was a short break for the Gollum to visit the trees for liquid relief, the first of a handful of such excursions, just like Sunday.

The crazy blast through the trees in here went much as previous ones, though there were a few close shaves with the stone steps in particular being very greasy, as were the many roots on the highest section of singletrack. It was time for the second mishap of the night, and that was caused by the Speedian being a bit too speedy through here, a place he knows like the furrows on his brow. With him was Keith on his return from holiday, Craig and his pal. The result of this was for Gollum to turn up Cherry Tree Walk, the way we went last time we did this, but there was no sign of the others at the top of the fairly tiring pull. That proved most unfortunate for Stu, who was not only battling his injury, but also hadn't been on the bike for 3 weeks or more and was struggling. He could could have done without having to climb up here, and then immediately follow Golly back down again to search in the other direction!

We did get hooked up again half way through the Dene, but after re-grouping the front runners were zooming away immediately and once again they failed to look behind them. They ended up under Armstrong Bridge, while the rest of us, of necessity, rode over the top. And again we managed to regroup in the Vale, this time with Gollum making noises about the party keeping in touch, but not very forcefully as he caused the initial split in Wallsend!

Out of Jesmond Vale now, and up through Heaton and over to Sandyford Road. Poor Stu had another struggle with the final climb out, and by the time we got back down past the north end of Armstrong Bridge he wasn't too keen to join the next drop back into the other side of the Dene, where he and the Gollum watched the others disappear into the void. Back up on the road, Golly suggested to Stu that should stay with the tarmac and shoot straight through to Matthew Bank and home to Fawdon. And Stu agreed, so goodnight from him.

Well, that left poor old Golly up at the road on his own, and only a black hole awaiting below, the others having vanished from view yet again. Or had they? All the old fool had to do was cruise down the bank and seek out the others, who couldn't be far away. So off he went but, finding it a little lonely with only the trees for company, he allowed himself a burst of speed. The narrow path was covered in fallen leaves, but they didn't cause too many problems as his speed increased into the pit. Suddenly, a host of red and white beams appeared ahead - the lads were actually waiting for somebody - at last! Not wanting to delay them any longer than necessary he stayed on the gas, and found himself rattling down half a dozen steps. They were fairly shallow and well-spaced, so even though they caught him out, no harm done. But that was only Stage One, and he wasn't prepared for the next one, not at this speed. It consisted of another half dozen steps, but much deeper and closer together. Hauling on the rear brake of the Mutha as blind panic set in simply induced a useless skid, and then he found the real obstacle - a third stage! This one wasn't another set of steps, oh, no. Nothing so predictable. It was a metre-wide wooden bridge. And it was wet. And it was covered in leaves. And he was already skidding.

Now the Gollum has done a bit of this. And he's done a bit of bike building. One thing he's built into his current bikes is eight inch discs. That's because you need big stoppers of you want to stop quickly, or comfortably from high speed. So the Mutha, and the Coiler, and the Barracuda all have dustbin lids for stoppers. Now that's not enough on it's own. You also HAVE to appreciate that an eight inch front disc was born to put you over the bars and create lucrative work for dentists. So when the going gets r-e-a-l-l-y sticky you MUST learn to keep your finger off the right hand lever. And here we had a situation that, within a few milliseconds and a few metres, became covered in Bostick. So he stayed faithful to his training and left it well alone. No problem.

Except for one. The instant his front wheel left the last step and bounced onto the slimy timber, it was away into the river below. Or it would have been, had not the bridge been blessed with timber rails on each side. How lucky is that? Well actually, it's not bloody lucky at all. The bike proceeded to wedge itself between the sides of the bridge, front wheel down, rear wheel up, and create a nice lumpy landing pad for the Gollum, silently, gracefully, like an eagle, soaring through the air in the darkness until the inevitable effect of gravity took over. On second thoughts, this was just like Eddie the Eagle. Splat. In the still night air, the only thing you could hear as the bridge and bike between them  shattered every bone in his body, was the - no, not the shrill call of the Nightingale - the manic laughter of seven sods on the far side of the bridge. As much as he detests water, Golly would have much preferred a wet landing in the river here, as he's got used to that lately on the Sunday rides. But no, it was a hard one, in fact one of his hardest ever. And it did lots of damage which the rock hard Rock Gollum shrugged off as he continued the ride with the others. His tears were invisible in the dark, you see. Hope you're keeping count, Derek.

Almost worse than the crash, however, was the disappearance of the Gollum's favourite waterproof coat, a pretty decent Karrimor, from his back pocket into the Ouse Burn!

Onward, and we sped through the tricky riverside section below Paddy Freeman's, where Speedian and Golly deviated once again on the remaining gnarly bit, catching the others on the road at the South Gosforth exit we'd used as our entry earlier. First time we've done this bit in reverse. We then scooted down to the roundabouts, and around past Bluebell Woods to our regular bridleways behind Asda, emerging at Melton Park. Only one section left now - Speedy's Spot, aka Gosforth Park. No hint of light at all in here, except what was coming off our lamps, as the Gollum braved his pain and led through the undergrowth, trying to stick to one of Ian's' trails after overtaking the crawlers early on near the hotel. Derek retook the lead when the Elder strayed of-course into a ditch. When we emerged through the slit in the wall on Sandy Lane, Terry 2 decided, because it was near to the hour of ten, that he'd be better off hiking straight across Burradon from here to his Cullercoats pad, so off he went leaving six. Those six had one more blast through the top of the golf course to complete, which they did after a short halt half way through to regroup. Then one at a time the rest dropped off at their turn-offs to leave Golly to limp back to the cave for 10.15pm, and a wound-licking session.

After the Kielder ride, Alan H christened Golly "The Tortoise". Tonight, Stu gave him "Banana Legs" to suffer. Mrs Gollum, bless her, on seeing the bodily damage tonight, served up "Bat Eyed Mutt". Guess I'll never learn.

24 miles, a few more for Terry 2, and a very humorous fall into the greenery for Ian, just for a change!

Hopeless pictures may follow later.

Have you Killed A BIKE THIEF TODAY?