On another pretty decent-looking Thursday night, 12th June 2008, a little bit of NMBC history was created with the appearance of our first female rider of the year, in the very pleasant (no? too sexist? nah!) shape of Our Tim's playmate, Jools. She obviously hasn't taken much notice of the fact that we appear to be a real chauvinistic bunch, if you read the ride reports and see how many lady riders we currently have. Young Jools is as fit as a lop and currently working as a lifeguard. Obviously we were all very careful not to have any accidents, as no-one likes working when they're off-duty, but Tim, who's currently on a roll (literally) couldn't resist testing her lifesaving  abilities by sending himself sailing over the Mongooses handlebars to become our only victim of the night after we'd hit the trees. She just laughed like the rest of us and ignored him! If my memory serves me correctly, and it rarely does, she's also the first rider we've had out for real using toe clips and straps on Tim's spare bike! Pretty brave. Sorry, sexist again, so just brave. She also managed not to fall off, which is going against our unwritten law for new riders!

The rest of the party was made up of the Solid Squad - Arthur, Ian, Terry and at long last Derek, feeling better and hopefully back in the fold full-time. As usual there was a Gollum tagging along to record the event. We were slightly delayed by the scrawny one when Derek discovered a thorn in Golly's new Trek's rear tyre, at which point he (Gollum) decided it was easier just to use another bike, but by the time he'd extracted one Derek had the tyre off, tube out and a nice little thorn removed from the carcass. In went a new tube and off went the gang.

Terry leads us out of Holystone

We headed out of the top of Holystone Farm on the Waggonways while trying to extract information from the Speedian who'd just come back from his Highland Coast to Coast holiday with our old pals from up the A1, Willie and Julie. He'd had a great time and even the weather was good for them, which with that fabulous landscape must have been a very worthwhile event to participate in.

Once over Hillheads the Gollum took a small deviation over the fields to get us to Burradon then we headed over towards Weetslade. Derek and terry talked Golly out of our regularly-used but currently nettle-infested path over to the A189 so we tarmacced it to the top of Dudley then turned towards Weetslade. Somehow the trailing sextet took off into the fields to Weetslade Country Park while the Gollum, oblivious to their departure, kept pedalling away at a fair old rate towards Gosforth Park, which had been his target all along. He was caught approaching Sandy Lane by an out-of-breath Tim who had given chase to find out why Golly hadn't turned off with the others. "Coz we're not going that way tonight" he trotted back at Tim, who looked surprised and turned back for the others again. What an athlete!

Gollum's proof he actually entered the Park on his own!

and the spot of bother that stopped the Trek after rejoining the others

Anyway, that whole scenario created a very unusual outcome. The Gollum took himself into Gosforth Park and proceeded to give the Trek a good thrashing, as there was no-one to see him fall off and make an arse of himself for once. After 10 minutes or so and following the completion of Stage One around the edge of the Golf Course, he emerged between the factories on Sandy Lane looking over at the Hill to see if he could see the others, who he now assumed would be headed towards Wideopen and then Brunton Woods. No sign. So he tooled back over to Sandy Lane and dived into Stage Two through the hole in the wall. While he was playing nicely amongst the greenery, intending to head across to Brunton and meet the squad, he saw something moving in the trees to his right. Riders! yep, Tim must have convinced them to obey orders for once and they'd turned back to catch up to Golly. So there was a happy reunion and we continued through the grounds and out onto the Great North Road.

Below - fame at last! Our new Team Bus hits Gossy Park.

Slipping out of the back of Melton Park we followed the bridleway behind Terry through to Bluebell Woods, which he and Ian and a few others had done in this backwards direction a week or two earlier. This is a brilliant stretch, and although it's short it's just like the "Real Thing", in singletrack terms, and should definitely be on all local's 'must do' list. Time for Ian to take over at the front as we headed for Jesmond Dene, where we completed a loop towards the Town and back out again up Cherry Tree Walk and a few more dark paths. Before returning, Tim and Jools left us near Pet's Corner to go back home when she'd suffered enough. Somewhere along this next bit we lost Arthur who'd also turned for home at the prospect of us dafties taking on more dangerous ground. There wasn't much more to come, however, as we made our way back along the old Tram Track to Little Benton Farm then up to the Old Coast Road to leave Ian going left to Forest Hall and Derek, Terry and Golly right to Holystone.

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