Thursday 14th February 2008 saw a flurry of apologies on the GollyMobe™ as one by one the trusty NMBC/MidAirCrisis membership cried off this ride to take their loved ones out for Valentines Day. Ah, bless! (either coz they're nice lads or they had something to apologise for!). Derek and Terry H thought they were gonna be stuck with just a Gollum for company, but what was this mysterious black shape approaching on a rigid singlespeed from the east? Well, Jason, of course. No lights and dressed to deliver Cadbury's Milk Tray. Actually, all three of these bods were totally invisible to drivers from behind, once their two rear lights had been spattered with mud, and I watched from behind as several cars almost scraped their behinds. Wish I didn't worry about road safety so much, but old dogs are sh?te at new tricks and won't be told by me (hint). Almost ready to leave when another surprise surprised us - young Chris, he of the Emerald Oil, turned up for some more punishment on his second NMBC ride with his Mongoose Teocali (nice bike, by the way)!

So it was then, that those without sentiment had turned up at Gollum's to start a trip into the Unknown, aka Blyth. Leaving at 7:05pm we scuttled along the Old Coast Road to the Holystone pub and up the bridleway behind it through Holystone Farm. Then it was Waggonway to Hillheads, and east down to Backworth. That's where we hit the bridleway north all the way up to Seghill, non-stop, with the poor Gollum left crying at the back as he just couldn't maintain a decent pace. Bad batch of Muller Rice to blame, he thinks.

Hitting road again with Golly escorting Chris, whose pathetic little candle wasn't exactly showing him every cranny in the trail, we continued by tarmac to the nearest shop in Seghill so Jason could hydrate himself with a bottle of vodka, sorry, water. With him topped up we veered across north west to East Cramlington, with Golly again being left way behind. Time to cut across to the north end of Seaton Delaval and through to one of our favourite off-road sections, the flat, straight undertree run up to Newsham.

We arrived just west of Blyth's South Beach around 8:30pm, at which point Gollum decided to make a bigger-than-planned excursion of it so that Terry H, who hails from Cullercoats, didn't get home too early. The net result of that hapless decision was that we ended up going right over to Kitty Brewster and being left with not too many options for the return loop. Option 1 - riverside trail all the way south. Option 2 - riverside trail dee daa dee daa. We took the riverside trail.

Once more Gollum had to shepherd Chris along in the dark, trying to shine his handlebar and helmet-mounted beams over Chris' shoulder to light the trail ahead. That caused Golly one or two scary moments as he found his head separating the odd bunch of overhanging tree branches. It also wasn't great for Chris, as with a few hundred kilowatts of light directly behind him, all he could see on the ground directly ahead of his front wheel was a pitch black shadow of himself! We escaped unharmed, however, and rolled into Blyth's new harbour area just after nine. It felt like the time for a food break and a rest. By the time we'd captured some river video action of trawlers and wind turbines, together with a few shots of Chris for his memoirs, the clock had rolled on to 9.30 or so, and it became apparent that a 10:00 pm finish was in grave doubt. Here's Chris with the first Martian ship to land in Blyth -

WE proceeded to follow Terry out of Blyth, and with Derek and Gollum tiring at the back for various reasons, those two kept it straight along the path at the side of the coast road to Seaton Sluice, while the other three enjoyed the rolling twists of the Dunes Bridleway until we met up again above the harbour. We then coasted up to St Mary's Lighthouse where we managed to fight off the appeals from Jason to do the cliff top trail. Just not enough time, unfortunately. So Terry took us down behind the Crematorium at Whitley Bay and past the Golf Course until we left him to head up to Wellfield.

Jason also left us at Shiremoor to take the Silverlink Waggonway back home to Howdon, leaving Derek, Chris and the Gollum to drag their weary limbs back to their cars and the Cave. We got back at 10:25pm completely drained. Derek had an obvious excuse, but Chris and Golly don't suffer from horrible physical afflictions like he does, they were just crap, but then it was only Chris' second serious ride, so that just leaves Gollum to be crap. No argument there. Roll on the 24 hour race! Our latest Thursday nighter for a long time, and after covering an estimated 32 miles.

Hope it proved worth it for all you Romeos who cried off, or were you not seeking rewards? A likely story!

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