There's been a steady flow of new riders this year, or at least new people turning up once to weigh us up, and tonight it was Stefan's turn. He hauled himself over from Crawcrook just beyond Ryton and is keen to get his old biking skills back.

He was joined by another thirteen regulars tonight, and good to see Lee E getting another pass out to wile away a few hours with us. Also had Suzanne present on that ridiculously fly-weight Scott with carbon everything on it, tipping the Gollum's trusty cave scale at just over 20 pounds. Yes, 20 for a full five inch susser (I think Suz claimed it was six - will have to investigate further as it's usually us fellas who exaggerate size).

We spent the first few minutes trying to pull in some barbeque cash for Steve Wa and also attempting to plot when the BBQ will actually take place after that catastrophic rainoff at Noah's place last night. It'll have to be pretty soon though.

In time honoured tradition (well, at least since early 2009) we set off from the Cave with Ian A and Terry determined to add some variation to tonight's route. This is of course fairly difficult now after a couple of years covering the off-road areas within a fifteen mile radius of Holystone, but it started fairly typically when Terry led up a dead end two minutes into Hangman Hill.

Backtracking about 50 metres Ian did find the right hole in the fence and we lined up astern of him to drop around the pond into the back of Hadrian Park. Meeting the bridleway Ian took the crew left towards the Stonebrook but Terry, at the back, caught up and demanded a retreat, which didn't go down too well. However, he had a master plan to keep us off the roads and also out of the wind as much as possible.

That meant dropping down to the Swallows Field then over to the edge of the A19 and down through Battle Hill. We used the narrow groomed waggonway past the Building Society then turned north towards West Allotment. Half way up the leader got his eye on an as-yet unexplored double jump, put there by local kids, so we moved in to investigate. The only way out (well, the most interesting) was through a clump of good old Impenetrable Forest. As usual, there were screams of pain and dissent on the way through, but it wasn't that big. Unfortunately it was just big enough for Suzanne to find something to inflict a puncture on the Scott. Didn't think that thing was heavy enough to force a thorn through its tyres! We stalled for a while until she'd fettled it with a masterful display of tube repair - a good lesson for some of us slow menders.

Leaving there Terry quickly realised he was heading south so turned back to the waggonway again. Alan led up the next earth bank through to New York Road before Terry took over for the grassy singletrack back onto the Backworth trail again.

The next few miles were a fairly-paced cruise up towards Earsdon Pit until Chris D suffered the insufferable - an escape of air from one of his, er, temporary tubes. Then Ian provided yet another diversion into the bowels of Hollywell Dene to set us at the concrete bridge for a regroup. The fast lads led us along the riverside to the steps and we paused again very briefly before hitting the Village and descending under the road bridge to the racetrack (OK, Public Right of Way) where Chris once more had to fettle a tubed tyre.

That all passed rapidly without incident so we leapt the fence beyond the jump spot and Jon set off to find his favoured drop to the riverside. Fortunately he didn't choose the one with the five foot drop-off at the end but once he and Terry were down, there followed a succession of stalls and falls behind them, with new man Stefan being first to dismount, thus maintaining our fine "first ride faller" tradition.

But it was Francis the Fearless who put on the best show for the clan gathered below as he bundled himself over the bars yet again in spectacular fashion, but was immediately on his feet, unlike on that other infamous occasion north o' the border (hope his folks don't read this!). Anyway, if YOU were on Francis Watch at the time, you're fired!

We flashed through the rest of the Dene to Hartley Village and somehow split into two, with Speedy leading a small crew somewhere dark while Terry's Troop popped out onto the road. Tinme was a-pressing so he'd planned to shortut directly to the Lighthouse instead of the Sluice. So both squads eventually met on the benches overlooking the causeway for a well-deserved rest and snack.

Due to the time and the wind we decided to head back through the Dene again directly, that being the shortest way home by some margin, so we up and did that around 2110. No dramas on the way through, and another good laugh on the little ravine where we regularly pile into each other like tumbling dominoes as we try to climb the west bank.

We crossed the fields into a stiff south westerly breeze and regrouped at the old pit gates before carrying on to Backworth and up the waggonway into Shiremoor and were, remarkably, back at the Cave for 2210. Pretty good ride again, Speedy!