Today is Thursday. It is Ride Night on 24th January 2008, as usual. However, before this ride can take place, the Gollum has summoned the NMBC Clan to his cave to hammer out our entry to the Wild Boar 24 Hour race in Grizedale Forest, Cumbria on 17th/18th of May.

Following weeks of speculation, it seemed that all looked well for a two-team entry, that is either 8 or 10 riders, 4 or 5 per team. Once Gollum started filling in the forms, however, it became apparent that there would be some empty spaces on them as only Steve B and Terry H had kept their word and signed up!

Now this is more than a little disconcerting for old Golly who was forced to stump up the £280 entry fees in advance to make sure we got into the event, such is the current level of demand for this type of ride. Tonight was "last chance saloon" for anyone else, but by 7:15pm there was only one other taker - Tim. Great. We have three tenths of the bodies required to:

a) stop us looking proper Charlies

b) give the keen lads some decent support

c) stand a chance of entering again next year

d) get my money back

Personally I rank this d, a, b and c. Anyway, that's irrelevant. What we need is YOU!

So at least Tim made it three quarters of a team (minimum) so well done to him, and Craig has offered to travel over for the late session if the organisers will allow him to start late. We're checking on that now. I've contacted Jason who we took for granted would be entering and he takes it up to four, so we have one quartet with a possible fifth rider in Craig.

It would be great if we could scrape another foursome/fivesome together and make a louder weekend out of it. If you've never done anything like this before, why not give it a whirl? Performance levels are largely irrelevant - it's the Taking Part that matters, as they say! And if we get close to a second bunch, say Craig and a couple of others, I would probably risk life and limb to take part myself as last man if needed, and I've done nowt like this, ever. But really that's irrelevant, and I'm the worst uphill pedaller of the lot of us so I would be more of a hindrance than a help. Come on, give it a dig - you'll probably have a great laugh all weekend and be glad you made the leap.

Where was I - oh aye - the ride. By the time we'd got sorted we were all gathered in one place after Ian A had waited to collect stragglers along the GLR at the Cottage. So off we freewheeled; Arthur who was first to arrive sporting the wonderful CatEye Triple,  Brian, Craig, Terry H, Keith, Tim, Speedian and the Gollum. I make that 8. We hit the north east corner of the Rising Sun Country Park and proceeded to follow first one Terry (Golly) then the other (Terry H) after the pair had voted Speedy out of the lead spot! But we should have left him there, because although he always gets us lost, he still knows the quickest way out. This time, the other two led everyone up and down the avenues of black tree trunks until we were dizzy, managing to double the journey to the foot of the hill. No matter though, it's great in here, like a Magic Forest in the dark.

Speedian got his nose in front to head us into the lower treeline skirting the Hill until, as has become his custom, he stopped to meditate at the half way point, leading Terry to up the pace even more at the front. There was quite a bit of huffing and puffing when we emerged from the low branch covered torpedo tube so we took a while to extract some Michael before bombing down to Hadrian Lodge  behind Craig.

A slightly different path, with Golly now leading took us onto Mullen Road then across Station Road and up past the Powder Monkey. We rejoined our normal route through the farm to NUFC's cabbage patch, I mean practice pitch (sorry, King Kev) and maintained our energetic pace down to the Coxlodge Waggonway. 'Twas along this dark path that Gollum was treat to a fine display from an overlooking bedroom window which took years off him and made his heart pound even faster than the Barracuda's madly spinning pedals, but I won't say more than that. Going back tonight for more.

At the end of the waggonway we got ready to hit Jesmond Dene with Keith now at the helm on his final ride until he returns home from working away in March or thereabouts, so it was only right we should put him at the front and try to force him into a Big Mistake, init? Anyway, plan failed miserably, and the only victim turned out to be the Gollum. We reached the tricky sharp left where the trail dives down into the base of the valley when the whole wagon train came to a halt. Only it did it slowly yet unexpectedly, with Arthur stopping for the turn rather than just taking it, then Brian being forced to stop himself, then in turn Craig had to do likewise, and right on his arse was the Gollum, who just stopped with the right side of his front tyre leaning on the left rear of Craig's, but the old tosser began falling over into Craig and couldn't unclip his right trotter! Down he thumped like a ton of ships, banging into the tarmac path before starting to slide down the steep, slippery bank towards the river on his back, like an upturned tortoise.

On realizing what was happening Craig, the bastard, saw his opportunity for revenge here, shouting at the helpless Golly to stay down until he could find a camera to turn the tables on the wizened little toe rag. However, he didn't know that Golly was actually writhing in agony in the dark with a cramped-up left foot, a battered right knee and yet more damage to the old Dalbeattie Slab war wound deep inside his right shoulder. And on top of that (no pun intended) his left leg was jammed under the Barracuda while he desperately tried to catch a tree branch to prevent his disappearance into the wet stuff, and couldn't get up anyway. Eventually his pathetic whimpering got some sympathetic attention, I think Brian suggesting to Craig that he may really be in trouble. So Craig, against his better judgement, casually strolled over whistling Dixie and lifted the Barracuda off the squirming, tearful Gollum.

When the creature managed to drag himself back to his feet he was met by the unbelievable sight of Brian up-ending his bike for his 8th puncture in two rides, unbelievable. And even more so as he'd just fitted a pair of genuine Slime tubes to his Stumpy in an attempt to stop this very thing after his awful Sunday experience. The air, she was blue. So once more Golly produced another new tube from his seemingly endless supply (no - it's ended as of NOW!) to get Brian up and running again.

Here's the culprit For once, Craig is upright, looking on

And next up was Ian, but just to shove a bit more air into one of his own tyres

Time to follow the Speedian into the darkness as he led through the Dene, under the tunnel and up the turn for the climb up Cherry Tree Walk. We continued to the top of Jesmond Park West and entered Paddy Freeman's park where Keith, looking distinctly more luminous in preparation for his new job inside nuclear reactors, zoomed away in front to get us to South Gosforth. From there we sneaked around the bridleway behind Gosforth then onto the Great North Road and Speedy's Speedway, aka Gosy Park. By now several tongues were hanging out as it had been anything but a casual cruise, so we stopped for a chinwag and a light bite. As usual, the level of conversation degenerated towards the gutter, but there was also some useful exchanges of info about bike parts and ordinary stuff like that.

Only the Finale ahead now as Ian assumed his customary position at the head of the bunch, and proceeded to blast away up the pitch black ribbon of earth heading into the heart of the woods. Hitting the first rough road we scattered in all directions, and there followed a classic chase through the trees with eight separate beams of light piercing the darkness from as many directions. Terry got himself to the front and kept up a crazy pace with Golly and Craig, then Craig and Golly trying to hang onto his tail light in the slithery, off-camber turns and log-filled troughs on the way to the hole in the wall in the middle of Sandy Lane. Somehow we always manage to take a different route and still hit the right ending!

Only the final section left along the top of the Golf Course and it was Ian again who shot away in front of Golly, Terry and Craig as we built up speed for the superfast, squirmy singletrack. Reaching the wooden bridge in the woods, we stopped to allow the others to catch up and the last few hundred metres saw bikes flying everywhere, until we all popped out safely onto the Racecourse Drive. Then it was time to motor along the Great Lime Road and the end of another 3 hour ordeal by torchlight. Nice one, Ian.

Ian's GPS made it around 17 miles. To Brian, it was 17 miles too far! Story is he's gonna fit wooden tyres next, but I bet you a tenner he punctures those aswell. here's Ian's GPS trail (the light green one)

Update on Wild Boar 24 Hour Race

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