And so it came to pass that the MidAirCrisis Madmen finally carried out the long-touted proposal of Terry H to attempt a tootle around Thrunton Woods without the normally quite helpful intervention of daylight this Thursday, 24th September 2009.

While the more sensible half of the Club was back at Holystone attempting to keep up with the Speedian (see here) the following were about to attempt the same but chasing Terry through the dense, danger-strewn blackness north of Rothbury instead. Those attending were Terry H, Kev, Stewart, Keith, Paul, Ainis, Chris D, Chris K and Terry K (the one who looks like a Gollum).

We managed to start into the trees around 7:10pm with Terry up front, attacking our favourite daylight finish in the wrong direction for the first time.

The light was fading rapidly outside the trees but inside it was light-up time immediately. This section proved reasonably tricky for most of those he left in his wake but we all emerged from that first slightly uphill singletrack in one piece, more-or-less, if a little out of breath.

From here it was necessary to cover a bit of ground on fireroad and if the legs were heavy through Phase One they got no lighter gaining as much height as the Woods could afford, heading north to do Terry's revised (quicker and a bit safer) route.

We got a wee bit stretched out here a couple of times, but thanks to the dilligence of Chris K, Stewart and Ainis, and also a couple of tiny flashing red LEDs in the distance, we found the right route back to the front runners. There's always a danger that out in front you're gonna hit stuff as hard as you can, and because it's so unsafe on this terrain to even glance behind, even in beroad daylight, it's no surprise the train kept stretching.

That long pull up brought us to some brilliant new singletrack descents, and a few we'd done before, but torchlight presents a whole new set of calculations for the brain to perform, as well as hiding or flattening some ground features as we well know from local night riding. The result was, however, one of the most productive grin sessions I've ever been involved in. We've become a little used to the regular tracks we tackle nearer town and treat them with a trifle less respect than they maybe deserve. But tonight it was all new and you had to be sharp and alert all night. I find my concentration diminishes slightly when I'm giggling.

Poor Chris K found not only this, but even just riding his bike not quite that easy after about an hour, and was definitely suffering from the onslaught of something nasty. He managed to keep going and ignore it on the downs, enjoying the new stuff and the threat to life and limb as much as anybody.

But that only lasted until we'd finished the northern loop and were climbing fireroad again from the top car park to begin the crazy descent back to the cars. While Chris proceeded to exhaust the contents of his inner workings upwards and outwards, the Gollum had to ride away for fear of joining in.

The noise could be heard plainly by the others waiting at the top half a click away, who thought a couple of Harleys had ridden in to join us. When he did recover the strength to complete the climb, he was immediately searching everyone's bags for loo roll and soon vanished into the woods to do that other evacuation stuff. Luckily he carried that off quietly.

Once Golly had equipped Ainis with a standby head torch it was time for Terry to hit the start of the end. We all dived into the undergrowth behind him to follow a series of dual, grassy single and rocky, twisty, rooty downhills with a couple of fireroad interventions between to allow a few seconds rest.

The scenery seemed to be flying past quicker at each turn we made. On one of the drops he hesitated at a crossroad ever so slightly only to have the whole bunch concertina into the back of him and each other, Keith's shorts getting very intimate with Stew's back wheel!

Final stretch was to repeat the initial rooty climb in it's "proper" direction, making it a descent, but we still had to work for it in the pitch black, with Terry H's lights fading on the way down but the other Terry managing to just about stay with him and share his beams. That popped us out at the cars as usual and in a pretty tired state (most of us) at around 22:00. Perfect timing.

This was a new experience after years of riding here, and the extra edge provided by the dark really enhanced the ride and the sense of accomplishment. Didn't hear any owls tonight but the ride itself provided plenty of hoots, as expected. Probably one of the best rides I've ever done, certainly in the dark, and somehow the onslaught of those super downhill slaloms made the hard won uphills seem hardly an effort afterwards.

Except for Chris K.

Conclusion - terrific ride, brilliant route planning, cheers Terry.