Unusually, this Thursday Night Ride was turned into a daytime ride by mutual consent between the parties normally turning out to ride by candlelight. So for Thursday 27th December 2007 it became an Away Day for once. And it was to be a ride with many bonus features.

First one was the long-awaited re-appearance of our Jason, who's been tied up with his graft recently, and as he works for himself that's just the way it has to be. However, he hadn't forgotten how to prepare himself for a tough test of man and machine, and spent the previous night getting blotto. More about the other bonuses later.

Keith and Terry H were first to arrive at Gollum's followed closely by Jason then Arthur and Speedian. We spent 20 minutes or so swapping chainrings around on Keith's chain-spitting Specialized Stumpy and robbing Gollum's spare DDG Mutha of it's Sram PC991 chain as Keith's was three inches longer than it should have been due to stretch (OK, call it Keith's leg power). We got away for 9.25am and skedaddled through the Tyne Tunnel for our short journey down to the Smog for a day out in Guisborough Woods. Jason and Golly had been before but it was a while ago, so this morning the Gollum had risen from his rock very early in order to print a few routes off the Web.

When we arrived at the Visitor Centre on the edge of Guisborough we were met by Steve B, who commutes from LongBenton to Middlesbrough for work, although he hails from Buckinghamshire! The first thing Steve did with Golly's maps after thumbing them was chuck them in the bin. Oh, OK then! But hey, we needn't have worried, as Steve claimed to have local knowledge of this place so was immediately elected NMBC Travelling Ride Executive, or TREE in the lingo.

So the TREE led us away from the cars at about 11:00 after we'd been slowed again by a fingertip search of the grass verges to find Keith's dropped chainring bolt. Now that was partly his fault for dismantling the thing on grass, but mainly the Gollum's for glueing the rings together the wrong way round back home! Keith decided that 3 out of 4 ain't bad, so off we went.

As usual there was a bit of climbing involved to start with, but it wasn't bad, and at the top of almost every climb there's a - descent! We stopped at the top of this first "possible" drop into the trees while the TREE gathered everyone's opinions as to whether it was worth it or not. That was swiftly voted on by Terry's departure over the edge, followed by the others at well spaced intervals. The descent into what is known as the "Black Hole" by the local MTB group was, let's say, a bit tricky. Golly followed Jason down the steep, slippery incline and all was well until he lost his left shoe, which stayed attached to the Decathlon while the bare foot tried to dab at the trickiest log hop. The same spot saw most of the others take a tumble, apart from Speedian who looked supremely confident and ready to take on anything.

Terry heads for a tumble and takes it well

We moved on, following the very technical, whoopy, rooty singletrack looking for somewhere else for Ian to dump himself. He managed it at very low speed this time, just managing to straddle a ditch and cling on to a handy tree which prevented any further damage to sore ribs from Incident One. Here we are about to embark on another super singletrack speed fest, but first a small climb/walk! 

After more amazing, technical stuff we were on the edge of Great Ayton Moor and Steve took another poll to find out if we wanted to visit Captain Cook's Monument, which got a unanimous "yes". Here's Arthur's Seat headed towards Roseberry Topping. 

And because Gollum's GollyCam® still had some Christmas porn pix on it from home, the final pic of the day was the fine Monument itself, built in 1860ish with the NMBC troupe gathered below on the warm side.

Just when we thought the ride was over and we were turning for home, what did Steve find? Only another awesome singletrack descent, first over the edge of the moor but then down a fantastic drop which had recently been harvested and had half the trees in Christendom scattered across it. Luckily they were all less than 150mm in diameter and we could scoot across them, just. It proved a great test of skill and balls (I'm allowed to say that, MidAirCrisis Rules!), and Steve, as he had on most of the other sections, just blasted away in front very impressively on the (yuk) Stumpjumper Expert. Half way down he came to a halt when he was faced, literally, with a thirty foot sapling pointing right between his eyes. The Two Terrys joined him in an attempt to shift the fallen tree from pointing straight up the trail, Good Ol' Boys! The rest of the descent was just as good and we all got to the bottom largely undamaged.

Even that wasn't the end. The last full-on singletrack brought the fastest blast of the day, and one which Gollum managed to dump himself on, but was quickly up again to continue chasing Steve and Terry. Only damage was a ripped off right ear, but they grow back overnight on Gollums. So, that was it. Oh no it wasn't! Facing us was a hump of earth, about 60 to 70 feet high, like a mini version of that mad Roseberry Topping hill, with a thin ribbon of bright red shale up the middle to the tip. We dragged ourselves up there to be faced with a pretty steep drop straight down the other side, getting even thinner. And a third of the way down was a slight bulge in the surface. Golly rolled straight over, carefully doing the top third then releasing the brakes to finish with a flourish to the flat field below. The rest piled down behind as usual, leaving sensible gaps between just in case of drama. And sure enough, the provider of the drama just had to be The Speedian. Strangely enough, his beaming grin was totally oblivious to what the rest of us had seen from the base of the hill. On that little bleb 20 feet from the top, Ian's rear wheel had lifted itself so high we were certain it was going to end in spectacle, Big Time. How it didn't overtake his helmet we'll never know, but the conversation from then on was how to get him further back on the bike, if only to save the NHS from some ginormous bills for surgery, transplants and teeth.

So calm descended again with a slight drag back up the hill to get us back. The calm was short lived, however, as there was still another crazy dual track descent to conquer! Now this final blast wasn't steep, but it was fast as your speed accumulated. The problems were provided by the narrow gouges cut into the surface which you either managed to stay in of veered up the sides of, which yet again got just dangerous enough to dismount - Ian! Not only had Ian's ribs taken their umpteenth bashing of the day, but everyone else's ribs were severely aching aswell by now.

Finally we could cruise back to the Visitor centre by tarmac and fireroad to finish around 2.30pm. The "bonuses" I've mentioned were the major ones, but really there seemed to be one every five minutes, with Speedy at the centre of most. He was just fantastic entertainment value all day. And the ride itself was very unexpectedly spectacular, nothing less. Only Keith was moaning a bit but he was still having trouble with his tyres tramlining on roots and other obstacles, and that seemed to take away his edge a little. It's amazing what a bit of local knowledge can do, and really it's "hats off" to Steve for providing a brilliant day's riding, even though Ian only clocked 15 miles. Perhaps he could add another five to that for the time his wheels were up the other way.

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