Here we are then, Thursday 27th march 2008. Gollum was a wee bit late getting his bike out, looking to use the CoilAir for a change as he'd just washed the others. Steve B returned from his recent travels and Terry H appeared at the same time. Chris D turned up just before Ian A while Jason reported in saying he had to take his son to football training again and Derek rang in sick with his back continuing to give him aggravation. So there were five.

Golly transferred his lights from the DDG to the Coiler, but when he tried to push the bike up the drive the back wheel was locked. That turned out to be a binding rear Avid Juicy 7 brake which he proceeded try and free with bits of metal. Unsuccessfully. Meanwhile, Terry was adding a few strokes of air to the Cannondale's back tyre as he'd felt it wiggling around just before he arrived at the start point.

With the Coiler given up on, Golly selected the Decathlon from his stable and off we went around the corner to start the ride at about 7:15pm. We'd covered about 90 metres when the old cry went up - "H-O-L-D      I-T !". That was Terry as his rear tyre let go completely. That's when Gollum had the brilliant idea of grabbing one of his spare rear wheels for Terry's bike, thus saving the time taken to mend a puncture, so he skedaddled back around to his place. Arriving there, he realised that all three of his "spare" rear wheels - the Coiler, DDG and Barracuda, were all fitted with 203mm disc rotors. Snag - Terry only has 160mm on his bike! A quick think led Golly to the only possible conclusion - give Terry the wheel off the Decathlon, which he'd just dismounted from and ride something else instead.

So he pulled the wheel off the Decathlon and set about transferring the lights a second time, this time onto the DDG that he didn't want to ride because it was clean! meantime Terry stuck the Decathlon's wheel on his bike but discovered it wouldn't freewheel! Panic set in now as the sun was almost ready to come out again. While Gollum tried to tweak the cassette on his Decathlon wheel, Terry ripped the tyre off his own and popped a fresh tube in. So we eventually got away about half an hour later than advertised.

We skipped out the back through the Farm and around eastwards to the back of the Swallows Nature Park, down the side of the A19 to the Waggonway behind B&Q. We then cut over to the Silverlink trails and north again, all the way to the Sundial. After a short rest at the top Gollum led the plunge down into the darkness below, followed by Terry. Steve and Ian held back after Chris dropped his chain but they joined us a moment or two later. We left the Park and headed north again up through Shiremoor and into the mess of new construction roads between there and Backworth, trying to fight our way over to Earsdon Pit. That took a bit of doing in the dark and more than a few very high fences had to be scaled, one almost costing Chris his dear as his voice suddenly went up a few octaves.

We managed to break free of all the diversions eventually as we headed down into Holywell Dene for the usual romp through the trees. It was so late now that we decided to chop off our normal turning point, so after the swooping blast through the Dene and a short stop for Chris to refresh the batteries in his front lamp we emerged at the Whitley to Delaval bridleway. We had our snack break here in dead calm and quiet, where the discussion turned to the Wild Boar 24 Hour Race in Grizedale Forest at the end of May. The upshot was we're still looking for at least one more rider for this for Team Deux, so if you are interested please get in touch at one of our e-mail addresses. Entry is £35 with a free campsite and it should be a good laugh, unless they make you ride the bike!

Time to move on again, 9:20pm, so we turned south and headed for Monkseaton Drive. Arriving there we had a little bit of sport with a short off-camber muddy climb, but no-one embarrassed themselves, and we turned inland as terry continued south and home to Cullercoats. The rest of us were due to ride straight up to Wellfield and the Earsdon road to home, but Ian asked about the track through Murton Village, so we made a small southerly diversion and took to the fields inland of Monkseaton Metro Station. There's only one big field to circumnavigate here but you can't tell in the pitch dark, and it cut off a short stretch of unwelcome tarmac.

So we'd once more managed to find a fresh piece of off-roading, and we weren't done yet. After emerging from the field and touring up the quiet little road towards Silverlink again, Gollum spied a narrow strip of bare earth heading out between the houses and fields. Now in daylight this may have looked suspiciously like a footpath, but in the dark it looked like a bridleway, so we got on it and it took us the rest of the way up to the middle of Shiremoor. Tonight was Ian's turn to feel tight-legged as he plodded along gently behind the other three, but eventually we were a foursome again to complete the short hop across the edge of West Allotment back to Gollum's. Somehow we got back a few minutes before ten, quite unusual these days! 

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