Back to some semblance of normality for this Thursday, 28th August night ride with a better turnout than many of late. And it was welcome back to young Alex on his Specialized Rockhopper hardtail and also to another pal of Chris K, Peter on his - Rocky! One was blue and one was red, so it was easy to tell who was who. Of the regulars we had Chris, of course, a pair of Ians (Speedy and Ian B), a pair of Terrys (H and K), Arthur and early arrival Derek.

So we all followed Ian A down behind the Cave into some of his favourite bushland behind ASDA and proceeded to enjoy a nice blast around under the leaves. terry H's turn next to weave along the west edge of the Hill at Rising Sun before Golly reversed the normal route to face east again, fully intending to jump up to Holywell Dene and then the coast. However.

Mission Impossible

From the top of the Hill, after a short piccie break, we dropped down to the road into High Farm, but somehow, instead of taking a left we turned right onto the Battle Hill Waggonway. Shortly after that, with the Gollum heading for trees never seen before, fate was to deal a cruel blow. Not to the Old Hands, but surely to the new ones, as we entered what looked very much like a passable, feasible singletrack behind the Speedian who'd spotted it after getting lost!

For a few hundred metres it was difficult but rideable. The next few hundred proved considerably more awkward with only a few staying mounted as they used first one hand then the other to clear low branches out of their eyes. After that - well, we walked, crawled and squealed loudly as bare arms and legs were injected with thorns, eyes were poked out with overhangs and generally, nature won out over humanity. Just as it should be. Eventually we hit a barbed wire fence, but there was light at the end of the tunnel. True, but the Tunnel was bl@@dy miles away! What we had next was a nice stinky bog to wade through. The lucky ones got wet feet. Wee Derek got submerged, or at least disappeared completely from view for a while!

It wasn't too much further to sanity and the grass bank behind the Swallows. It had taken us about an hour to move half a mile. Real mountain biking, this. In that hour, however, my guts were bursting with the incessant bout of laughter during our mission impossible. And we'd also seen the contents of every back garden in Hadrian Park! Been a while since our last dice with death.

We joined the trail through Silverlink and the squad gathered outside one of the recent new landmarks at it's edge. They then followed Golly into an underground car park, wondering what on earth he had in mind now? Emerging unexpectedly into daylight at the other side, there was another small surprise waiting as we hit more distinctly unused, closed-in singletrack. Tonight was proving to be a real voyage of discovery. This path eventually brought us around to the foot of the Sundial and those famous steps. We chose not to tackle them on this visit, and had our snack break at the top for 10 minutes or so.

Ian A led off followed by the others in a steady stream. We gathered at the foot of the hill and retraced our steps around to the eastern edge and back onto the Waggonway. There's a steep click up from here to the A191 and it was only Golly on the mighty CoilAir who managed to get to the top without a dab, although there was quite a traffic jam behind him. Our new guest had just about been tested by now, so we did a nice flat loop through Shiremoor, into West Monkseaton where Terry H turned south for Cullercoats, leaving the rest of us to head up to South Wellfield.

From the Earsdon roundabout we cut through to the back roads and down onto the bridleway to Backworth only to find our route apparently blocked by a couple of fire engines and their crews, and a bit further on a billowing cloud of dense white smoke. It seems the old peat fields, which had smouldered here for years and regularly participated in spontaneous combustion, had erupted again. If you know anyone about to buy one of the many new houses still under construction here, it might be worth tipping them off about the potential volcanoes under their new dream homes!

Back onto Whitley Road again there was only the tarmac stretch left back to Gollum's Cave and respite at the amazing time of 9:30pm, surely our earliest ever finish. Alex changed the batteries in his front candle and left for home. while the Ians and Arthur took to the Great Lime Road for their shorter return journeys and Chris took Peter back in his motor. Total miles on the Gollum's bike PC were about 11.5 with a moving time of 1 hour 40 minutes. The furthest we got from the start as the crow flies was 2.5 miles, and just in the south east quadrant! The aches the following morning suggested a lot more activity than that.

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