This wasn't supposed to be anything other than a fun run as 17 riders headed out from the Cave just after 7:00pm on Thursday 9th July 2009.

Good to see Geoff with his Odd Sox returning for a play, but even more welcome (OK Geoff, sorry - EQUALLY welcome) was our old buddy Craig who's really been through the wars with - a broken collarbone!!! Can't be quite a sympathetic to Craig as we were to Mick, however, as Craig did his on his road bike while dressed in Lycra! Anyway, here he was again just being curious and he decided to tag along for a few hours.

Welcome also to new man Henry, out for his first taste of MidAirMadness on yet another hardtail, this time a stout Kona Caldera. Henry's busy getting used to a metal hip joint after abusing his body a year or so back and is looking for genteel ride partners. Sure. And Matt's back! He's got a temporary swingarm for his Trek Fuel and awaiting a new factory part, but at least the bike's mobile again after that insane breakage at Dalbeattie way too long ago.

Forming the welcoming party tonight were those other ever-so-careful souls Chris K (riding from Jesmond again!), Chris D, Tim, Stewart the Shirtmaker, Alan, Arthur, Richy, Paul, Ian A, Jeff, Jason and a Gollum.

We shuffled through behind the cave and onto the Rising Sun bridleway. Normally we don't hang around here, splitting off in one of two directions - east or south. This time, however, the Gollum had another spanking new section of singletrack to demonstrate, discreetly lurking to the north, so he took off on that with the pack in pursuit. It's only 200 metres long but as there's never been a bike down it before was a little overgrown, and of course at its bushiest end there were good old nettles lurking. The screams could be heard for miles, as usual.

We eventually crawled out onto the Old Coast Road at ASDA and headed along to the Waggonway next to the car park. Once on there it was back to familiar ground as we hit the singletrack under the trees and scuttled towards the Hill. Rather than take the edge route, we rode straight up to the crest and regrouped. Then Golly led off down the south drop, which unfortunately caught Craig out half way down, tipping him off for a not-so-serious prang, thank goodness. Looks like he's picked up where he left off! (actually no - that was under water as I recall).

Regrouping again we took the Battle Hill Waggonway to - Battle Hill! This time, however, our ultimate target was an anti-clockwise coastal run so Golly aimed directly at Silverlink and we slalomed though B&Q's car park to get to the Coast Road. The Silverlink Roundabout delivered us to the top of his recently discovered singletrack down to Howdon, but not before Jason made a pigs of a kerb jump and sprayed himself all over the verge! Glad he wasn't wearing his "I'm an MTB Expert" shirt.

The Gollum led this brilliant little charge down through the trees, managing to miss most of the greenery edging it but not all, and the one he clipped with his left paw caused pain. Chris D to blame here for pushing so hard from behind, but didn't he also clack his left hand on the very same obstacle! As Tim, Stewart, Jeff, Chris D and Golly took a rest at the Howdon end, news filtered through that Jon had suffered a rear puncture in his solitary tubeless wheel. Rotten luck, eh? Caused by some nail-like sharp, it seems. However, this must rank as one of the longest puncture repairs ever as it was a good ten minutes or more before the rest of the team appeared, so they must have been brewing up aswell! Or was it just that we spend far too much time with post mortems (OK, fannying around yapping) and not enough just fixing the damage?

We toured quietly out of the housing estate onto Tynemouth Road then did the final bit of tree hopping before catching the road to the riverside at Howdon Metro Station. A trip south of the Tyne looked on the cards for most as we approached the Pedestrian Tunnel, but the Gollum and Speedian had already planned a coastal run and so we zoomed past it and up through East Howdon before Chris D led us over the old gasworks to Royal Quays.

After a short pause at the viewpoint we mashed down the grass banks (naughty boys) to the Marina. Just as we were getting ready to circumnavigate it, a young lady and her pals were noticed demonstrating their downhill and jumping skills on the three-level drop to the waterside. The eldest girl, probably 11 or 12, looked really mean, and she wound herself up to repeat the drop. You should have heard the gasps from 17 hardened MidAirMen as she thumped down to ground level very fast but landing badly. As she did so, her feet left the pedals and she crunched down onto the top tube of her rigid hardtail. Don't want to say much more, but she'd be very sore come morning time.

We crossed the Marina and hit North Shields behind Speedy, who guided us away from those awful steps down to the ferry landing and down the main road to the Quayside. We sat on the stone steps at the Fish Quay for our snack break, watching intently as Stewart mastered the long square logs of the safety barrier.

Moving on, we continued east along the promenade to Tynemouth Priory and the Haven, stopping there while Jon made more adjustments to something near his chainset. Then it was time to climb up to Front Street, led by Alan and Golly encouraging each other to maintain a reasonably high pace all the way up. Gasp.

With the clock ticking round way too quickly we shorcutted through Tynemouth, along the Broadway and ducked into Marden Quarry, our last opportunity for singletracking before home, short as it was. However, after we'd left there and were homeward bound, the Gollum decided there may still be time to do Hollywell Dene backwards, so those of us left scurried up the waggonway, reaching the Dene after another fairly pacey dash.

Time for Jason to lead the way as he took off with Golly in pursuit, stretching the crew out nicely as they tried to stay with it. Alex soon overtook the flagging scrawny one and took off after Jason who had little trouble staying ahead for the remainder. So that was our singletracking done for the night. But not quite, as Speedy diverted the troops off the road at the Pavillion to cut up through the fields behind Holystone Farm and finish with Ian B's little cheat to the Metro bridge. We got back to the Cave at around 10:20pm with about 22 miles on the clock. Knackered next morning.