Ride 018.

Date:     27th April 2004              Distance: 18 miles

My mate Yankee Bob was on the phone the night before this ride, just returned to his home in Wyoming from a weekend camping trip in the Utah desert. At one point he complained about the dry, hot, weather bringing on his allergies early. This conversation loomed large in my mind today as the Terra Trailblazers, cold, wet and shivering, ploughed a ragged furrow through North Yorkshire mud. 

The portents had not been favourable – the weekend had been dry and sunny, two days of spring-like weather. Of course it was too much to expect it to continue another couple of days – 2004 being ‘the worst year ever’. The drive to Blakey Ridge was bad enough, rain and low cloud beginning pretty much as we left Teesside. Freezing in the car park opposite Blakey Bank, the consensus seemed to be “we’re here so we may as well do something”. At least the wind would be behind us on the high level start. 

Waterproofs on, we took a sharp left after the car park, down onto the bed of the  disused Rosedale Railway, heading east toward Bank Top. Within the first half mile I was somersaulting off the bike when it stopped dead refusing to go any further. Why? I couldn’t say, there didn’t appear to be anything on the ground capable of causing such a sudden halt. Portents – Bob’s word of the day. The rain eased to a slight drizzle as we went for a look in ‘The Hole’ – an old shaft once ventilating a mine in the hillside below. We continued to the top of the notorious Chimney Bank, beloved of road cyclists and crossed the road to investigate a mysterious bunker. Simon attempted, fruitlessly, to prise open the metal entrance hatch, probably hoping to find a cache of food placed there to keep the local councillors well fed in the aftermath of nuclear destruction.  

Onward to Ana Cross where we regrouped before the superb bit of singletrack leading to the wide rocky downhill of Lastingham Ridge. Merrily bouncing through the rock gardens of Lastingham Ridge, my fun was curtailed by a pinch flat, forcing me to stop just as an especially heavy burst of rain caught us up. Portents. A record time tube change and away again – for about 200 yards before the tyre was again flapping about on the rim. Portents. Another tube; more pumping and once more into the breach. Past the Millennium Stone, cautiously down steep tarmac into Lastingham, mud tyres and wet tarmac not the best combination.  

A little road work before the bridleway to High Askew Farm and a salvo of “I ask you” puns. The singletrack from High Askew to Rosedale Abbey is allegedly one of the premier bits of riding in the country and I’ve enjoyed it myself on numerous occasions. Today wasn’t to be one of them, a sorry introduction to this part of the moors for Oz and Simon. Headwind, rain, mud and riding up an uncharted watercourse just about sum it up. Teeth gritted, heads down we silently ground our way toward Rosedale Abbey, each Trailblazer lost in his own reverie. I was remembering my cousin Andy, up until last year the owner of the village shop in Castleton, before he decided 40 years of North Yorkshire is enough for anyone and emigrated to Australia. At that moment envy was all encompassing. 

At the Bakery Tearooms in Rosedale Abbey the staff were not in the least bit fazed by a dirty, wet, bedraggled bunch dripping ochre-coloured water over the floor and plonking muddy bums on their chairs. Hot coffee and toasted teacakes did much to improve our mood despite the unrelenting rain and the knowledge the only way out of Rosedale Abbey is up. The possibility if continuing the route in the usual way, following the disused railway around the western rim of the valley was becoming remoter; the probability of us riding up the one in three Chimney Bank was not given serious consideration; the last option, to ride along the Dale Head road and up an old quarry track which comes out near the car park was voted in unanimously. 

Reluctantly leaving the warmth of the tearoom, we hauled our sorry asses up the hill, past the quaintly named Bell End Farm (predictable comments all round) and along the Dale Head road before turning off down a seriously steep bit of tarmac, leading us into a raging torrent, purportedly a ford. Past Moorlands Farm, then a bit of pushing up a footpath before attempting to ride the unclassified track back to the railway track. Wet rock, steepness and a swamp like middle section of knee-deep mud, evidently caused by some retard in a motor vehicle, thwarted everyone’s attempts at a dab-less ascent.  

Back on the disused railway, a couple of hundred wind-propelled yards and we were back at the cars – never a more welcome sight than today. The weather on the top was grim as ever, still raining and the cloud base about two hundred feet lower than the road surface, visibility down to about ten yards. The day was wringing out every ounce of misery it could manage. Bob reckons today will make the remainder of the year’s rides look good in comparison: I’ll look check the Easyjet schedules anyway.

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