Ride 028.

Date:   19th August 2004            Distance: 16.5 miles

Once again we took on the British summer and won. Only four die-hards out this week, holidays accounting for the rest. It seems Tony had his first and last Terra Trailblazers ride on TTB027, his ground fall sending him scurrying back to the relative safety of running. Any improvement in this year’s dire weather was brief and went nowhere to drying the trails up. The imminent arrival of Hurricane Charlie, fresh from devastating Florida curtailed all thoughts of riding over the high moors were, so we met at Pinchinthorpe with some vague idea the trees would offer us a modicum of protection. 

The ever-present rain was barely heavy enough to warrant coats, as we set off along the fire roads and out onto Roseberry Common, struggling for traction on the muddy slopes. It became heavier as we made our way up the steps to Newton Moor but we reasoned, we’d soon be in the shelter of the trees. Back in the woods, Chris The Apprentice had his first real taste of wet rooty singletrack on a section of the Pace sponsored Black Route, this took us along the top edge of Guisborough Forest, with more than a little falling off from everyone. Emerging onto the fire road beside Highcliffe Nab, it was apparent our trees as umbrellas plan had worked because it was now lashing down. The coats came out of the bags for the unsheltered slog up the fire road and across Codhill Heights, down to Sleddale, up to Percy Cross Rigg and a damp but dabless (even for Chris) descent of the rocky bridleway to New Row. 

Caffeine beckoned and shortly after we were sat in a surprisingly busy Glebe Cottage watching the rain bouncing of the roofs of parked cars, discussing options for the return leg. All involved painful ascents. In the end the short but steeper than all the rest option seemed to be favourite, the tarmac road past Bankside Farm and over to Gribdale. The hill actually proved less taxing than memory suggested and the rain even eased somewhat, the bridleway up from Gribdale to Newton Moor was claggy to say the least, our rim-braked companions had to stop a time or two and poke the mud from their brake arches.  

Back in the woods we followed a couple of the lesser-known (i.e. more overgrown and nettle-filled) tracks before finishing off on the latter part of the Blue Route. Chris struggling with disappearing brake blocks again, resorting to the tried and tested feet on the floor braking method, caught us up at a muddy corner as Bob demonstrated the slightly less orthodox cleaning the mud off the bike with fresh urine technique. (Needs a bigger hosepipe.) 

I think the rain may have stopped by this point but the trees and tracks were so sodden it hardly mattered for the short ride back to the car park  Mud-splattered, nettle-stung, endorphin-mellow, we loaded our filthy bikes into mud-stained cars and peeled of saturated outer garments, just another August day in England.

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