Ride 031.

Date:    14th October 2004           Distance: 17 miles

More than a month since the last TTB ride, for various reasons, shift holidays mainly. The weather has definitely taken a turn for the worse since September, our previous two rides may have been the last two sunny days of 2004, prior to the perpetual cloud cover we’ve come to expect. Peter Pan probably saw more of his shadow then we have over the past month. 

A meagre bunch met in the Danby Moors Centre Car Park, gathered under a grey autumn sky, thankful it wasn’t actually raining, for what promised to be a fairly leisurely pootle about. We followed the road along the valley bottom, through Houlsyke and Lealholm to the outskirts of Glaisdale before finding a ‘heavy gravity’ bridleway past Broad Leas Farm and up onto Glaisdale Rigg. Climbing more steadily we joined the road for a short while until we reached the gate leading to (allegedly) one of the best bits of singletrack in North Yorkshire. The Cut Road is a rocky, peaty, constantly varied and challenging track, curving around the edge of Glaisdale Moor above the unkempt Fryup valley or was until someone resurfaced the Western half with bike unfriendly pebbles and took away some of the fun. Let’s hope there are no plans to do the same with the other half, although the new Coast To Coast walk signs which have appeared may be portents of sanitisation. Do walkers have an aversion to muddy and uneven surfaces? Naturally, as we began to pedal, the rain made an appearance, a fine drizzle which tried and failed to distract us from the fun.  

All too soon we were passing Trough House and rejoining the road for a rapid descent down New Way to Danby Rigg, before following the bridleway over Ainthorpe Rigg. This too is one of the unsung gems of North Yorkshire, a technical descent through a system of mini-crevasses, cunningly situated to punish any lack of attention with a quick trip over the bars. So good going back up to do it again is a consideration. We settled for waiting at the bottom and watching Chris demonstrate the above mentioned ‘handlebar dismount’.  

A quick but painful blast through some gorse bushes and we were back on tarmac with only the tea rooms to look forward to. But what a tearoom, The Stonehouse Bakery in Danby, huge cups of coffee and an almost infinite choice of cakes, pies, pastries and sandwiches. It’s just as well Simon had other things to do today because we’d never have got him up the hill and back to the car park. 

Today was my first ride with the Scottoiler an innovative chain lubing system, using a hollow jockey wheel which lubes the chain as you pedal, simply by squeezing the rubber ‘squid’ mounted under the cross bar. Comparing chains back in the car park, mine was noticeably cleaner than the other three, no peaty gunge or sand on the links and being water-based, no oily build up on the jockey wheel. Reports claim it extends drive train life greatly because the grinding paste effect of oil and sand is removed. Time will tell how useful the system is over a North Yorkshire winter but initial impressions are very positive. And you don’t have to remember to lube your chain before you go out.

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