August 26th. It’s a British summer, so I expect the weather to be chilly and a Bank Holiday weekend to boot, so rain isn’t a surprise either. Don’t you just love it when the weather lives down to your expectations?
I eschewed joining the group forging a longer ride into the hills and wildlands south of the river to spend my 61st birthday on a more traditional club run. What could be finer?
Arriving at the meeting point I found G-Dawg in civvies and sans bike. His atrial fibrillation has been running erratically wild in recent days, and averaged about 240 bpm for the entirety of last week’s ride. Now, with Son of G-Dawg’s (a.k.a. The Colossus’) wedding looming ever closer, G-Dawg has been told in no uncertain terms that he’s not to die before this event, and has consequently been banned from all riding activities under Marital Law, at least until the nuptials are complete.
With one group off doing a longer ride and many on holiday, we only had enough bodies to form two groups this week and I found my rightful place embedded in the second of these, dropping in alongside Brassneck as Aether and Ahlambra led us out. They did a massively elongated pull on the front, until someone called a pee stop and they realised OGL had already dropped off the ride to follow an alternate route and so there was no longer any reason they couldn’t relinquish the lead and drop back …
On the front now, Brassneck was intent on adding to his panoply of shouted warnings and alongside the usual and prosaic “pots!” “gravel!” and “car!” had already given voice to the slightly more exotic “chicken!” “squirrel!” and “pheasant!” in between growling at his bottom bracket, which was growling right back at him. Sadly he reported no vibrations in his old crank …
Stamfordham was promoting its annual motor show, which Brassneck surmised was the day when someone drove a car onto the village green and all the locals gathered around to stare at it in silent wonder. I tried to determine where the village green was (in my defence, there were at least three possible candidates) and in doing so spotted the Bay Horse pub tucked away at the back of one potential site.
I’d almost forgotten about it and recalled my one and only time inside was when the 2011 British National Championships finished in Stamfordham and was won by a certain Bradley Marc Wiggins. Watching the race with Toshi San, we’d retired to the pub between laps for some food and it was here that we overheard one of the Sky domestiques chatting with a waitress about how he’d dropped out of the race early after he’d sacrificed himself for his team leader, doing a massive pull on the front to set up the winning break.
So, he had patiently explained, “I did my bit and then fell on my own sword.”
“Ooh,” she exclaimed in wide-eyed wonder, “Didn’t that hurt?”…
Brassneck also revealed he’d also been in the Bay Horse just once before as well, possibly for a wedding but he couldn’t remember the exact reason, or when, “but, it was when we paid for everything in real money.”
We then reminisced about the days when we used to carry money on club runs to pay for the absolute essentials (i.e., coffee and cake) whereas now all you need is a mobile phone and you’re good to go. The only time I need to resort to the inconvenience of cash these days is when I visit the barbers to have my ears flamed (!?) and I look forward to the day they too join us in the 21st century.
Brassneck though still carries an emergency fiver with him on all rides. I supposed this was useful and would get you a can of Coke and a Mars bar if you bonked somewhere out in the wilds with no Apple Pay (although you probably wouldn’t get much change back.)
Brassneck though contended it was enough of a cash reserve for him to hop on a bus and make it home.
“Would they let you take your bike on a bus though,” I wondered.
“I’d take the wheels off and it wouldn’t be a bike,” he assured me confidently.
“They’d probably still insist they can’t carry a bike, or make you pay for it,” I countered.
“I’d play the disabled card then. Think of all the bad publicity, they wouldn’t dare refuse me.”
He seemed to have it all figured out.
“But, have you ever seen a bus around here, I suspect they only run once every 3 hours on a Wednesday and when the moon is in the ascendant.”
“Fair point,” he conceded, “But there must be some bus routes around here. I mean, I know the British Transport System isn’t fit for purpose, but …”
In over a decade travelling on these roads, I could only recall encountering a bus on one single, solitary club run.
“Have you ever even seen a bus stop?”
Nope, neither of us could even recall riding past a bus stop.
Our exploration of the limitations of the local bus service were interrupted by a new opportunity for a different kind of warning call.
“Badger!” Brassneck complained.
Sadly dead. Hit by a car and flung abandoned to the side of the road.
A bit further on and we could see a large russet-coloured hump in the middle of the road.
“Hello, hello. What’s this then?” I wondered, somewhat confused by the red-brown fur.
“No idea,” Brassneck answered.
“No, I don’t think so, it’s more likely to be another badger.” (Old jokes recycled and repurposed free of charge).
It was, indeed another badger, this one showing us the violence of its death, trailing a long arc of bright blood from the impact point to its final resting place. All rather sad, as Arnold later commented, after he too rode past the pair of dead badgers (or at least I hope they were the same ones and not another two that had died under the wheels of local traffic.)
Leaving the bodgered badgers well behind, we climbed up the Quarry, then on to Capheaton for our coffee stop. Here we met the Red Max who, true to his word last time out, is looking to ride more regularly again and suggested that even the Monkey Butler Boy was looking to saddle up after a long absence.
Knowing the Red Max’s presumption that anything bike-related left in his shed rightfully belongs to him, especially if it’s of better quality than any existing components on his bike – I wondered what the MBB would have left to ride on his return, imagining (if he was lucky) a frame stripped to the bone. The Red Max confessed he’d bought the Monkey Butler Boys flash carbon wheels off him for a knockdown price when he decided to give up riding, but reported he’d happily agreed to lease them back to their previous owner and at what he determined was a “very generous” rate too.
Brassneck idly flicking through a copy of the local parish newsletter was delighted to find it included a copy of the local bus timetable and felt his emergency evacuation plan was now fully vindicated.
“There’s a bus stop at Bolam Lake,” he declared, obviously working out the finer details of any future abandonment, “I wonder where? Have you ever seen it?”
I had to confess I hadn’t and didn’t know where it could possibly be. A mystery for another day perhaps.
As we left the cafe the long-threatened rain finally hit us and anyone carrying a jacket stopped to pull it on. Unfortunately, one of our new guys was riding in just trainers and a white T-shirt and not carrying a jacket. Not great for a bike ride in Northumberland, but I guess it would have served him well if we’d decided to hold an impromptu wet T-shirt competition.
This particular rain shower was cold, intense, and a bit brutal, but at least it was short-lived and we were able to warm up with a fast run down through the Snake Bends. We crossed the main road and threaded our way down bomb-alley, slaloming around the numerous potholes that give it the appearance of having been subjected to a Paveway runway denial attack.
“Car!” someone called out as we reached the junction at the end of the lane and we stopped in a cacophonous, banshee squeal of wet disk brakes. The car we were waiting to pass actually turned out to be a local bus, obviously having just stopped somewhere around Bolam Lake for passengers. I’m pretty certain one could understand why its appearance had Brassneck and me quite so animated – I mean, it was just a bus wasn’t it?
The rest of the ride back was enlivened by a few sharp accelerations through Dinnington and around the airport, which was fun and set me up for a fast start to my solo run for home and the pile of presents and cards and, just maybe, even more cake that awaited.
| Day & Date: | Club Run, Saturday 19th August 2023 |
| Riding Time: | 4 hours 36 minutes |
| Riding Distance: | 111km with 1,002m of elevation gain |
| Average Speed: | 24.1km/h |
| Group Size: | 20 riders, 2 FNG’s |
| Temperature: | 11℃ |
| Weather in a word or two: | Whoosh! |
| My year to date: | 6,509km with 55,412m of elevation gain |
Sur La Jante 