Saturday 21st October, and we were surfing on the coattails of Storm Babet that had dumped a shitload of rain on the region before pressing on northwards to bring death, destruction, flooding and misery to huge swathes of Scotland.
While the worst had passed, the morning was still engulfed in a suffocating, wet grey wall, as if the far side of the valley was being subject to some waterboarding under a layer of sodden cotton wool, and we would spend all day navigating new, unexpected waterways courtesy of the overwhelming amount of rainfall.
I’d passed the first of these at the bottom of the Heinous Hill, while a second, just before crossing a swollen, sullen river, was enough to breach socks, shoes and overshoes ensuring wet feet for the duration of the ride. Despite everything, it wasn’t especially cold, although to be fair that probably had a lot to do with the multiple layers and waterproof jacket I was wearing.
I was the first to arrive at the start point, diving into the multi-storey car park to shelter from the still lightly drifting rain while I waited to see which other brave souls would be daft enough to be venturing out on such a day.
“Hello boys,” I greeted the first to arrive, G-Dawg and his pair of canine companions as they rocked up just to see everyone off. G-Dawg has now been given a date for the procedure that will attempt to re-set his cardiac arrhythmia, much to the relief of his two labradors whom he’s managed to sicken of walking as he tries to compensate for limited riding opportunities.
OGL drove up as well, also in civvies and obviously needing to fulfil his traditional, breath-drawn-through-teeth, head-shaking, dire pronouncements of cataclysmic, life-threatening weather conditions out in the countryside. I must admit, it wasn’t looking good, with 5 souls huddled together in the gloom, looking out at the rain and only one of us either willing or capable of riding.
I confessed to G-Dawg that I would be quite happy if no one else turned up so I could just head home with a clear conscience, but naturally, I was just the first of the stubbornly willful and we soon had a sizeable group of eight riders all second guessing what they were doing.
Amongst the arrivals was Goose, astride the panzerkampfwagen, his iron horse touring bike, for the first time this winter. He declared himself pleased as punch with some of the servicing work he completed on the beast. A litany of new things included, a new cassette, new tyres and tubes, a set of silver brake blocks on the front and black ones on the rear. Goose was convinced the latter mismatch, whether intentional or not, gave his bike a certain stylish je ne sais quoi.
His most contentious upgrade however proved to be a new, rustless chain, the authenticity and merits of which were much debated.
“Perhaps they merely meant it was rust-free when you bought it?” someone suggested, but neither this nor any of the assertions that the chain would rust once the plating had worn off could dampen Goose’s enthusiasm for his new purchase.
Personally, I would have thought a bit of regular cleaning and re-lubing is more than sufficient to keep any chain rust-free no matter what conditions it’s used in. Today’s ride could be the ultimate test of this theory.
While we debated the merits of rustless chains and mismatched brake blocks, the Enigma cruised past as fluidly as ever – still in shorts, but he had made a concession to the weather with the addition of a long-sleeved T-shirt and some woolly gloves.
Then Not Anthony was fumbling around in his back pocket and trying to smooth out and read from what I at first thought was his shopping list, but was actually details of today’s ride. He used this not to remind us that he needed to pick up a pint of milk and half a dozen free-range eggs, but to outline the route we would be taking to the cafe at Capheaton. So armed, he briefed in the ride, only stumbling once or twice as he tried to decipher his own writing in the murky light of our makeshift shelter.
And then we were off, Goose and Not Anthony led us out while I dropped in behind them, joining Crazy Legs for some inane natter about The Professionals (CI5’s Bodie, Doyle and Cowley, not Remco, Van der Poel and Van Aert), The Bug Club, One Piece, the meaning of the word ‘boujee’ (ask your kids), mysteriously missing pine cones and ubiquitous acorns. Amongst other things.
Even our turn to take the lead didn’t perturb us too much, and at least gave us good sight of the huge puddles we were forced to traverse – like a latter-day Columbus setting sail accompanied only by blind faith that we’d find dry land somewhere on the other side of the corners we were circumnavigating.
It’s probably unwise to suggest things were going ‘swimmingly’ but we were doing okay as we made the turn on the lane toward Dalton, very much rowing upstream against the flow of water coming the other way. There we were brought to a sudden halt by a road-closed sign and reasoned the bridge was probably underwater.
We turned round, rode on for a while then stopped at the next junction with a decision to make. It was 7 miles to the cafe at Capheaton on our current heading, but we had the option of trying to re-join the planned route and loop around the cafe to add on a few more miles. As we tried to decide, a driver stopped for a chat and she told us the roads through Ponteland seemed the worst affected and we shouldn’t have too much trouble elsewhere.
Four of the group decided to take the longer route, while I joined Carlton, Crazy Legs and Cowin’ Bovril on the shorter run to the cafe. The rain had stopped falling directly on us by this time and it was a pleasant ride, marred only by the fact that Cowin’ Bovril, insulated in a cap, helmet and high viz, baggy helmet cover, had obviously lost all connection with the mothership and seemed to think he was now invincible to traffic.
We arrived at the cafe at the same time as another pair of cyclists – the only other riders we’d seen all day. “I hope you’re not going to hog all the seats,” they warned us. We didn’t, but sat and enjoyed our coffee and cake while waiting for the arrival of the rest of the group. They were finally led in by Not Anthony, who promptly bought and then quickly inhaled two whole slices of cake. Those additional miles must have been a lot harder than I thought.
Crazy Legs turned to Binder as the youngest member of our group and asked her if she could explain the meaning of boujee, which turned out not to be as pejorative a term as he thought. Having now uncovered a potential source to explain ‘yoof speak’ to all of us old farts, Crazy Legs next wanted to know about ‘gaslighting’ what it meant and why it now seems so over-used.
She explained it was when someone persistently puts out a false narrative in order to manipulate another.
Crazy Legs turned to me. “You bastard. That’s what you’ve been doing to me all these years!”
Luckily the conversation turned back to Goose’s upgrades to the iron horse, which he now revealed included Schwalbe Marathon touring tyres and slime-filled inner tubes, a combination he felt made him invincibly puncture-proof. Crazy Legs, Not Anthony and Carlton tried to persuade him he would be better off going tubeless if he wanted to avoid punctures.
Ever willing to learn (remember, discovering you could ride on the hoods and brake at the same time had been a life-changing revelation) Goose wanted to know the advantages of tubelss. Crazy Legs’ most forceful argument seemed to be that it gave you an excuse to carry a supercool tubeless repair kit, pulling out a CNC aluminium case and unscrewing the caps to reveal a reamer and fork as well as lots of bacon strips (apparently also known as worms) to plug holes that the tyre sealant couldn’t. This super-cool tool he explained was even available in a host of different colours and he tried to persuade everyone they should buy one. Just not in red, as Crazy Legs had already ‘bagsied’ this colour.
It was left to Carlton to try and explain the real benefits of going tubeless, with his suggestion that ‘it feels like you’re floating on a magic carpet’ proving a slightly more poetic and convincing argument. I have a feeling though that Goose remained unconvinced.
It was chilly when we left the cafe, but the day was brightening rapidly and we soon warmed up as we slid past West Belsay and through another road-spanning puddle on the way down to the Snake Bends. Heading down the heavily potholed Bomb Alley, Goose pulled off to the side of the road and we slowed to wait.
“Be bloody ironic if he had a puncture,” Crazy Legs suggested.
“Nah, he’s just checking his chain for rust.”
The latter seems more likely than the former, as he’s soon remounted and rejoined, but we never did find out why he’d stopped in the first place.
As we expected the lane through to Ogle provided another opportunity for some puddle surfing and once through I took the opportunity to have a chat with Goose.
“How’s the chain holding up?” I wondered.
“Still pristine.”
“Good. Just a shame you can’t get a rustless crown race and stem bolts too,” I observed.
“Shhhhh!”
And then we were brought to a halt in Kirkley Mill, where the River Pont had burst its banks, the bridge was awash with water and a bloke was working furiously to try and start his waterlogged car, rescued after he’d failed to make it through the flood.
“How deep do you reckon the water is?” Crazy Legs asked.
“It was up to about here,” the bloke replied, drawing a line across the top of his thigh, “But that was a couple of hours ago, and I think it’s gone down now.”
He felt he might have made it through, until he hit a pothole, “somewhere over there” he said, waving vaguely at where a steel fence post had been levelled and its tip barely protruded above the water.
We discussed what to do, although Crazy Legs was adamant he was going to ride through the flood no matter what and only Carlton seemed hesitant. In the end, we all went for it, water sloshing up over hubs and bottom brackets as we cautiously followed Crazy Legs, hoping he wasn’t going to suddenly disappear into some deep trench hidden in the murky water. He pointed out a barely visible breeze block and then submerged brick we needed to avoid as we followed in his wake and finally made it through at the cost of very soggy feet.
Now heading down the usually busy Berwick Hill, it took me a while to work out why it was so peaceful and pleasant until I noticed a complete absence of cars.
“We’ve either missed the zombie apocalypse or the road’s closed,” I told Carlton cheerfully as we rolled freely downhill. Perhaps I should be grateful it was the latter and we found the road had indeed been closed just after the turn for Dinnington.
We were joined there by another cyclist who said he’d tried going up past the Cheese Farm, only to turn back when he found the road over the humpbacked bridge flooded and an abandoned car on its side in an adjacent field.
With the road ahead closed, more cars were funnelling through Dinnington and we soon had a dozen or so tailing behind us. We pulled over into a layby to let them all pass and to give us the opportunity to appreciate the mouldering pile of garbage that some arse hat had fly-tipped there.
The sun was warming things up nicely and after leaving the group and striking out for home I stopped to finally take the rain jacket off. Then, for the second consecutive week, I was stopped a handful of miles from home when a local thorn (the ones with the depleted uranium tips) pricked my complacency and inner tube (just for the record: different bike and different wheel), sliding effortlessly through the thickest part of the tyre while the puncture protection strip raised a white flag of surrender. I changed the tube without too much time and effort, but the bike, the wheel, tyre and then my hands were black and filthy with road grime.
Through near superhuman efforts, I forced a masterful 20-30 psi into the tyre. It was enough to get me home, but maybe I need Marathon tyres and slime inner tubes, or … or… I could go tubeless and float on a magic carpet.
| Day & Date: | Club Run, Saturday 21st October 2023 |
| Riding Time: | 4 hours 35 minutes |
| Riding Distance: | 98km with 909m of elevation gain |
| Average Speed: | 21.4km/h |
| Group Size: | 8 riders, 0 FNG |
| Temperature: | 5℃ |
| Weather in a word or two: | Stormy Weather |
| My year to date: | 7,235km with 60,982m of elevation gain |
Sur La Jante 