Well, well, well, who’d have thunk it?  The only one to make today’s ride was the master of the late cop out – Andrew.  When Andrew posted on 1st April that he was going to be coming today I did think it was an April fool joke and expected to get the cancellation call sometime through the week.  But no, the bail out did not come and with just one appearance on the rides, Andrew has managed to work his way down the Great Big Soft Jessie of the Year league table, leapfrogging both Mike and Paul M in the process.  I’ll publish the first issue of the Great Big Soft Jessie of the Year league table next week.

Anyway, what of this week’s absentees?  Paul T has gone down to Sheffield University for rag week; he’s going to be pushing a bed round dressed as a sexy nurse (Paul, not the bed).  Mike has just had a new water feature installed in his garden and is practicing water jumps on his new bike over this.  Come on Mike you’re going to have to bring it out sooner or later.  Paul M – well I said I wasn’t going to mention it any more, we knew he was in Singapore working and that he couldn’t get home every weekend.  So, is he working hard this weekend?  Is he bollocks! He’s in bloody Bali!  No wonder that project is taking so long to complete, he’s never at bloody work.

Anyway, the riteous ones arrived at Hamsterley just before 9.00 under clear blue skies and a hint of snow on the mountain tops.  We were quickly kitted up and ready to hit the trails, Andrew took a little longer than me to get ready as he had to remove a nest from his bike that had been built and used to bring up a family of mice since Andrew last used his bike.

We did the blue run through the forest to get to the bridge and then headed uphill to Transmission.  As we got higher, we started to see more snow and eventually the whole trail was under snow.

The climb up to transmission

As we were climbing, I was beginning to have flashbacks to the ride over Grinton moor when Paul T and I wondered if we were going to make it back alive.  I was less concerned this time as we were not so far from civilization – and I reckon I could survive till summer if I bumped Andrew off and ate him.

Anyway, we made it to the top OK and blasted down transmission, accelerator and nitrous.  At the bottom we decided to give section 13 a miss and just do the loop this side again.  Second time down was faster and we took some action shots, see below.

Andrew giving it big licks on transmission

Ian doing accelerator – or is it Ian?

I can only apologise for Andrew’s shoddy camera work but can say in his defence that I was going down that track faster than a fat kid chasing the ice cream van.

So, we had a good workout today, Andrew’s bike didn’t reject him for not using it for so long and there were no comedy falls to write about.  Next ride will be a warm up for Nic’s birthday trip so will be a longer distance one over rugged terrain.

Cheers – Ian