Clifton CC

Saturday was Round 1 of the NYMBO Trailquest League for the MTBers. > 100 strong field inc a few Cliftonites, with HQ at Sutton Bank so a fairly big turnout.

The weather in York promised to be a pleasant Spring day, albeit with a stiff breeze. At the top of Sutton Bank it was a different story with the strong westerly whipping up White Horse Bank which got stronger as the event went on.

I opted for an anti clockwise route to save having to climb White Horse/Sutton Bank with empty legs at the end. The course was well laid out taking in the woods around White Horse and Wass and the tracks to the North around Rievaulx Abbey and the Cleveland Way. Mostly dry too which was a result. Played cat and mouse with Chris for a few checkpoints before we opted for different route sections. The downside of my route choice was that I ended up climbing the final, exposed, hill into the teeth of the strongest wind of the day with legs almost spent.

Finished with 405 points out of possible 525 which wasn't too bad for and old timer in those conditions.

Firstly, well done to Tullio for a superb effort in Saturday’s NYMBO. I reckon anyone who gets over the 400 point mark has played a blinder – an excellent result indeed.

The Westerly woes continued on Sunday. I joined the Sunday Clubbers for Jordan’s Jaunt – which by dictionary definition was supposed to be ‘a short excursion or journey made for pleasure’. Well, I’m not sure about the ‘pleasure’ bit on a pretty blowy day.

The Square was busier than I’ve seen it on a Sunday. Had to be careful not to get caught up with the Training ride lot, which would have been disastrous! 10 Clubbers left the Square, with Pete T and Mal on an early exit strategy before Boroughbridge. That left Rob, Andy G, Nigel, John & Peter H, Jonny, Kevin and I for the slog into the Westerly on the way out. Relatively quick rotations were the order of the day to keep things moving at a nice consistent pace. Every change in direction brought a quick change of positioning behind the wheels to seek protection.

After Masham across the tops, I simply wasn’t strong enough to stay on the wheels on the climbs so waved the boys on. Leighton Reservoir was being whipped into a frenzy by the wind, the local surf club were enjoying the swells breaking off the point. The climb out of the reservoir into the teeth of the gale was tough, it’s the slowest I’ve ever travelled on a bike without being stationary. The final grind out of the creek was similar. When I finally emerged at the top, Rob was there waiting for us, cowering under a dry stone wall to shield from the gales, - not many would have done that which just shows the mark of the man.

We lunched at How Stean Gorge and it took me a good 10 minutes to recover my composure, salt crystals embedded on my face and stomach feeling like it wanted to turn inside out. A can of coke and some food quickly had me restored and we set off to Pateley Bridge in good time. We headed back through Summerbridge and took a right up Dacre Bank to get back through Hampsthwaite, Harrogate, Pannal and Tockwith. I was pretty ordinary on the climbs tbh, and there seemed to be a distinct shortage of downhill bits. I thought I was locked in one of those optical-illusion pictures where the stairs look like they continually climb upwards! I felt a bit short-changed on the tail wind assistance too, it only really seemed to kick in for the final 10-15 miles - I could have done with it kicking in about 80 miles earlier!

After Tockwith, I peeled off with John and Peter H who had decided they needed to do an extra loop to get over the century mark, something John said he hadn’t done for years. I was running on fumes at that point and was happy to take the ‘as the crow flies’ route home to finish on 96 m’s. I don’t mind admitting I was done in by the end but it was a great day nonetheless. As always, Rob did a magnificent job of managing the group on a difficult day, and everyone was very supportive. I’ve plugged myself into a battery re-charger, will hopefully return to normality in the next few days.
D.

First Club Ride of the year for me. Great to see the usual faces in the Square but a bit disconcerting that everyone looked so lean and fit this early in the season. However, a few jibes from Kevin re. my Secretarial role with the Club and my pasty, exposed legs and I felt like I'd never been away.

Eight riders set off on the K ride - Kevin, ClaireG, MarkB, Bernard, Jez, Dave(I think but I might have your name wrong, sorry!), newbie Scott and myself. Dave had intended to join the Easy Riders but that didn’t happen and so he accompanied us for about ten miles before finding an alternative route.

Destination was originally Coxwold but I could hear talk of "Cockayne Loop" from my hiding place at the back of the pack and that did sound a tad tough for my first venture back. But conditions were fine, progress was good and by the time Bernard and Mark peeled off for lunch in Hutton le Hole I'd talked myself into it.

I'd never done Cockayne the anti-clockwise way (That sounds a bit wrong actually!) and it was a bit of a slog in the blustery conditions. I thought we'd reached the point where it was downhill all the way to Helmsley but there was one more climb to do. Kevin assured Claire and I that it was a "Power Climb" and so I put as much power into it as I could muster.

I assumed we'd be lunching at the Ice Cream Parlour but a tale of watery mushroom soup served up on a previous ride meant we had a new café to try. Have to say that the Castlegate Café and Bakery was a fine choice.

Fortunately, Kevin chose a pretty direct route back through Hovingham and I reached home with 85 miles on the Garmin. Cracking ride and good banter as usual. Special mention for Scott, who did incredibly well on his first ride with the Club. So much so that Kevin paid him the ultimate compliment of saying that he reminded him of his good self in his younger days. High praise indeed!

This week team Intermediates ‘A’ for Osmotherley were: Finlay, Tony G, Eric S and Allison, Dave W, John B, Graeme, Mark P and Jim G.
Before Tollerton we had a racer-type whizz past us at 25mph. But then he did the age old “just overtaken them and now I’m feeling a bit knackered” struggle to hold a 50 metres gap up ahead- we’ve been there before. Or perhaps our group did the age old “just been overtaken and now I’m feeling inadequate so I’ll speed up a bit.” It was a relief to everyone concerned when we had a puncture.

Soon we were at White Horse climb; 10+ minutes of pure climbing. Two thirds of the way up, a red plastic dib thing stuck to a post was spotted near the road side. It felt like you’d just been let in on a secret and had sworn not to tell anyone.
But a little further up, two MTB orienteerers in Paul C’s NYMBO were looking at a map…. so you take part in the fun- “one of those is 30 metres further down on your right.” “Thanks!”
(Sorry Paul and Chris!).

From Sutton Bank we went down into Hawnby, up rugged moorland and finally into Osmotherley for a café stop. There we met Steve R 'Broomy'- he’d set off at 9.45am thinking we’d catch him up along the route.
It’s a big ride to do with no sheltering, so hats off to him.

On the return leg, we cycled through some old villages- one cottage had “1864” carved in stone above their front door, “1891” over another door, one even had “5” above theirs!
The route back along the western edge of the moors (Thimbleby, Over Silton, Kepwick, Kirby Knowle, Kilburn) was an unusual road. Halfway between the moors proper and the flatlands of Thirsk, it involved many little 40 metre climbs and descents. So you were climbing a lot but without the reward for having overcome a big hill. Eventually Fin blurted out what was on all our minds- “why couldn’t they have made this bl**dy road flatter by going around all these peaks and dips, instead of over them?!”

By Easingwold we were feeling nicely tired, so it was a welcome tailwind that took us back to York for 83 miles.
Great ride in good company and some laughs.

Jordans Jaunt. If I can't keep up on the road I can at least attempt some alliterative comparability.
 
Jaunt sounded jolly.  Jordans definitely jarred. Sunday’s jet speed west wind and my jaded “jambes” generated definite dejection and somewhat abject apprehension.  Undaunted I joined the jocular band, but always in the van, and enjoyed a majestic tow - just the job to get me to the road that was the junction to rejoin my journey home: indubitably a point well before jousting with jagged crags and undulating moor would have seen legs and joints greatly sore and degenerating into gibbering jelly.  But even so unguents needed when I finally got back as there was more – “get off your ass and cut the grass – the bin man’s here tomorrow!”.