THE MUDDY BUMS (aka "the Clarty Ars#ses") MOUNTAIN BIKING IN NORTHUMBERLAND AND BEYOND

Five riders met at Edmondbyers just South of Derwent Reservoir, Arthur, IanA, Julie, Kevin and Willie.

If you have to start a ride with a climb as we usually do you’d be hard pushed to do a better one six miles over all types of terrain saw the five riders arrive somewhere in the region of Bolts Law in rapid time.

An extremely rapid descent to Rookhope on tarmac blew any remaining cobwebs away, left now on to the C2C route climbing the Bolts Law incline passing several struggling C2C riders and passing on as much encouragement as we could muster.

Teas and Coffees were the order of the day at the Waskerley café before heading up and down the Waskerley Way, we made sure no C2C riders followed as we headed off left past Smiddy Shaw reservoir it was this bit of testing single-track that had Kevin and Arthur competing for who could fall of and get the dirtiest ,Arthur won and amusingly managed to clean himself on the grass, Kevin had been falling off regularly throughout the day mainly due to this being his first cross country ride with SPDs but still managed to keep smiling.

Muggleswick Park was the last moor of the day with a cracking descent to the bridge at Burn Hope Burn now for a bit of a push up past the caravans and back to the cars for about three o clock. Apparently this was a record time for this loop, must be because the slower riders stayed home with Pork Flu so I was told.

Scones and cake for all at the Redwell Hall Farm tearooms, before going our separate ways
Total Distance 24 Miles, Max Speed 38 MPH down to Rookhope, Weather, mainly overcast with sunny intervals, no wind, six drops of rain at the Waskerley Café and 2 minutes of hail near Blackpool Hill, Perfectly dry under tyre, well mostly apart from the pool Kevin swam in!!

A great day out - Cheers to Willie for keeping me on course yet again.

Ian A