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

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This was quite a new format for a Muddy Bums ride - Saturday, evening, with food as well. What could possibly go wrong ........?

Everything started just fine. The weather was good to us (at first) - cool, dry, clear & very dark - perfect. So the 11 Muddy Bums (which for the first time ever included more girls than boys !) who gathered at Hawkhope Car Park at the end of Kielder Dam were in good spirits. Willie & Julie had got there first and put up their Gazebo - discretely positioned in the trees just off the car park. Mark then turned up with more BBQ stuff than you could shake a stick at. And then Michelle roared into sight, followed by Anthony & Ingrid, Rosie & Sue, Gavin & Ian S and finally Izzy.

The Kielder Lakeshore path starts at this car park and winds its way around the Lake, taking 27 miles to return to where it starts. These miles are on a good surface, but there are a lot more hills than you might imagine, as the trail doesn't try too hard to hug the lakeshore at all. But everyone was enjoying the clear air, the good pace and the body warming climbs. After slightly longer than budgeted we arrived at the head of the Lake - where Ian decided it was a good time to have a puncture - so everyone could regroup and take a breather.

The trail on the West side of the Lake has a rather different feel from the East side. It is more twisty, weaves amongst the trees and includes some very scenic (even in the dark) river crossings and deciduous woodlands. We were even treated to the sights and lights of the Winter Wonderland and Santa's Grotto - although it seems Santa had adjourned to the pub after a day of making the kids happy.

It was about now that the rain started to progress from "spitting", to "drizzling", to "persisting down" - just as some legs were tiring and navigation was becoming less than obvious. Somehow the group managed to split itself up - with Mark agreeing to "go on ahead" to light the BBQ. The next hour was rather grim with a lot of time & energy spent going backwards and forwards (but always seeminly uphill !?) trying to find the correct trail. Either the signposts were lying, confusing or missing (or maybe heavy rain, pitch black, stinging eyeballs and a bit of wishful thinking was to blame). But the net result was that Mark didn't arrive back at base first at all. He arrived some 10 minutes after everyone else and rather wet, knackered and grumpy. Everyone was most worried about Mark - as he had the keys to the car with the Barby gear in !

The BBQ challenge now swung into action - with many hands making light work of setting up 3 BBQ's, arranging many burgers, bangers and meatballs, dipping, slicing, buttering and generally burning the food (and a few fingers). But everyone was most happy once they had a juicy hot burger in their hands. And Gavin's BBQ then did sterling work as a brazzier and kept us all warm as the time slipped by. It came as a bit of a shock to find it was way past bedtime - so a hurried dismanteling of the site and packing of cars and clearing the rubbish then ensued - such that within 15 minutes you would never have known we had ever been there.

This Kielder Lakeshore trail might well be worth a return trip one evening - when hopefully it will stay dry and we can try a clockwise routing for a change.

Many thanks to everyone who turned out - hope you all got to bed safely. MARK