Club trip to Co. Durham, 7th and 8th June, 2003
7 of us (Richard T, Chris J, Chris 'Pedro' Pedder, aSH, Sam, Howard and
myself) left Cambridge en-route to a camping barn somewhere in Co. Durham
on Friday night. This time we were equipped with 6 MTBs, one road bike, a
landy and a white transit van - what more could we want?! (apart from a
road atlas... nrgg...). Putting in a quick pitstop at Mario's 24hour diner
on the A1/A57 roundabout (top place - recommended) for a greasy fry up we
arrived in Co. Durham just in time to grab last orders at the
pub-in-the-castle on Witton Estate. Quite a lively place it would seem!
Our camping barn was a little more down-to-earth; an old stone cattle barn
with a couple of tables, a cooker, some boards so sleep on and some inside
toilets! Luxury!
Saturday dawned bright and sunny, so we decided to take the bikes up to
the car park at Baybridge near Blanchland to start our ride. Situated
right on the border between Co. Durham and Northumberland this provided
access to square mile upon square mile of moorland, littered with
bridleways. Heading north over Blanchland Moor over some pleasant
doubletrack, our first stop was Slaley Forest. A few pieces of twisty
singltrack followed before heading over towards Embley fell and down into
valley with Devil's water.
The track left a little to the imagination as
to where it went from time to time but it ended up being fairly obvious in
the end (honest...). A short road link brought took us slightly further
west towards King's Law where, after a short session of lying in the sun,
the real moorland riding started! Marked on the map was a sinuous
bridleway which wound its way for mile after mile across open moorland.
This turned out to be moorland singletrack heaven! Starting from King's
law and winding its way towards Hangman Hill on Lilswood Moore it
continued south over Pikeley Rigg before finally joining onto doubletrack
on Tedham Moss. Fantastic. A short stretch of doubletrack followed taking
over Green Hill towards a bridleway near Byerhope Bank. This turned out to
be a top singletrack downhill - twisty, a few rocks, and fast. Somewhat
exhilerated we then wound our way on road through the delightfully named
Dirt Pot towards a food-stop at Allenheads.
Some hours later, after an afternoon doze in the sun, we were ready to
leave! The plan was to head north on the B road to Spartylea and then join
the moorland track system to bring us back. However, upon arriving there a
big 'No right of way' sign forced us to plan 'B' which was to head
slightly further up the road to Sinderhope and join the bridleways there.
A far better plan and much more entertaining riding! A top track took us
to Stobb Cross where we headed back over towards Hangman Hill once more.
We rode out of the bridleway 'crossroads' at Hangman Hill on the remaining
unused bridleway - but it was a little difficult to find! A few comedy
moments following very minimalist singletrack (read sheep track) took us
finally back onto the track near Harwood Shield. From there, the route
home was fairly trivial along some (what appeared to be rather contested)
doubletrack across Newbiggen Fell to the vans.
By this time it was already 18:30 and Richard, our road rider, would be
waiting for us back home some 40 minutes away. Chris headed back via a
beer shop whilst myself and Ash decided that since Hadrian's wall was on
the same OS map as we were on, it had to be done. Securely lashing the
bikes in the back on the transit, we made it up past Hexam up to the wall
near Once Brewed and Twice Brewed with suprising rapidity... An beautiful
evening and quite a spectacular momnument. After about 20 minutes hiking
around it, we grabbed a load of firewood and headed back to Witton Estate.
The evening whiled away in a haze of food, log fire, beer and tall
stories...
The next day we decided to ride locally over in Hamsterly Forest. When we
finally vacated the barn, somewhat later than intended due to rain and a
late night, we trundled up towards the visitor's centre having agreed to
meet Richard in the local pub, mid afternoon. The first loop was one
similar to that the BUSA champs took 2 years ago - apart from the bits
that weren't there anymore (sorry!!). A mixture of fireroad climbs, twisty
singletrack, roots, rocks - all top stuff. The latter part of it turned
into the waymarked black route - a little more challenging than that at
Thetford! Brilliant! We then wandered back towards the visitor's centre
where we bumped into Richard! It didn't take any persuasion for him to go
into cyclocross mode as we proceeded to take him up into the woods and
down the other bits of the black trail that we'd missed! To say he took to
it well is an understatement as he duly started to put some of us to
shame! At this point, the heavens opened in a massive thunderstorm.
Undeterred we were hell bent on doing one more route - which we eventually
found. Some climbs on singletrack and a blast down some nice rocky, lumpy
firetrack to end with wrapped things up well!
From there we packed up and headed home via Mario's Cafe once more!
A great fun weekend - thanks to everyone for coming along and esp. to
Chris for bringing the Landy!
That's the last trip for this academic year - watch this space for more
next year!
Bart
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