7th. Another late start to the month and a rare appearance from The Captain who somehow managed to evade his baby-sitting duties to join us for a ride. This wasn’t as great as the shock we had turning up at Lordstones and finding the gate locked and the place closed for building work. Luckily it was due to open later in the day. A stiff ride to the top of Carlton Bank began our day out, The Captain’s granny ring seeing service before he’d gone a dozen pedal strokes from the car. From the top of Carlton Bank we rode on The Cleveland Way to Huthwaite Green, passing a few decidedly civil walkers who wished us a good ride unaware of the civil offence we were currently committing. From Huthwaite a bit of tarmac and farm tracks brought us to Cow Shit Farm, pleasantly dried up today, before we joined the Scugdale road and an ascent to Raikes Farm with its ever-present cacophony of barking collies. At the end of the road we shouldered our bikes for the long drag up to Stoney Wickes, which is also drying out quite nicely. A brief banana stop and we began the descent to Raisdale Mill Lane, first on a gravel track, then rutted grass which has caught even the best of us unaware, this time it was The Captain’s turn to eat grass. More rooty, rutted, rocky fun and we were soon on the road, heading, much to The Captain’s dismay, away from the café and up the road/track through Beak Hills farm to it’s junction with The Fronts at Broughton Bank. Turning left we followed the roller-coaster track beneath Cringle Crags to it’s terminus at Lordstones. A thankfully open Lordstones where The Captain celebrated his return to athleticism with a large sausage sandwich.

17^th. The Captain’s return to cycling appears to have been a short-lived phenomenon, it seems cruising the Caribbean in an ocean-going old folks home, eating your bodyweight in food every three hours is preferable to cycling around a slightly damp North Yorkshire. Just me and Oz today and reminder to pay more attention to signs outside café’s, Lordstones closed again - and for the whole day today, looks like a café-free ride, no chance of us eating any amount of food every three hours. We made our way onto The Fronts and directly to Clay Bank without incident, then up the Carr Ridge steps and onto the bridleway around the edge of Urra Moor. Always a favourite bit of track it was in exemplary condition today and flowed like good single-track ought to. Continuing southward we followed the track above East Bank Plantation and down into the hidden valley of Tripsdale, in the opposite direction to our normal route to Tripsdale, the descent was fun but the ascent was gruelling. At Cockayne Head we turned left to Round Hill then down to Medd Crag, crossing our outward route to continue down to Chop Gate, feeling the pace a little by now we elected to follow the road back to (the unfortunately still closed) Lordstones.

19^th. For the second time in 48 hours I found myself, bike on shoulder, plodding up the Carr Ridge steps from Clay Bank, ready to ride the rim, the rim around the edge of Urra Moor, that is, before we descend into innuendo and double entendre like giggling schoolboys. It is Simon’s turn to find out just how pleasantly firm things are up there and how much smoother it is with a well lubed machine, sliding sinuously around the rim. Okay I’ll kill the jokes now. Reaching the end of the track we descended via the Medd Crag descent and followed the road to Chop Gate where things became a bit contrived just to squeeze in an extra bit of descent. We made our way to Beak Hills, then plodded up the trail riders track to the top of Cold Moor solely to ride the bridleway back down to Chop Gate, where we promptly headed back up the Raisdale Road (for the second time in less than an hour) and followed it all the way to Lordstones which (must read the signs properly) turned out to be closed the whole day once again. Refreshment was an energy bar eaten by the roadside as we looked forlornly over the fence, hoping one of the construction workers would take pity on us and somehow open the café. It wasn’t to be, so we followed The Fronts back to Clay Bank, packed our kit away and headed directly for the butchers at Ingleby Greenhow.

27th Here’s a top tip for all us cyclists, if you ever plan to begin a ride from Danby Moor’s Centre, don’t leave your carefully prepared litre and a half bladder of energy drink at home because a three half litre bottles of plain water will cost you £3 in the café. Plus the £2.20 it costs to park your car. Me and Oz began with a tarmac ascent to Danby Beacon, the site of a wartime radar station which detected the first enemy aircraft to fall on England, (3rd February 1940), which was shot and later crashed at Bannial Flatt Farm near Whitby. More information from http://homepage.ntlworld.com/don.burluraux/rafdanby.htm & http://www.hidden-teesside.co.uk/ This proved to be a middle ring grind upwards, at one point being overtaken by a road biker who looked so old he probably viewed the invention of pneumatic tyres as a recent development, more worryingly he was in the middle cogs of a rear cassette the size of a fifty pence piece. Too embarrassed to stop at the top, we continued on the broad off-road track across Lealholm Moor, a pleasant big ring contrast to the previous half hour. Soon we were heading downward through Lealholmside to cross the Esk Valley rail line and the river it was named after just beyond Park House Farm. The old ford has been replaced with a bridge which does nothing to make the climb away from the river any easier, initially a broken, loose track which proved too steep and technical for our puny process operator legs, followed by another road slog to Glasidale which we managed to ride. An even more heinous slog up Glaisdale Rigg was despatched without alacrity leading to the sublime singletrack around the head of Fryupdale, which we rode to the junction with George Gap Causeway where we turned right and followed the track, almost literally over a cliff edge - the infamous Glaisdale Corkscrew. The technical difficulties are short-lived and lead to pleasant singletrack through meadows which ends all too soon at a road. Some more short steep tarmac climbs brought us to Crossley Side and a bridleway which we dragged ourselves up just for the fun of riding down Ainthorpe Rigg, always fun whatever the conditions but especially good today in the incipient drought. Then it was only tarmac back to the biggest treat of the day - The Stonehouse Bakery in Danby.