1^st. What a way to spend a birthday, riding The Rim with two old blokes and an athletic youth. Blind Bob’s return to offroad cycling since he ‘retired’ in November 2004 and he was still in front of The Captain, mostly by blocking The Captain’s way as he blindly wobbles along the singletrack, front wheel charting an erratic course, banging from side to side in the sunken ruts. Same as ever. After the café, The Captain, who’d obviously used the break to indulge in some covert drug taking, rode down Sheepshagger Bank for the first time after many years of balking at the top. The whole route is quite simple and quite brief but packs a lot into it’s eleven miles. And some of us needed to be back for birthday cake and prezzies.

10^th. The biggest Terratrailblazers turn out for a good while, as six of us met at Square Corner to look at Chris’s planet-raping new car and mutter about the weather, dull and threatening drizzle. Once the required amount of faffing about was completed, we made our way to Dale Head Farm, or what’s left of it, allegedly torched midway through refurbishment, leaving just a roof-less shell. Greasy conditions on the far side of the ‘new’ bridge defeated one and all as we attempted to ride up the slope to the surprisingly dry, singletrack. Soon we were paying back the gravity deficit, riding up the road to Moor Gate for a couple of miles until we could resume the offroad fun stuff, plunging down through fields to the other ‘new’ bridge over the River Rye in Low Wood. Or half of us did, three highly skilled chemical plant operatives lost sight of their leader and despite being on this route countless times, spent some time blundering about in the wrong direction, bleating pitifully until they were rescued. Emerging at New Hall, we took the road to Hawnby and it’s welcoming café for refreshments prior to the dreaded Murton Bank. Naturally the weather had become almost like summer especially for the strenuous bit. The tarmac grind ended at Sneck Yate where we picked up the Hambleton Drove Road heading North back to Square Corner, stopping numerous to times to wait for Captain Slow and his subordinate, Sergeant Sluggish to catch up. The highlight of the day, other than the café, the Mad Mile was still slightly greasy causing one over-enthusiastic fool to lay his bike down while still attached - and I have the bruises to prove it.

16^th. A brief and café-less ride today, just three of riding out of Clay Bank car park, before shouldering our bikes up Carr Ridge onto Urra Moor, following the broad tracks across the moor, roughly on the route of The Cleveland Way. Some pond size puddles a good indication of the recent monsoon we’ve endured. After Tidy Brown Hill we made our way downhill in a most pleasurable fashion, down Ingleby Bank (or Turkey Nab as it’s more usually known) to Bank Foot Farm, from where we took the usual track along the bottom of Battersby Plantation and through the woods back to Clay Bank. Halfway along the weather caught up with us and things turned from dull to damp.

24^th. Another unpromising start, dull and dismal, as me, Darlo Boy Simon and Oz left Pinchinthorpe in the company of international tax exile H. for an exploration of some of the Guisborough, Kildale, Great Ayton triangle’s finest singletrack. Suffice to say it was muddy and accidents were numerous, also we may have been slightly misplaced at times, exact location being pinpointed as ‘in some woods, North Yorkshire’. As men any admission of being lost is unthinkable and we usually found a recognisable landmark at some point, well some of us recognised the landmarks, Oz and Simon have obviously spent the past seven years unable to see beyond the immediate vicinity of their respective front wheels. Somehow we managed to rack up 16 miles and almost 3,000 ft of ascent before we made it, mud-splattered and ‘satched’ back to the car park. Satched is Darlo speak for awfully wet apparently.

30^th. Another Terratrailblazers record shattered today - the Captain showed up three times in one month. And another good turn out, five of us today, turning the pedals out of Lordstones on the only glorious day of the week, or perhaps the month. We did a panhandle route, making our way across Carlton Bank and up Barkers Ridge, heading to Bilsdale Mast via Cock How, then down to Low Thwaites, an abandoned farmhouse on Hawnby Moor. Rather than continuing straight down to Moor Gate, we rode down the vague bridleway to Lane House at Snilesworth on the Hawnby to Osmotherley road. Once a heather-bashing ordeal, the bridleway has been nicely tidied up, with a mown path through the heather and even a couple of sign posts leading nicely to the stream crossing at the bottom of the valley. A not insignificant amount of climbing now lay ahead so we were making the most of the tarmac downhill after Birk Wood (Hall Lane), descending at some speed we rounded a blind bend to find a large lorry blocking the road as two operatives calmly sucked out the drain gullies, oblivious to almost having four cyclists splattered like bugs across the front of their wagon. Four cyclists? The Captain, it goes without saying, halted safely without the sphincter-twitching, tyre-skidding, brake fluid boiling antics of the rest of us. Climbing from Low Cote Farm up onto Arnesgill Ridge was gruelling but the unaccustomed pleasantness of the weather made up for it and after retracing our outward tyre tracks down the side of Carlton Bank, we were soon enjoying al fresco coffee in the afternoon sunshine.