I always look forward to the next trip to the Les Gets Bike Park, hot sunny days, hard baked berms and swooping down through the trees. The drive from Morillon is about 30 minutes so I needed to pack the bike into the back of the car and get all my stuff together.
The last trip to Les Gets was good but didn’t quite go according to plan thanks to the ever present Gremlins in my life. I had planned to video the runs for the YouTube channel so that people planning to visit could get a little insight into what awaited them.
top of Les Gets bike park
Last time I arrived at Les Gets I put the bike together and got to the top of the Chavannes Express lift, only to discover that the battery in my Go Pro camera was flat. I decided to go back down and try and buy a battery, which wasted an hour and produced no new battery. I had a great day on the bike but no YouTube content, even worse, I had a crash and smashed the camera mount anyway, so that was the end of that.
I wasn’t going to make the same mistake this time, double checked all the gear and packed it into my rucksack, packed the bike, made sure I had all the tools and repair kits, and off I went. In the underground car park I assembled the bike, put all the gear on and the last job was to attach the Go Pro. To my absolute horror the little bolt that attaches the camera to the mounting wasn’t there, how could that be?
View from the Triple 8 run
Gremlin attack
I had used it on the previous day on the Morillon runs, it couldn’t have disappeared from the mount, but it had. I searched the car, all the bags but nope, it wasn’t there. That meant it must have come off back in the garage and I had a spare in the apartment, but it meant a 1 hour round trip, that damned Gremlin. I didn’t bother stripping off padding, just jumped in the car and high tailed it back to Morillon, thank God for air conditioning and the patience of my wife to listen to my woes.
Just over 1 hour later, I was back in the same car parking bay, in exactly the same position I had been before but this time the camera was attached the bike, and I was ready to. I wasted no time getting out of there and up on the Chavanne Express lift for the first run and to make up for the hour I had wasted.
Some of you may have read the blog about my winter season in the Alps, when, after 65 years, I had concluded that quite randomly, I would have a quite irrational approach to risky situations at times, in fact I concluded I had a personal Gremlin living in my head that was trying to kill me.
View from La Nauchets lift, Les Gets
Risk Aversion
In response, I had decided that for my summer season mountain biking I needed to be a bit more grown up. Unlike snowboarding which happens in the ski area near our apartment, I had to drive to the bike parks so if I got injured, I would not only have the problem getting me down with not help, but getting the car home car as well, something as simple as a dislocated shoulder would be a disaster.
I made a rule, not just a promise, that I would only do blue runs, they are hairy enough at times and I still have crashed on them. However, as I had done most of them before. I knew where most of the dangers lay, so that is why the videos supporting this story are of the blue runs, for once in my life, I stuck to my rule.
The ride up on the Chavannes Express took me over the jump park and the Foue Libre trail, which is the run home, not only that, but you also get glimpses of some hairy looking black trails lurking in the woods. When I arrived out at the top of the Chavannes Express, I was ready for action and unhindered by mates.
Les Gets bike park top section
On previous trips my mates, notably The Chemist and The Mechanic have accompanied me. Despite explaining the routes to them they either shoot off in the wrong direction or just shoot off anyway and I spend the rest of the afternoon trying to work out where they have gone. When I eventually find them, they are normally going on about a Strava time rather than the hassle they have caused me, I have even found them in the undergrowth after crashes.
I checked the camera, and everything was working so it was time to go. At the top of this lift you can head back into Les Gets, head round the mountain to Morzine or head over to the Nauchets chair lift that takes you up to top of the mountain and the really steep runs, naturally I headed to the Nauchets lift.
I’ve had a great year mountain biking, 2 great trips to France bouncing down the best that they have to offer and then there was the tour of the north with my mate. Lots of fun, a bit too much of the old Gremlins for my liking, but it’s been a great summer.
However, there is something very special about the Forest of Dean trails. The trails are excellent, with a huge blue run called the Verderers Trail and an equally huge red call the Freeminers trail. Both of them stretch to about 10km each, and to spice things up there is a specialist downhill area with huge jumps and drops, the kind of thing you won’t find a man of my age doing much of anytime soon.
The trails are good, but there is something else that makes it special. During the winter I’m normally pedalling around the local woods or around North Somerset wrapped up warm and enduring the weather, but when spring breaks through and there is a bit of warmth in the sun, I head to the Forest of Dean to celebrate. It’s the same around now, as we get to the end of September and the sun is still warm, I can’t help myself from heading over there to enjoy the last of the summer.
I was pondering why it was so special, and then I realised it was one of the few places I get to use all my boy toys. The drive over in the camper van is fun, it takes about an hour, so I pump up the volume on the stereo and set off, the route makes me along good, quiet roads through the Welsh border countryside pondering life and thinking how lucky I am.
I think it’s the whole package that makes it a special trip; I don’t go too often in case I spoil the magic.
There is something about the light in the trees in spring and autumn that just seems to make it better and when it’s all over and I’m feeling suitably knackered, I sit on the step of the van, pop the top on a beer and sit there chilling, listening to my favourite music, and sitting in my favourite place, the side step of the van. Watching the other riders coming and going, knowing they are envious of my van and rather perfect moment, it invariably ends up in a chat with someone about how their day went on the mountain trails.
To be honest, it hasn’t always ended well, 5 years ago I was enjoying my September experience at the Forest of Dean and was happily cruising back when disaster struck, I was in the traffic jam that is normally referred to as Chepstow. The engine started to judder, and by the time I realised the engine was overheating the damage was done and the engine seized up, a common fault water hose bursting problem on this model and you literally have about a minute to cut the engine if it happens and I was too late. Sadly, that started an 18 month torment with 2 replacement engines and no trips to the Forest of Dean.
Back to the mountain biking, the runs involve a long tour of the forest with plenty of climbing that is well managed by the design, and when you get to the top the runs down are brilliant. The sweeping run down the Verderers trail takes between 10 and 15 minutes and fully justifies the 40 odd minutes climbing and swooping to get you there. The red Freeminers isn’t quite so straight forward but it’s fine if you are on an e-bike, unless you are young and good and do rooty climbs!
These are the highlights of today’s visit.
Dizzys Decent red run
This video is showing a new red run that I found, seemed to be called Dizzys Drop or Dizzys Decent. It was challenging at the start, and I suspect it would be a bit hairy on a wet day over those roots on the steep section, but today it was lots of fun and tricky bits to deal with.
Countdown trail from top to bottom
This video is of a run that called Countdown, it’s the only blue run in the downhill section. The top section is nice and fast but isn’t particularly challenging, but the lower section is very fast and swoops up and down the sides of the valley, just as much fun as some of the French runs.
Twisted Sister down hill trail
Last video is from the downhill section, and is appropriately called Twisted Sister, just like my own sister, if you take your mind off it for a second you will end up in trouble. The last section is very steep and coming down over lots of roots and rocks, I did it in the wet last year and it was more about survival than fun, but today it was nice and dry.
A story of Chalet hosting, Gremlins and climate change.
In my first winter of “not working” I’d hoped to have lots of trips to the Alps, but it didn’t work out that way. Unpredictable weather forecasts and unusually poor snow led to leaving decisions late and often not going and missed opportunities for fun.
However, talking to the other Brits in our resort, they had been down there for the winter and it seemed to have had plenty of good snow and generally a good time all round. So, this year I took a different approach, I decided to base myself down there and take it as it comes, I mean, why hang around in Portishead in January.
For those snow lovers, young and old, the idea of spending a winter in the mountains, on the piste everyday on fresh snow, is the stuff of dreams. As we were lucky enough to own a place, then why not live the dream, what’s the worst thing that could happen?
The decision to go for the winter
In October, when I explained to my wife (Wooksie) that we would be spending the winter in the Alps, she corrected me and said, “That’s nice, you can, I’m not, a long weekend is enough for me and I’m not being dragged around the slopes all winter by you”.
A bit disappointing, but undeterred I made plans to head down in January. A pre visit to sort out the apartment in December, for the opening of the slopes, with my mate The Mechanic didn’t go off without incident, so it wasn’t a good omen (insert link). On the bright side I did invest in a new mattress (what works for 3 nights won’t work for 3 months) along with some cunning ideas to create more storage space, like beds on stilts!
We were there for the opening weekend of the season and it was awesome, huge snowfall in the days and The Mechanic and I were in the first lift up and after putting lines down the fresh snow on the open pistes, we then ripped up the steep unpisted runs that were covered in deep, soft and untouched snow.
Any doubts I had about committing to the winter in the Alps were gone, but then we headed home for Xmas and New Year with friends and Mother Outlaw.
We drove down on snowy night at the start of January; with an agreement Wookie could go home after a week. We expected our little resort to be quiet after New Year, but none of it, it was packed. It appeared that an entire generation of people “of a certain age”, that had had a similar idea to me. Many were still employed or running their own businesses and were just stretching the “working from home” definition.
The British winter invasion
The snow was good enough to be having a good run around of the area each day followed by an alarming amount of “bonne Ami” apres-ski with our British brethren. After 5 nights of beers, vodka redbulls and the local free local aperitifs in the bars we started to wane, I have to confess that we started to sneak past the bars or take the long way around to avoid rapturous welcomes from the crew. Wooksie insisted it was time for her to go home, enough was enough.
Snowboarding alone on the pistes
So, I ended up on my own for the second week of January. Various friends and family were scheduled to visit and keep me company, but for the first time in my life I was alone on the piste. It’s a strange experience when you are normally with pals. No one to chat to at coffee time; no point in stopping for a lunch time beer on my own; no one to show around; similar route most days; no one to wait for at the bottom or top of the lift and no rush to get up there in the morning or get back at night. What would normally take 4 hours was only take 90 minutes.
I set myself some targets to keep me focused, I wanted to do a 50km ride. I avoided speed records because there was this continual worry about what would happen if I had a bad fall and I was on my own and breaking speed records was fraught with danger.
The first day on my own the weather was perfect sun and blue sky, the snow was great and after 5 hours of riding without a break, the 50km target was achieved. I decided I would leave the black runs until I had some company so ended up cruising around the mountains on my own, enjoying the scenery, trying not to hurt myself and it wasn’t long before I started to get bored.
The thing that you miss if you only go for a week is the chance to just enjoy the scenery, so apart from belting around the mountain on a snowboard, I also did a lot of walking and just enjoying being there, living in the snow (when it was around).
The Chalet Hosting treadmill begins
Anyway, this solitude only lasted a week because the visitors started to arrive and in fact I started a new career as a chalet host. I’d clean the apartment, make the beds, drive to Geneva Airport to pick them up, cook them meals, go snowboarding, show them around mountain, drive them back to the airport, clean the apartment, make the beds before the next lot arrived. If I was lucky, they would organise their own transport.
Don’t get me wrong, it was great having company, it was just rather exhausting, as a person to which cleanliness, order and routine doesn’t come naturally. My friends didn’t expect a chalet service, but in the absence of much else to do, why not do it. There is no fun going up on the mountain on a miserable day, let alone doing it on your lonesome.
In late January, we had a “full house” of family, we also had the kind of day snowboarders dream of. It snowed all Saturday afternoon and night, and we woke up to fresh snow all over the mountain and bright blue sky. The snow had fallen on the bashed pistes, so it was a bit treacherous but off piste it was perfect, these are days that other people talk about, but I never got.
The second half of the season lasted until the snow started to really deteriorate in mid-March, so I had the long, lonely drive home to Bristol. but it wasn’t without surprises, Calais beach sea front is really nice (not the town you understand).
We have a monster black run down under one of the chair lifts that I see most days, I hadn’t t done before because we had never had good enough snow, but in the company of my eldest lad, who I taught to snowboard 22 years ago, we had the most amazing run through miles of fresh snow, it will never be that good again and those of the memories I was looking for.
Back in time for historical Argyle games
I lasted the whole of January but headed back for February when the French school holidays begin and to see Argyle beat Liverpool in the FA Cup.
Our resort in Morillon is massively popular in February with families, no place for a man of my age for sure and most of the expats bailed out as well. 3 weeks back in the UK rekindled my enthusiasm for the mountain life and I headed back just as soon as Argyle lost to Man City in the FA Cup.
I arrived back in early March with a new schedule of pals to look forward to hosting. I still had one more thing on my to do list, a rather intimidating black run. Even though we have been coming here for 8 years, the family mostly ski on piste, so I don’t get to do this kind of run, and it was inviting me to have a go every time I saw it across the valley, not to mention intimidating me.
Gremlin brain attack
I had planned to do it when some of my snowboarding pals were with me but for some reason the “gremlin” got inside my head when I was on my own. A day when the visibility on the mountain was varying from poor to complete white out (invisible), depending where you were on the mountain, conditions when you should really just go home and get a book out.
I was in the lift that runs over this part of the mountain, the visibility seemed OK and there was fresh snow to help with the inevitable moguls and “Gremlin” was in my head saying “you’ll be fine”, “what’s the worst thing that can happen”, “if your mates were here you would do it, so what is stopping you”. I gave in and decided to do it and get it the “monkey off my back”, or maybe the “Gremlin out of my head”.
Initially (the bit I could see from the lift) the ride it was fine, but then it went super narrow with massive moguls and the visibility reduced to just a few yards as it dropped into a gorge. It wasn’t long before I was on my backside with a jarred elbow, bruised buttock and with no clear way down through the moguls with what seemed an almost vertical drop.
It was then that reality hit me, there is no one around because only a mad person would be doing this black run in these conditions, I don’t know the route down, I can’t even see the end of the piste, and the run is probably the toughest I’ve come across with moguls and ice. “What the hell am I doing here?”.
Survival mode kicked in, if in doubt sit on your ass, leaf the board, forget style, fall when you need to (no one is watching) and obviously I got down in the end, and even more oddly I did another 50km that day in awful visibility, almost to get over the trauma.
This was a bit of an epiphany in some ways, there are lots of dangerous things that I would never consider doing that are way beyond my level of competence. However, I have got myself into all dangers, scrapes, and injuries over the years which I’ve struggled to explain how or why it happened. Now I know, when “Gremlin” gets inside my head I just don’t see danger, so in future the alarms bells will be ringing, a sign of my increasing maturity, I hope.
Something you don’t realise until you live in the mountains, is how totally unreliable the weather forecasts are. When you go for a week, you normally get a bit of a mix anyway, but it is really volatile. The previous year I was basing my visits on the forecasts, but they are hopeless. This winter I was probably lucky because it was cold, and the pistes were maintained with manmade snow.
Global warming
It is difficult to know whether it is global warming and what is just cyclical. Last (23/24) winter was described as the worst since so and so. Therefore, it has been this bad in previous winters, but there does seem to be a trend now. We used to look forward to spring and light evenings at Easter in April, now it is running out in mid-March. On the other hand, the opening weekend in December had the best snowfalls of the year.
So, I have now “done a winter season”, that is off the to do list. I guess I’ve learned that being there alone isn’t much fun after a couple of days and there are only so many times you can do the runs in a ski area.
Living in France and only having very limited language is OK until you try to communicate beyond a bar or a restaurant. I read a lot when I was on my own but never got around the French language lessons (sorry Dave Padfield), and it was good to have the company of my friends and all the expats, but not every night!
Looking forward to January already. Next winter I will spend more time commuting to the numerous other resorts within an hour of our place for a bit more variety and challenge.
Les Carroz, French Gremlins and downhill mountain bike records
After the success of my Winter Season in the Alps and all that snowboarding, I decided that I would try the same with my other passion, mountain biking. The lifts are open for the summer French holidays, July and August, and the bigger resorts open for June as well.
My first visit was a family summer holiday 10 years ago, I loved the mountains and all the activities but unfortunately, I went home with broken ribs from a crash. I’d been back a few times since, normally bringing a mate along. I’d end up being more of a tour guide around the routes and annoyingly, they would be faster than me on the straight bits and invariably get lost.
Solo mountain biking
Consequently I would then waste a lot of time trying to find them so I wasn’t too fussed that I was going to be on my own, but it has to be recognised that downhill mountain biking is dangerous against pretty much any criteria, so I was mindful of the fact this could all go horribly wrong if I had a serious crash, minor crashes are a daily event but it’s often a very fine line between minor and major.
In preparation for my summer of fun, I’d invested in new Enduro bike because having the right gear is essential. This started as a plan to buy a second-hand bike to avoid the expensive rentals, but a great deal on a new one appeared so I bought it. It was a beaty, much better than the rental bikes so I was really looking forward to cracking on.
10 days and a 1000 miles after my mountain biking adventures on the borders of Scotland came to an end, I found myself in the French Alps at the home of one of Europe’s downhill mountain biking meccas, namely Morzine.
Technically I was in the next valley over, Morillon, which is part of the Grand Massif. It is also a mecca for those crazy road riding dudes who seemed to take fun in pedalling up the mountains. The mountain bikers as a smarter breed and use the lift systems as their means for getting up the mountains. They have also renamed themselves Enduro riders, is less of a mouthful and sounds cooler.
The drive down was complicated
A new first for me was the drive down from Bristol, as my wife wasn’t very interested in being an Enduro widow and she declined the offer to keep me company on the journey, so I had to do it on my own. This wasn’t without incident, normally we go via Dover, but I didn’t fancy a 14-hour drive on my own, so I booked the ferry from Portsmouth, so I had an overnight kip and a fresh start. The driving time was due to be 8 hours, so not much different to Calais.
What I hadn’t noticed was there was two ferry routes into France, and I booked the wrong one. We landed at Cherbourg not Caen, I set my Satnav and it said TWELVE hours, my heart sank, where had the other 4 hours come from, I just assumed it was a hold up and in the absence of any other options I set off, I worked out that about 1 hour additional time was due to Cherbourg rather than Caen.
I settled in for a very long day on the road with a heavy heart. I noticed that my route left the motorway and took me south on A roads towards Paris and even more depressingly, I noticed Bordeaux appear on some of the long-range signs, Bordeaux is as far from the Alps as anywhere in France. As I chewed over these unexpected developments in my mind it occurred to me that maybe the Iphone Satnav might be playing tricks, as there is more than one town with the name of my destination, so I cancelled the trip and reset it.
Then we found the source of the problem, the Iphone offered the fastest trip, but I hadn’t realised it offered the fastest trip WITHOUT toll roads. A quick change of settings and suddenly I was 3 hours closer to Morillon that I expected, absolutely wonderful, my world was a happier place. Unfortunately, quite a bit of damage had been done to the timescale by taking me west of Paris and it ended up being 10 hours, but still better than 12 hours.
What most people don’t realise is that the Alps are very hot in the summer, so I arrived at the end of a hot day and temperatures that felt like 30 degrees. I emptied the car of all the gear, including my brand-new mountain bike and put my feet up on the balcony, had a warm beer and crashed out. Luckily, I had bought one of those Dyson cool fans with me and it got to work on the heat.
First Gremlin attack
Next day, glorious sunshine and after spending the morning getting this sorted out, I decided it was time to test out my new bike. So, in the heat, I put on all the protective gear and collected the bike from the garage sweating buckets. The lift is only 50m from the apartment, so I pedalled around in all the gear to the lift and noticed something wasn’t quite right.
The lift was stationary, and the ticket office was closed, what on earth was going on. I checked in at the Tourist Information, the opening date had been delayed saving money. It opened officially, the day I was coming home. Not to worry, the lift at Les Carroz was open on the other side of the mountain.
Obviously, those Gremlins that had haunted my trip around the bike rides in the north of England had migrated to France, or the Gremlin jungle drums had got the local French Gremlins on my case.
Now I required the car, which was sat in the sun and showing 35c as the outside temperature and heaven knows what on the inside. In all the gear, strip the bike down, pack it in the car, jump in and drive for 30 mins, still with most of the gear on and sweating.
30 minutes later I arrive in Les Carroz after a drive through the winding mountain roads only inhabited by agricultural machinery and redundant Italian racing car drivers. As I approached the lifts I glanced up, and to my horror, the lift wasn’t moving. I could not believe my eyes, this cannot be.
I drove up to gondola station, surely this lift wasn’t closed as well. I parked outside the ticket office and walked over, it was clearly not open, it was as shut as a shut ticket office can be. I rested against the bonnet of the car and seriously considered crying as well as sweating, before driving back to Morillon. Those French Gremlins were having a right laugh today.
As I sat there, I heard a metallic clanking sound followed by a whirring noise from the direction of the lifts. I walked around the side of the building, and to my delight the lift had started running – we are all systems go and stuff you Gremlins.
Time to rip up the trails
I parked up, assembled the bike, got padded up and pedalled over to the lift ready sweating profusely. Except for one thing, I couldn’t find my lift pass. Those Gremlins had taken it out of my pocket and left it back in the apartment, but I wasn’t to be stopped, straight up to the little ticket booth and bought a one-day pass, we are off.
Finally, 2 hours later, I arrive at the top of the Les Carroz gondola ready to go. All the mountains have spectacular views and this is no exception, as always it takes me time to enjoy the serenity before heading down the runs.
For the first time I was here on my own, I didn’t have to take a mate on a tour of the runs for a change. The French grading system is different, all the runs are incredibly steep, running through trees, with technical section and large berms (banked turns).I was never able to do the very difficult black runs (jumps and serious danger) though there are normally routes around the big obstacles, I was capable enough on the red runs, going carefully, these tend to be gnarly and difficult, so more of a challenge that a pleasure, which left the blue runs. Wider, faster, challenging but most of all, fun.
This was probably my 4th trip to this bike park and as I stood there, armed with the right equipment and relatively empty slopes, I decided that I was going to stick to the blues. At my age I’m not going to get much better, the difficult stuff is more dangerous on my own, so I would just do the blue runs and get to know them a bit better.
Most sports folks use an app called Strava. It records your times against previous visits, and it also grades you against other athletes against various categories. I don’t tend to look at my comparisons because I am normally somewhere in the average category which isn’t particularly motivational. However, last summer, I turned 65 and I happened to look where I sat in the all time Over 65 categories, and I was rather pleased to note that I was quite near the top of this category, clearly the competition was either dying off, had been seriously injured and retired, or had finally grown up. So, I had a target, to be the fastest old bloke on the mountain.
Les Carroz bike park is a little gem. Within 10 miles are some of the most famous bike parks in the world and dwarf this one, but it is being expanded but it only has about 6 runs and they are fabulous. They mix cross country and technical Enduro riding with the adrenalin pumping of steep down hill drops that take you from the top, across the forests and back down to the car park in about 15 minutes of jarring, bouncing and skidding excitement.
The first section of the Wood Rider runs from the Gondola through the woods and into some complicated berms that are more like being in a corkscrew as they twist around and get steeper. One of the problems at the moment is they are very very dry, so the sections where people are breaking are becoming very soft so they are like hitting a sand bunker, so if you don’t get it right you are over the handle bars before you know it, happened to me a few times until you know where they are.
Woodbiker trail
Second section is a run into the woods that is traversing the mountain and involves lots of twists and turns rather than speed, but it is all about keeping the bike balanced and keeping up momentum. When it is wet this can more complicated as there are streams running down of rocks that make things very slippery, but that wasn’t a problem on this trip.
Third section takes us back to the car park and involves much faster and steeper sections with more obstacles and “features” including flat tops so you can get some air under the wheels as you take off a little.
Fastest oldie on the mountain
So, at the end of the afternoon, and equipped with my new bike, all the frustration was gone. A wonderful afternoon blasting through the forests and Janner Boy is now the fastest old bloke on the mountain, having set the fastest times since the park opened in 2016 – yessss.
Les Gets, La Chatel and Avoriaz still to come, but today is going to be difficult to beat.
The daylight was fading in the grey wet skies as we set off from Grisdale. Our next destination was Kielder Forest on the border with Scotland, after a long rainy night, and being soaking wet after the trails, the advice from the Satnav that it was nearly 3 hours drive wasn’t particularly welcome.
The journey out of the Lake District was slow and very wet. There were waterwalls cascading out of the cliffs everywhere, roads with rivers running across them, it is amazing how much water 2 inches of rain on mountains can produce. It occurred to me that I would probably never have another holiday in the Lake District so I might as well try to enjoy these views, the floods will be my permanent memory of the Lake District.
Road to Scotland
The route to Kielder Forest campsite took us over the border into Scotland and a 3 hour drive through the Kielder National park. I managed to lose my mate in the Jeep, who was a bit quicker than my old van and our route was rather meandering and my GPS seemed to be sending me in a different direction, so we decided to make our way separately to the camp site. We later realised I was using Waze, which had a different view of the borders than the Apple route.
Gremlins strike
Gremlin Strike – I should have guessed, the Gremlin was in the satnav. It took me off the main road on to narrow single track roads but when it turned into a mountain pass with just gravel I decided it was trying to kill me, so I gingerly turned the van around on the edge of a cliff and headed back to civilisation and the long way round.
Eventually I arrived at the campsite where my mate was getting organised. What we hadn’t expected was the storm of midges that awaited us, clearly the Gremlin had recruited its mates to help out with it’s attack on me and the van.
Midge Attack
We couldn’t eat outside thanks to the midges, the pub had stopped serving food, so we had a “date night” in the van, very cosy with tinned ravioli and tinned hot dogs. We then headed for the pub where we found a Newcastle United fan in his club shirt, and he seemed to know amazingly little about his team, either that or he couldn’t understand out southern accents.
Next morning, the weather was a bit better, and we set off on our bike ride. These rides were much better than the day before, but it is a vast area, but we had some exciting rides. There was heavy damp clouds and regular downfalls to keep us focused, but we clocked up over 30 kms.
Kielder Trails
There was a great new area with a couple of new red runs to get the adrenalin running. As with all good things, there was a downside, the climbs back up but the e-bikes make life a lot easier as we get older. This is the new track called the EE Mile.
This was followed by another red run called “Run into the Valley”, the camera missed the first section which was fantastic and the second extension was infested with low tree branches and gave our faces a good slapping on the way through but all good fun, here it is and watch out for the branches that hit me in the face.
The day ended with a long climb to the top of the mountain and a big red run, that went on for ages and dropped us down through the mists into the car park.
The top bit was still thick in cloud and we found the rest of the trail despite the signs sending us the wrong way again.
As the altitude dropped the visibility got better. The Trail splits on the way down but we worked out which way to go (not helped by the map) and then we picked up the big trail back into the car park, not overly complicated but plenty of speed on the way down.
Heading to Hamsterley Forest
Back to the car park the midges were waiting for us, and took full advantage our tiredness and attacked in full throttle. As we departed the rain started to fall again, so time to head south through the North Pennines and heading for Hamsterley Forest and our next ride and maybe some decent weather.
The 3 hour drive down from Keilder towards Consett took us along some amazing old Roman roads, they were incredible. We all learned in school about how the Romans built their roads straight, well you could really see it in that area, they just went straight over the tops of hills and down the other side – absolutely ideal for cars to overtake my camper van so I didn’t feel like a mobile traffic jam.
Having seen the countryside around the borders it is absolutely no surprise that the Romans decided to build Hadrian’s Wall to stop the Scots raiding. It is a desolate and remote place full of natural beauty, I guess the surprise is that they bothered staying that far north at all, Scots, Midges and Gremlins, and they thought a wall would save them – obviously having a laugh,
We ended up at our third campsite in the foothills of the North Pennines, more lovely people and still freezing cold in the middle of summer but at least it was dry. So, we courageously had a BBQ in the biting winds that whipped cross the hills and dried out some of our cloths.
Then we took our beer into the camp kitchen and recreation room, where it was at least warm. Armed with a couple of cold cans of beer we turned on the TV, up popped the Blues Brothers film, a chance to watch a Hollywood classic, in the eyes of some people anyway. After 30 minutes I gave up trying to watch it for the umpteenth time, and it turns out, it was the same for my mate.
Next morning we woke to bright sunshine and finally, some warm weather. I was up early, made my mate a cup of tea in bed and we had a proper camp breakfast of bacon, sausage, eggs and bacon – we were ready for a big day.
Hamsterley Forest here we come, I’d even found my missing trainer hidden under the dashboard, but still no sigh of the book.
