Cold and wet miserable ride around Hamsterley

What a week of rain again but today the forecast was dry and sunny. Well it was not dry or sunny at Hamsterley Forest when I was there. It has been a long time since i have seen the forest as muddy, as soon as you turn off any fire road / gravel track it is ankle deep. I had planned on going over to Doctors Gate / Monkey trees over looking Frosterley but the wind on the xposed moor was near gale force and it was lashing rain so headed back down into the forest for some shelter. I never seen a single sole the whole ride and only one deer. After one and a half hours of freezing cold wind / rain I was near the crossroads at the far end of the forest. I wanted to do another hour but I had enough. The garmin was now reading 1 degree and I was soaked. I headed straight down the hill to the grove then picked up the grove link back to main carpark area. Once I reached the hut the rain stopped and the sun was trying to get out, typical! Below are a few cold, wet, overcast & muddy photos. Enjoy and hopefully more soon -

PS - NECCL RD8 tomorrow at Gypsies Green Velodrome, South Shields.

Few days away at York

After the race on Saturday me and Jane had a few days down in York. It lashed down nearly all day on the Sunday and it was real cold walking around the Christmas market / shops. On the Monday we had a drive to McArthur Glen shopping outlet then up to John Lewis form more Christmas shopping before driving back home. It was drier on the Monday but the heavens opened on the A1M on the way back. That's me and Jane finished the Christmas shopping now thank god, no more shops!
Below are a couple of rather wet / cold snaps -
PS NECCL RD8 Gypsies Green Velodrome, South Shields this Saturday - no mud there thank god!

NECCL RD7 Hardwick Park, Sedgefield - Photo's etc

Firstly sorry for the lack of blogs recently. Between the continuous rain and wind the weather has been crap to say the least. I have also been very busy at work and spent a lot of time catching up with all the Neccl / TLI / cx paperwork / accounts.
Anyway back to Sedgefield, what a cracking turn out last Saturday for the local race based at Hardwick Park, Sedgefield. Ian set a new, revised course this year taking in many new sections that have not been ridden before. As ever the ground conditions held up very well considering the amount of rain we had running up to the event. Many thanks must go to Ian, helpers from Ferryhill Wheelers and others. A big thank must also go to Durham County Council and the park rangers for the use of the venue etc. MBE has posted seven galleries of photos on the Neccl Facebook page. Enjoy and more again this Saturday at the Velodrome, South Shields.

A few days down at Harrogate

The Harrogate Christmas Market started last Thursday and finished on Sunday night so we decided to have an overnight stay and go to the market. We went around just as it opened up at 9.30am as we read that it gets totally rammed by midday / afternoon. Just as we were finished the coaches were dropping off thousands of day trippers. By all accounts they exceed 20,000 people per day! I have never seen so many coaches in all my life, it was one after the other.
The town it self was also busy on the Sunday but back to normal when we went back around on the Monday. Jane was happy as we have quite a few more Christmas items ticked off the very growing list! She also had a smile when we went into Bettys Tea Room! Total opposite end of the scale after eating breakfast in Wetherspoons with all the local alco's. We also called off at Darlo on the way back up to have a look around Alan Wadkins tool shop, Morrisons, fuel and Sherwoods, or I should say Drive Vauxhall now.