POST AMP ADVENTURES : Cong Burn Woods

Showing posts with label Cong Burn Woods. Show all posts

Wednesday, 26 March 2014

A random yet enjoyable loop with my friend John

I had arranged to go out for a bit of a ride with my friend John today, around lunch time, after I got home from work.

So after work I drove home, got in and made myself a nice cup of coffee with our new fangled Tassimo machine. The coffee,tea and other assortments of drinks are quite nice and it's a nice treat on a morning to have a strong cup of Costa coffee or a hot chocolate before going to bed.

I finished my coffee and went and got changed into my biking gear. Picked up my small Canon camera and then headed back down stairs to adjust my cleat on my good legs shoe. Past few bike rides I have had I have been getting a really painful knee. Originally I put this down to riding up our big bank last week with my seat way to low on my Ibis. I then thought maybe my cleat was in the wrong place. Well to be fair I now don't think it's any of those reasons, maybe I'm just getting old and that's where the pain is coming from.

John arrived at my house around 1:30pm and I provided him with a couple of nice new stickers which he had asked me for, so that he could pop them on his bike. The stickers being the ones I had printed last week and advertising this very blog. Hey you have to take free advertising where you can right lol. Ern very kindly applied them to John's bike (John's hands where to cold and hey I already had my bike gloves on raring to go)

Cool Sticker

A dad n lad adventure in Cong Burn Woods

Kyle (my son) and I set off around 10'ish this morning on my bikes.
I'm still loaning my Ibis Mojo to Kyle until he can afford to get himself his own ride (of course would help if he could get a job to start saving towards one)

We headed over to, then through Craghead and continued down to Black House and up towards Edmondsley bank. At the top of Edmondsley bank we turned left and went down towards Waldridge and the fells.

I had intended to ride in some woodland at the back of the fell, but noticed various No horse riding and No cyclists signs. These signs have been put up when Durham County Council took over all the district councils so I have heard. It's a real shame as there are some really nice trails to ride and to be fair the majority of mountain bikers who use trails such as these actually take a pride in the area and look after the place.

Ah well never mind, so it was a case of a small detour and we found ourselves at the start to a trail leading into Cong Burn Woods which we could ride.

Dad n Lad, WoW that Tree was slippy nearly set me neck lol

I've walked through Cong Burn Woods a few times with Mr Hinks and I have ridden through on my bike, but from the opposite direction, but have never actually been on some of the trails we found today. The woods are pretty big so it was real fun exploring different routes.

I shot more footage of our outing today and if you watch it you will see what a great time we were both having. I haven't laughed so much in ages, especially when Kyle went in a really deep water filled hole and then afterwards which you can't really see on video, (you will hear me laughing on camera) he tumbled off his bike coming down a gulley which the recent floods had made down a steep hill (excuse my language as it was pretty hairy as the ground was muddy, uneven and it was hard riding in the water made channel)

After we finished off at Cong Burn, we headed back over towards Chester -Le- Street and up towards Stellar Gill Industrial estate, where we cut through and joined the C2C route. A quick ride up to the Kings Head Statue or sculpture or whatever it is and we broke out the Cornbeef and Jam sandwiches, Ooh and a banana a piece. Then it was a steady ride home. Covered just under 20 miles, but what a fun filled 20 miles.