The 3 Amigos ride again

It's been sometime since the 3 Amigo's have ridden together. I haven't seen Lee in months, what with not getting out and riding as much and then of course we all have our various jobs and different lifestyles and things to be doing. John on the other hand I see quite a bit of, well when I have been feeling well.

Anyhoo today was to be a special day and a chance for us all to have a catch up. Lee and John had done most of the arranging via Facebook and I just said "yeah I'll come along". The weather was supposed to be nice and we decided a route which would take us to Parkhead Cafe. It's round about a 37 mile there and back and the stop at the cafe halfway is always a welcome treat.
John arrived at my house for about 7:45 am and in typical fashion I was late. I always and i mean always lose something. This morning I couldn't find my Endura shorts and Arctic ONE Buff. Ern has been on sorting my inner wardrobes shelving in my room and everything is disorganised so my Ocd type layout of clothing which goes something like long sleeved shirts in colour order, short sleeved shirts with collars, T Shirts, Jeans, then casual shorts and then mountain bike gear colour organised was in total disarray. At the moment I have mountain bike gear with long sleeved dress shirts and shorts with other shorts that aren't mountain bike ones...Ok I'm going to stop writing about that as it's stressing me lol. You get the idea chaos in my room.

Eventually I discovered my Endura shorts hiding on the bottom rail and my Buff was where I had last put it in my Camelbak. Job sorted. I got my Fat Bike out and John and I headed over for Lee. Lee was almost ready and we were soon on the roll, heading over to the Font so that lee could grab a few quid out of the Post Office Speedbank.

We rode up past the entrance to South Moor Golf course and past the new housing estate, going up towards South Moor. A quick ride up Popular Street and we were soon at the bottom of the Black Path and heading up it to the top and Langley View. Soon we were over the road and up to the Morrison and his is where we got on the C2C. From there it's straight up to Parkhead, taking in Leadgate and Consett, before coming to Waskerley.
 

The 3 Amigos

It's so cool to catch up with old friends

       A few weeks back whilst out for a ride I thought I'd pop in and see one of my old school chums. I used to ride regularly with Carl, however we kind of lost touch. You know how it happens, you're busy, they are busy, and before you know it you haven't seen them for months.

I was filthy, cold and wet when I turned up at Carl's so didn't spend too long with him, however I did say on leaving "hey if you're up for a ride out just get in touch". Well on Thursday I got a pleasant surprise when Carl sent me a txt asking if I was fancying a look-out on Friday. I replied back "Sure". So on Friday I headed over to Carl's on my Fatty, and we set off, agreeing to just ride some local trails.

Really enjoyed our venture out, it was great to catch up. I was telling Carl all about my new job, and he was letting me know about how his job wasn't going so well, and he had been only working 3 days or so per week. Not good and a sign of the times I guess. The good thing about getting out on the bikes is you can put all or most of the crap that's going on in your life behind you for a few hours and just have some fun.

WoW! The weather was kind of weird on Friday, there was a freezing cold wind, followed by a snow shower, then more wind, and then it broke out sunny, eventually turning real cold on our return back towards home.

I didn't get too many pics, Carl's a bit camera shy, lol...

As we were on our way back home, Carl asked if I was busy Sunday and if not was I up for another blast out. "Why not" after all, nothing planned. 

I hooked up with Carl opposite what we call the "Pines" a small group of trees near South Moor, and we set off, riding through South Moor Park and up towards the "Drift", from there along to Chapman's Well coming out on the road to Burnhope. We then headed past Burnhope and took a trail that Carl had seen on one of his maps and wanted to check out. Really enjoyed the ride down the pretty steep bank, got up quite a bit of speed and could feel the adrenaline kicking in as the trail was sketchy in places.

At the end of this trail, we crossed a main road and went up another trail until we came to a farmer's field, complete with gate and style. So it was into the field which was thick with clarts, it was then I spotted the Errrr!!!! "Is that a Bull" I asked Carl to which he replied "Nor it's got no bits"... Phew!!! The cow approached us but to be honest it was good as gold as all it wanted to do was get a drink from the trough and never bothered us as we went past. Of course me being polite thanked the old dear for being such a good cow. Small tough ride through the muddy field and found ourselves at another main road.

Again across the road and onto another trail which eventually came out at Diggerland and onto the Dearness Valley Cycle route which passes Lanchester and leads up towards Consett and then connects to the C2C.

Stopped near Lanchester to try some of Carl's baking, he had built some biscuits and flapjack...Mmmm very tasty.

The Bartlett Tendon isn't afraid of a bit muck

My legs all clarty

A nice leisurely ride up the Valley and as we went up I asked Carl if he had seen what they have done to the "Gill Bridge" (Hownsgill Viaduct) Now for a little bit of history lol. The Hownsgill Viaduct formerly carried the Stanhope & Tyne Railway, 175 feet above the Hownsgill gorge. The viaduct is 700 feet long and follows a 12 arch design constructed in brick. It was designed by Thomas Bouch, a British railway design engineer in the 19th Century.

Anyhoo they have put Anti-Bad Day fencing up  as I call it. The proper term being anti-suicide fencing. Now I know they are trying to stop people from jumping over the bridge, but to me, it ruins the appearance of the bridge it looks dreadful, a real eyesore. Not only that, if people are that set on killing themselves I'm sure they will find somewhere else to leap from, or stick their head in an oven, or 1 of a million other ways to do it.

Actually dropped my camera and caught this shot. Carl eyeing up fencing making sure it's straight I think

 After paying a visit to the Gill Bridge, we headed for home. It was getting a little chilly by this point and as we passed some kids they warned us it was slippy further up the route. It sure was too, I couldn't believe just how much snow was still left, in places the whole of the path being covered. Carl really struggled with his skinny tyres and stopped a couple of times as he was slip sliding all over. I didn't have that problem and was able to ride pretty much easily over the slushy snow and ice.

Eventually got to Oxhill traffic lights and this is where I said my goodbyes to Carl. I invited him over tonight to check out some bike porn and watch a couple of cool movies I have downloaded. One is called Life Cycles and the other  The End Of The Trail.

After a slightly elusive sunrise

I'm determined to catch a nice, or should I say beautiful sunrise. So far I've failed in my last couple of attempts. I used to be up at the crack of dawn when I worked as a postman, but that was years ago, before I became ill with my leg. Since then well I can find myself in bed till all hours of the morning and don't get to catch too many sunrises. Just lately however I've been getting up at silly o'clock like this morning for instance 4:00 AM and heading out on my bike.

 Last night I checked the weather on-line for our local area and from what I read I thought it was going to be a canny morning.......how wrong was I ? I had intended riding up to Consett to catch the sun coming up over the Hownsgill Viaduct and shoot a small movie with my GoPro.  Well to cut a long story short the weather was pants, very dull, lots of clouds, mostly of the miserable variety. I decided I wasn't going to let this ruin my day. So Kyle my son who had joined me on this early morning adventure thought about where we could go and capture a few photo's and a bit of movie footage. We decided to head towards Waskerley and the reservoir as we hadn't actually visited it before.

Once you start to get up into the moors and the area opens up, it's so beautiful over there. It's so peaceful down by the reservoir. I rode right down to the edge of the reservoir and got a little bit of footage and even had a bit plodge in the water at one point to capture some pics of my bike at the waters edge. I reckon we did around 35 miles or so today and had a really enjoyable time, even if the weather was caca doo doo.

 Oh one thing I'm not happy with is my new cycling shorts, the lycra padded variety. I bought a pair of Funkier 8 panel gel filled shorts thinking they would help me out in those long rides in the saddle. Boy how wrong was I, these particular brand or design of shorts are so uncomfortable for me and have actually chaffed me pretty bad on both my good side and socket side, so I think I'm going to have to invest in another pair from a different manufacturer. I've been sore in the saddle before but not like this Ouch lol !!!!

Here's a few photo's from today

I saw that some kind of work was being carried out on the Hownsgill Viaduct as there was a few barriers up. I then spotted this notice when heading over towards Waskerley Way near the farm.

Apparently some sort of fencing is being put in place in the hope it will stop people committing suicide off the viaduct, as it is a pretty well known area for people to actually jump off.

A Notice of work being carried out on the Hownsgill Viaduct

Me playing on my Sandman coming down a trail near the Viaduct

Kyle and me on our way up to Waskerley. Rowley Station was actually dismantled brick by brick and is now at Beamish Open Air Museum

Yeah I know it's just a gate, but the sky and trail leading off into the distance caught my imagination so I thought why not take a snap

Here are a few shots which I experimented with using different camera settings and a filter I got of my good friend Adrian. I took quite a flot of shots,  didn't want to bore you so only put up a few....

Sandman Hoggar Ti at the shore line of Waskerley Reservoir

In at the deep end lol

The sky was quite heavy with clouds, added to the shot though