The Northumberland Nutcracker
When: 14/12/13
Distance: 72.8 miles
Elevation Gain: 5,007 ft
Cafe stop: The Sun Kitchen, Rothbury
In defiance of short days, mediocre weather forecasts and general winter lethargy, eight intrepid cyclists - okay, seven intrepid cyclist and one old bloke assembled in a cold and breezy car park somewhere between Newcastle and Scotland. With the wind at our backs we breezed along quiet Northumbrian lanes to the market town of Rothbury, losing two riders on the way, one through illness and injury, the other, a local rider was wise to the forecast and our route: he headed for home.
Following an excellent coffee and mince pie stop, we left Rothbury, at the same time as the amenable weather we had been enjoying; light drizzle accompanied us to the outskirts of Rothbury but soon blew over. A steep climb took us into the wind for the first time, markedly reducing our average speed, even on the descent into the village of Elsdon and bringing some realisation of what we were up against. We refrained from visiting the popular cyclist’s tea room in Elsdon, free top ups and a room full of cycling memorabilia would have meant finishing our ride in the dark.
Our next objective, the hill of Winter’s Gibbet (a mere 5/10 in the Simon Warren book) was not made any easier by the gusting side wind, intent on picking up careless cyclists and dashing them into the grass verge. After pausing to refuel and admire said gibbet, we risked life and limb on the descent, being pushed sideways at 20 mph is a lot scarier than being pushed sideways at 4 mph. My superior weight helped at this point, the stickmen at the front must have suffered. Then we turned into the wind, which, just to give us that bit of extra training, had turned up the power, gusting up to 50 mph. “Not too worry” said our perpetually optimistic route planner, “it’s only seven miles.” And a long seven miles it was too, head down on the bars, hoping for the all too infrequent shelter of a hedgerow, the monotony only broken by having to stop as a herd of sheep crossed the road.
The weather gods were kind to us at the next turn and we found ourselves with a tailwind to help us up the locally infamous Ryals, (another 5/10 in the Simon Warren book, can’t Geordies manage proper hills?) merely a series of short sharp ascents. Once these were dispatched it was pretty much downhill all the way back to Ponteland.
Top marks to Josh for organising and planning, it really is a fantastic route and I for one would love to go and do it again, perhaps without the hideous wind.
