C2C - The Fantastic Journey!

Not enough time to write it up fully now, but my colleague and friend Tim and I completed the C2C bike ride last weekend (Sept 22-25 2011).

133 miles from the west coast to the east coast, through Cumbria and the Durham Dales, and out past Newcastle to Tynemouth - albeit after two punctures (one on each tyre for me) and the complete overhaul of my brakes (twice - at one point the back wheel's brake pads were jarring against the frame, essentially applying brakes constantly for about 25 miles). My bike, a faithful servant on the streets of Durham for two years, has surely had its swansong, and it went down screaming!

We had perfect weather - not much sun (several plus points), and not much rain (94,000 plus points). Overcast but not too foggy = optimal, and that's what we got.

Here are some of the pictures, and videos, from each of the completely magnificent days - a spectacular new entry in the Top 20 list of Most Fun I've Had With My Clothes On:

Day 1: Whitehaven to Langwathby (just outside Penrith): about 55 miles
















Day 2: Langwathby to Stanhope (County Durham) via Hartside: about 42 miles




















Day 3: Stanhope to Tynemouth via Newcastle/ Gateshead: about 30 miles











I'm now completely addicted, and cannot wait for next Spring to have a go at The Way Of The Roses, and the real beastie - Glasgow to Inverness!

C2C 2011/ Stamina-building Tour of County Durham 2 - Chester Moor and Beyond...

This week I headed off in the other direction, to Chester Moor, about 6 miles away from our house, and where, again, I thought there were at least two pubs by way of a final destination. I knew I'd pass by Plawsorth, with its farm where you can pick soft fruit, advertised on the main road with a gigantic plastic strawberry. Ideal photo opportunity.

As is now threatening to become typical of this tour of County Durham, it's not there anymore.

So I carried on, and as I'd over-estimated the distance to Chester Moor and the gradient of the hill (modest), when I got there after about 20 minutes I thought that wasn't much of a trip, so I carried on toward Chester-le-Street. And that's when the day got (marginally) more interesting...

I spotted out of the corner of my eye down a dirt path a sign that looked very much like one for an amateur football club. Naturally curious, I pedalled down to find out more... ... and it was indeed an ad for Chester-le-Street Town, but with some disconcerting features: 1) The forthcoming fixture was for last August and, 2) The next match would require an early-morning kick-off - what, on police advice?! I know it's Birtley (suburb of Gateshead/Newcastle), but still...

So I cycled further down the path, in search of a football stadium that, possibly, had been last used in the previous summer. And I encountered a decrepit, seemingly derelict 'ghost ground', as if it had been abandoned and left for Nature to reclaim.

Well, that's what I thought, but a cursory Google search reveals - come on, admit it, you're curious - that they won 2-0 at home last week (by the looks of it, the boy Davison is in a rich vein of form), in front of a crowd of 48.

At first I thought they might play elsewhere - could they have grown out of this stadium? Not with crowds like that! - and so I was intrigued when the link about their ground was being "updated", but the "getting there" link does place them squarely in this field behind a pub off a main road.

So, what's with the spectacularly out-of-date noticeboard? Weird, but slightly disappointing, to be honest - I preferred the 'ghost ground' story. Ah well, up the Cestrians.

I continued down the main road to Chester-le-Street, to Riverside Park which, as the sign makes clear, is more than a park, it's the "Gateway to the Great North Forest", an apparently astounding wilderness that had hitherto escaped my attention for five entire years, and wasn't obviously in the immediate vicinity. The park does have an excellent play area for kids, though.

Meandering around the park's perimeter I came upon a subway with the intriguing title... ... and when I cycled in, I found an excellent set of murals obviously painted by some local kids (possibly from St Leonards Catholic school), under the guidance of the region's NHS Trust, the County Council and a mental health charity for kids.

Impressive artwork, and of course wholly admirable and sensible sentiments (the "Get some sleep" one made me laugh out loud, too), but descending into the tunnel surrounded by all this intense anxiety was somewhat alarming.

Eee, it were simpler in our day (we had The Smiths for starters).

And this is life in the frenzied heaving metropolis of Chester-le-Street. Who knows what would be on Council-sponsored murals in south London?

Onward into the town itself, and to a pub - any pub. I settled o The Butchers Arms, down a side-road off the main high street, where I was only the 2nd customer in, and I had a bog-standard pub lunch ('seasonal vegetables' turned out to mean boiled carrots and cabbage!), and a creditable pint. Then back home...

So - ghostly football grounds and teenage nightmares in Chester-le-Street. Next week - Langley Park.

Summer 2009 bike rides

In May 2009, Liam rode his bike without stabilisers for the first time - see the footage of this definitive rite of passage here - and throughout the summer of 2009, he and Daddy went off for long bike rides around Durham, finding parts of Newton Hall and Nevilles Cross that you just can't reach by car...

In these two pictures, we are somewhere down by the railway track toward Newcastle, having crossed a footbridge between the Newton Hall housing estate and a load of fields behind Crook Hall.

As you can see from the top picture, we went 'off-road' a lot, cycling through woods and down footpaths. The path we were on curves left and slopes downward , giving both of us a real buzz.

In the other picture, Liam is heading down a path by Framwellgate High School.

These were fantastic times we spent together; a real father-son experience. Watching him bomb down paths, holding his arm as we negotiated to the other side of busy main roads, even pushing him up the hills...

Liam rides his bike without stabilisers!

It's a defining moment for any parent: the first time your child rides their bike without stabilisers. And, yesterday, April 19th 2009 at the age of 5 and three-quarters, Liam did it.

We had expected him to take to it, as he had been completely without fear on his tricycle aged 2 - see the report at the end here - but we were also fearful of him falling off the instant we let go the saddle, and being traumatised, primarily by a sense of failure (he can be quite hard on himself when things don't go according to plan).

We had a few practices in the back garden (2-3 minutes tops), then moved to the park on Park House Road for the showdown with destiny!

And, of course, Liam being Liam, as soon as we let go he was off! The first film below is, literally, only his 2nd ever try - a creditable effort, the unorthodox 'controlled stop' technique notwithstanding!

As you can see in the later film (below), he had become so blase about the whole thing he could admonish his own father for not keeping up!

Also, out of nowhere, spontaneously, and not - we hope - driven by our seething ambitions for the boy (which amount to him being happy whatever he wants to do), he said, "I want to make you proud!"

Which we both were, of course.