Start

And so to our first outing, or shall we say practice/training run.
We chose Guisborough woods as the destination. All the riders in the locality of the woods are as fit as butcher's dogs. Guisborough woods starts off on the eastern edge of the Cleveland hills and drop down very sharply into Guisborough itself.
Wavey couldn't make it, so, just myself and Jake this time. Bike's assembled at Pinchinthorpe car park and a slow steady climb up the fire roads toward the back route. Lactic acid burn was really starting to kick in by now, but I intended to ignore it and carry on regardless, no pain no gain and all that.
We soon reached the bottom of the first black route downhill section, and watched a group of 4 local bikers fly down. We followed them for a short while along some rooty singletrack which would, eventually, lead to the tank track that climbed up to the top of the moor and the start of the black route downhill.
We followed the "Unsuitables" which runs along the margins of the forest and picked up the start of the downhill run. "wow" this has changed quite a bit since I was last here. For a start a substantial amount of tree clearing had taken place which made the place look like a nuclear blast site. Then the trail itself has had a fair amount of work with berms, lips and drops all within the first few metres, it was great to ride and showed me just what I had been missing for the last 5 years.
Sections 2 and 3 were pretty much the same as they were 5 years ago but nonetheless good fun. All that was left now was a rapid blast back down the fire roads and it wasn't long before we were back at the car park.
Overall a great re-introduction to mountain biking, the bike was faultless and I was pretty pleased with my own and Jake's riding abilities.
Looking forward to Hamsterley forest now..