Well, I ended up going to Darlo, where Deano and I did a route that bore very_little_resemblance_at_all to the one that he had suggested, thank crunchy!
Slightly alarmingly, the closer the train got to Darlington the more of that solid water stuff there seemed to be outside the window. Then, arriving at the station and attempting to lift the bike off the train I found the entire platform to be a sheet of black ice
Aware that there was no Basil on hand to rescue me in the event of my falling into the gap between train and platform (oi - who's that laughing at the back at the very idea that my heffalumpiness could ever fit?!?!?) I was very very careful and successfully disembarked, then slipped and slid to the relative safety of the covered part of the platform and escaped through the barriers where I found Deano and the Dave Yates wating for me. We may have acheived a record for the earliest ever tea stop on a forum ride, making it all of the way from the station to the 'spoons before stopping for a cuppa - well, it would give the roads a chance to thaw a bit, wouldn't it? No entertainingly pissed-up aggro punters in this one, so it didn't quite live up to the standard of
Scab but you can't have everything.
We headed off, with a couple of 'interesting' moments on somewhat slippy surfaces, out of Darlington. Can I just say, by the way, that I'm really rather proud of the fact that I didn't actually completely panic on ice even on the REALLY BIG unfamiliar roundabouts - until this winter there is absolutely no flipping way I would even have contemplated heading out on a day like today. And a year or so ago I'd have been having collywobbles at every other junction, even given the fact that there was naff all traffic about. Mind, at various points, once we were out of town Deano pointed out the snow covered optical illusions that he had planned to be riding today and I am
quite glad we didn't go that way, as some of them are quite clearly the figments of a very active imagination....
I know I should pay attention to the route, but I'm afraid I didn't so I'm not very sure which way we went other than that we did stick to the more-or-less clear main-ish roads (there were a few junctions where Deano said 'oh, we could go that... ah, maybe not!') and ended up at Barton. I spotted a
very fine tower for sale, if anyone has a spare half million knocking around. It would be nice to have my own tower... and I could even fly a pirate flag on high days and holidays! We continued through the village and just near the motorway I discovered the joys of Barton truck stop, purveyors of fine greasy fry-ups, which today was accessed by means of traversing a rather large ice rink. There may have been an unscheduled dismount. It might not even have been me! We tried to walk up the little road to the cafe, and I soon realised that going uphill on sheet black ice wearing trainers and pushing a bike is a) a bit tricky and b) not made any easier by laughing your tits off! It really is most disconcerting to be standing still as your bike slides slowly sideways and you slide slowly backwards. After about 5 minutes of Bambi impersonations we successfully made it to the kerb, all of a few metres away, and picked our way across grass verges and round parked vehicles to the stairs and the alternate route. Somehow I don't think they'll be auditioning me for Dancing in Ice any time soon.... Our arrival at the cafe was about as well timed as we could ask for, as we'd just ordered a bacon butty and some mushrooms on toast and sat down when a rather large number of hungry people appeared. Our elevenses was served up very quickly - they had to wait a bit longer.
Suitably refuelled with lard and a couple of cups of coffee we made a move in the direction of (I do believe) Bishop Auckland - but don't worry NewtonCap, we didn't get there. I think (but could be wrong) that it was somewhere on this stretch that there were a couple of bits of road that were particularly icy and required the use of the 24" gear, and passing through one village I had a slightly worrying moment when the back wheel started to go with a vengeance (Deano commented that it looked quite alarming!) but most of the time the road was clear enough - or the ice wasn't apparent until it was too late to do anything about it and I just had to sit tight, remember not to brake and hope that the Very Lovely Valencia would find her own way to the next defrosted bit. Only a NSTN rating of 'eep' though, even at its worst, and we had the advantage of beautiful winter sunshine to light the way. We went through somewhere with an infeasibly pretty bridge, then near Summerhouse (oh, to be lazing in one's Summerhouse!) I was very perplexed by my mis-reading of a
Pub sign as the "Baby Hunt" and there was what felt to me in my Christmas-exaggerated lardiness a rather lengthy climb into the headwind towards Ingleton before we landed up in Staindrop, where it was time for a nice pot of Earl Grey and toasted teacakes at the Country Tearooms where I also took advantage of the toasty warm radiator to defrost my feet a bit. Three cafe stops in the day. My kind of riding.
From Staindrop back to Darlington we had the wonders of wind assistance and it was indeed mostly downhill (really honestly Tiermat!) - at one point I commented to Deano that this was where I had the advantage of having a freewheel. "Yeah, but it's not bad along here," he said. "I know, but I don't think I've had to pedal since Ingleton!" Back into town, round the Very Big Roundabouts and past the rather pleasant Civic Theatre (which has some fine-looking ironwork) and we got to the station to find that the next TPE train to York was due to leave any second - but was fortuitously delayed by about quarter of an hour, giving me plenty of time to faff before catching it. The platform guard, with whom I had a pleasant natter and who was impressed with my forethought at bringing my own bungee for those East Coast occasions when one discovers the bike-restraining straps in the guards van to be absent or dysfunctional, told me where his best guess was for where the bike storage would be and was proved correct to within about 2 metres. There was, naturally, somebody sitting in said bike space but they moved without any appearance of disgruntlement when I asked them to and there were plenty of seats on the (bonus points for a non-stopping service) train. At about this point I realised that I had inadvertently left the chocolate fridge cake promised to Deano in my rack pack. Oops. Sorry!
All in all a grand day out. Warm enough for 3/4s and fingerless mitts, a bit too warm for a hat or a scarf, not a drop of rain and nary a mechanical. It's probably a bit of a shame that a lot of the lanes were still too frozen to ride - I get the impression that there's some very very lovely riding to be done round there when the weather is a little more benenvolent - but the mostly A and B roads that we took were on the whole very civilised, and had the added advantage of being new to me. It felt incredibly good to clock up the first few social miles of 2011 (even though my legs are quite clearly telling me that there were
HILLS involved - must be imagining things...) and to blow the cobwebs away. Thanks Deano!
