Having hauled the bikes up to Yorkshire Claire and I decided we'd better damned well ride them. Well, I decided. Claire raised concerns about black ice, frostbitten fingers, bears and other potential hazards but I brushed aside such worries and, eventually, we set out. 

 

 

 

 

I should have listened to her about the black ice, the lanes en route from my home town of Stokesley to the trailhead in nearby Great Ayton treacherous in the extreme. Claire's fingers were already feeling the cold, forcing (I really needed my arm twisting on this one) a stop in Ayton for hot chocolate at the cyclists' favourite, Suggit's Ices. Having only ridden a sum total of three miles I felt a bit of a fraud among the roadies, who'd probably already done two laps of the North Yorks Moors. Still, I won hardcore points for wearing shorts.

 

 

 

 

Hands warmed we headed up the hill, out past Ayton station to Gribdale Gate and towards Roseberry Topping. Crisp and cold only the grey pall of pollution over Teeside just beyond spoiled the view.

 

 

 

 

 

From Roseberry we headed over to Guisborough Woods. Or what's left of it - they've clearly been busy with the chainsaws.
 
As have the trail pixies, a new section of singletrack built since I last rode here skipping a section of boring fireroad and adding a bit of slippery, rooty interest.

 

 

 

 

 

 
From High Cliff we looped back to Gribdale Gate and thence up to Captain Cook's monument, the views over the moors stunning as the sun dropped behind the hills, casting a pink hue over the snowy ground.

 

 

 

 

 

 
By now it was getting very cold and we cut back to Ayton through the steep woods - very steep as it turned out - and back through the village. Barely a mile from home the black ice bit and I took a tumble onto the deck but I was too cold for it to hurt.

 

 

 

And the bears? Must've been to cold for them.