Reeth Reminiscences

There I was, winding my way up the stony track to Great Pinseat, high above Reeth on a fine Yorkshire Dales Saturday, thinking about the first time I’d ridden this way. This same route had been one of the first real offroad rides I’d ever tackled. It had seemed an awful lot harder then; picking my way gingerly through the potholes and puddles on a foggy autumn afternoon, with my long, skinny legs going nineteen to the dozen in a granny ring frenzy.

Come to think of it, there was lots not to enjoy in those early attempts to ride the rough stuff. Every stone would have me off the bike, every rut would snatch the bars from my hands; and if I ever did get too cocky, then a sharp rap across the shin with a flattie (a.k.a. Taiwanese pedal torture) would keep me in line. Even in the safe environs of the local railway path it was a struggle. I was so unfit that I was constantly hunting around the gear ratios for one which didn’t make my legs spin like Nye Bevan in his grave the day Tony Blair was elected; but on the other hand, didn’t have me winding down slowly like the bunny without the Duracells. It wasn’t hard to see why so many mountain bikes get ridden once and then left in the garage to gather dust.

I had to be a lot more adventurous before I got either fitter or more technically adept; and of course (great paradox of mountain biking), getting more adventurous is only really advisable if you’re fitter and more technically adept. My first visit to Coed-y-Brenin was a case in hand. I made it to the top of the first climb and pointed the bike down the stony thread of singletrack as it ducked into the wood. Somehow, though, the first five feet of trail had been designed to resemble a laundry chute in a particularly sordid hotel and at the last moment my survival instinct alerted me that this was waaaaay too steep. On with the anchors and off with the rider, into the under storey. And when I did pluck up the nerve to tackle it properly, the whole thing felt wrong, so very wrong. Teetering about on a thin, rocky path that seemed to be raised about six feet above the woodland floor; every inch threatened a broken bone at best. I doubt I rode more than ten yards at a time, my eyes fixed on the front wheel as it took its own decisions and carried the bike and me irresistibly to disaster.

I suppose you’re going to tell me now that your induction into mountain biking was nothing like this. You came up through the school-age discipline of BMX and had mud running through your veins. Well let me tell you, young-un, it was never like that in my day. My first proper junior bike (after the balloon-tyred, U-framed fairy cycle of my infancy) was a Raleigh Jeep (you’d call it a singlespeed today I suppose); and it was a great day when I shelled out thirty quid on my first second-hand racing bike – with five whole gears. I recall bringing it home one Sunday and cleaning it, then finding that nowhere in dad’s tool store was there a can of 3 in 1. I was so anxious to go out and ride it I rubbed margarine on the chain.

Oh yes, drop handlebars and Campagnolo derailleurs, they were the thing. I didn’t see a BMX until I was sitting my A levels and by then there was only one kind of “ride” I was interested in (and I didn’t get one of those either).

Or perhaps you’re one of those sporting all-rounders who have never had to be taught anything. We all know your sort. The first time you had a full-sized cricket bat in your dainty paws you clipped a fine passing stroke to the leg-off boundary, or whatever it’s called. No, you never had trouble putting the shot past the end of your daps (plimsolls, pumps – insert your own regional variation here); not for you the humiliation of attempting the long jump and failing to reach the sandpit. And so, when a mate took you out on your first mountain bike ride, you took to it like a duck to orange sauce. In fact, it was probably on the Glentress black route and you enjoyed it so much you went round a second time.

Well it wasn’t like that for me, I can tell you. I had to come through it the hard way. If things got really bad on those early rides, I would get angry. Angry with the rain that ran down my neck; furious with the mud that had the back wheel sliding out from under me; less than charitable towards the ruts and rocks and stumps and roots and switchbacks and steps and drops that were out to cause me injury; and most of all, cross with myself for not being able to do this.

And yet, and yet……I’d return home, purple-faced, peel off the mud-caked t-shirt and shorts, get into that hot shower and I knew that this was the One True Way to Silliness.

I took my socks off before I got in the shower, too, by the way.

Neil Gander
November 2004
Email: gandern@tiscali.co.uk