Words by Alex, Photos by Pete
Crew: Butty, Dr S, Dunc, Lee, Slim, Smiffy, Stunt, TJ, Troll
Route: Backeddisbury Lane, Zag, Walker Barn, Charity, Extension, Bottom of the oven, Tea Room, Cat, Danebower Hollow, RH track to Cumberland waterfall, Cumberland Brook, Standing Stone, descent from RHS of car park, lower RHS wiggle, Ressies, Five clouds.
Conditions: Warm & breezy
Notes:
A warm and dry evening (once the afternoon showers had passed) is a no brainer for al fresco eating, so with Five Clouds the destination, a classic chazza/chumby route seemed the right answer.
Assembling at the bottom of the zag, a fierce wind was a blowing, causing a lone swallow to have to work very hard to find or catch any insects in the field. Mr Optimism (aka Lee) says the wind will drop, so we stick to plan A and head up to windyways – where almost immediately the wind is lesser – is backeddisbury in a gap between the hills and funnelling the wind from the south??
Good to have TJ back and hear tales of Norwegian mountains and Fjords.
Our usual e laggards have caught us up by now, we ascend tarmac charity to find the start of chazza proper a calm oasis from the wind – and here the swallows are making the most of sweaty riders attracting the flies – the are literally swooping and turning at head height – amazing to see them close up!
At the top of Charity there are sunny spots moving rapidly across the moors by the cat as the clouds scud past at speed.
Dunc is back on the blue Kona with the sci fi shock – with new back wheel and tyre…will it survive charity descent take two!?
regrouping at Forest chapel all is good, and still good at Bottom of the oven despite the gnarly extension!
A hint of positive wind vector helps us up to the tea rooms, TJ helps out a fellow Royal enfield rider who misjudges the camber on the turn out onto the main road and can’t keep it upright. He is fine, but might need a new brake lever!
There is a lot of chat and sluggardlyness tonight, or maybe some are getting distracted by the broken down tractor and trailer at the Cat, being attended to by the John Deer support vehicle – strapline – we pride ourselves on our reliability!?
The cotton grass is bending in the breeze, skylarks and Curlews are still making their presence felt, and it’s time for the RHS descent into Cumberland Clough. Grassy and fast, Butty does the Extreme Stream route, the rest of us contour round, but somehow miss the rideable route down (I think we would have needed to cut left before the end) and mince down the grass.
Near the bottom it Dr S goes for it, but loses it on the little stream crossing and get a painful blow on the ankle, he needs a few moments but no serious damage done fortunately.
Everyone is under instructions not to come off down Cumberland Brook – and the stream is not much more than a wet slithery film on big rocks – but everyone gets down ok…but Dunc’s rear tyre curse strikes again! He has a flat early on which turn out to be a sidewall cut – wiggly worm applied 🙂
In Wildboarclough whilst appreciating the abundance of Pheasants in the fields (one of which is a massive cock) we get into the important business of ordering food – we’ve gone for the Kebab option, and Lee gamely takes our orders.
A final grind up to standing stone, then Butty leads us through the car park goes right then into the trees. ” don’t follow strange men into the woods kids” 😉 He is showing us a possible campfire spot – it turns out it’s visible both from the road and the forest chapel houses, so not a contender…but the trail down past it to the end of the “old pre logging RHS” is fantastic – straight singletrack with lots of rooty steps (just shame some of us didn’t have time to switch on our rear shocks!
A quick up and round the lower RHS, then down to the Ranger station — btw the upper ressie is very low, then down to the lower ressie past bob’s bench.
Now United Dimwittery have fenced off the dam end as they put in access for heavy equipment to get to the little Dam on the far side. It is possible to get over the normal fence to the spillway and along the dam – but it does require some multiple crossings. We manage it, as do two lady walkers who are glad to see how to do it! Signage suggests this is the status quo until “Spring 2026”.
Rider in a nice camper van comes to ask us about it and imparts info that Macc station is to be “closed for August” as they knock it down and rebuild it! Tis all going on.
Lee and Smiffy are despatched to the kebab shop, tables secured at five clouds, and the cloudwater is a dream after a long ride.
We hungrily attack the Kebabs when they arrive, but rapidly realise:
1: The sauce is very hot
2: Ordering chips was probably not needed
3: We are unlikely to finish them
Indeed we are soundly beaten by the Kebabs, maybe we needed to be 3 or 4 pints in to fully appreciate them, but they have been a good bit of variety.
The verdant IPA is also good, and the Pastry stout is a sweet pudding beer to savour. Last orders at 10 ish mean we are 3 pints good (note to selves – hip flasks needed next time), but probably that is for the best..
Nice to see Ruth who arrived to pick up Phil.
Still light in the sky as we rolled home, Solstice only just over a week away.
A classic TNR 🙂
