DECEMBER

A quieter month for the club – with some truly awful weather limited many of our rides. But December saw us hold our annual Christmas rides during the downtime period between Xmas and New year.

David Bleakman has recently started some Thursday evening social rides, and for Christmas introduced ‘Sunday Sips’ – an off road route around North Tyneside local waggonways – ending at Low Quay Brew Company in North Shields. This is a regular ride David plans to run once a month on Thursday evenings moving forward

The other big ride of the season is the annual Christmas NTR Offroader ride along the tyne up to Wylam/Ovingham, A craching turnout 20+ riders made their way along to the Keelmans, Boahouse, Fox and Hounds, then lunch at the White Swan in Ovingham. before heading back to our traditional home at the Exchange in North Shields. Its fair to say several beverages were drank – but everyone got home safely !

November

Monday Night Gravel, Tuesday Training and Thursday Hills all continued this month, plus a decent number of riders for both the Saturday Crammy loops and Sunday club rides. Sundays routes varied, with visits the Matfen, Capheaton and the Cheese Farm during November.

Our NTR hosted CX Race also took place at Gypsies Green on Sunday 1st November. Thanks to all who helped marshall, with course set up and who raced for NTR on the day. Super Kudos to Gemma and Dan for organizing the weekend of the event – great job !

OCTOBER

Rides continued through the month, with some crackers

Saturdays :

Tony Douglass relaunched “Crammy Loops”, this month. This was one of the original NTR training routes back in the day, loops of Cramlington industrial estate, where we can practice group riding in a quiet safe environment – as very little traffic on a Saturday morning. The relaunch attracted a good number of riders and will continue while the weather allows. and is a great addition to our calendar. Thanks Tony for setting it up again !

Ian Stanners also continued to put on his ad-hoc Saturday rides, usually a mix of both road & trails depending on the weather.

Sundays: This month we visitied Simonside, Drift Cafe, Bolam, Belsay and the Cheese Farm.

Finally – We also held our Annual AGM, where we elected a new captain of the club – welcome Thomas Banks !

Some of couple of our riders also took on the National Hill Climb in Matfen on October 25th – well done Jamie Faram and Dan Robinson for representing NTR on a tough course !