Despite the recent cold snap, it was a good night out tonight as we set off from Ayton. Going was good to firm most of the time. I'm not sure how many of us there were in total. Maybe 20? There were just five of us in the fast group: Nigel, Squeak, Anvil Nick, Brendan, and me. Nigel led the way into Raincliffe and we rode up to the top track, with Brendan complaining that the proposed route seemed to be more climbing than descending. (How does that work? ) Part way along the top track, we dropped down towards the middle track. Nigel cleared the set of slippery, steep steeps en route, using some kind of motorbiker's magic, and Squeak, back in action after a long layoff with illness, set off to follow. He had a fall.  Those tubeless tyres, I reckon.  The rest of us thought discretion was the better part of valour and minced down. We climbed back up to the top track, then came zipping back along that. It was relatively dry and pretty fast. I knocked Nick off on one off camber bit when my summery Karma tyres (Karma Karma Karma comedians?) broke away and I slid sideways. Sorry Nick! But apart from that we got back to the Forge pub safely, for beer and crisps. Nice one.

Edit: oh, and next time you see Anvil Nick, don't forget to ask him about pink blancmange!