7th of July Friday night volunteers from Gateway Wheelers rode the city bike ride.
Jordan gave me a lift in his car down to Newcastle, I took my bike with us in his car.
We got to the car park and start area after 6:00pm, we met up with other volunteers: Brian, Doug, Martin, Ian, Dan, Neil and of course Paul who also had a lift in Jordan’s car.
When everybody was ready we headed towards the start outside the Hub cafe, and after about 6:30pm we set off through the other- cast weather towards the riverside, passing pubs, restaurants and coffee bars full of people, and then continued along the road and pathway underneath the bridges, I was with Jordan on most of the ride, it took about 30 minutes to get towards Scotwood road, turned off from the riverside, up a little bank, stayed on the pavement towards the busy roads, and crossed at the traffic lights.
An then we left the urban roads to go along a track, some places full of gravel and dirt, so it had to take a bit of care, starting in the park area of Blaydon to South of Gateshead.
It was a very long ride a cross waist ground, passing an old railway station, over-bridges and under one, following the stream.
We rode passed a Tyne Tees television control building, and properly there was some studios, around an industrial place.
The light was fading as we got towards the end of the ride, as we left the cycle track on to main roads heading back towards Newcastle, the riverside.
It took about half an hour to leave the main road, to cut downhill to south of the Riverside back towards the finish.
As we rode along the South side of the river all the City lights were on, because it was getting dark, heading towards the Millennium bridge.
When we rode across the bridge, and turned right the finish was just around the corner back at the Hub Cafe, my finishing time with Jordan was 9:15pm, so the ride took 2hours 45 min, before getting a lift home.