Last week social media on Tyneside blew up with multiple posts detailing random, unexpected encounters with cycling Hollywood actor and fully-fledged “sleb” Harrison Ford. Mr Ford, up in the area to shoot the new Indiana Jones movie at Bamburgh Castle, was spotted on a number of occasions enjoying our fine weather (a rarity) to travel around Northumberland au velo, clad in Pedal Mafia cycling gear and trusting his smart red and black (allegedly £17,000) Colnago to the depredations of our local roads.

I wonder what sort of abuse he got from our local drivers … and how much of it got lost in translation?

Maybe its just me, but I’d prefer to meet his co-star, the whip-smart (see what I did there?) Phoebe Waller-Bridge, still I took his brief cameo to try and convince Thing#1 that no less a person than Indiana Jones had agreed to join us on our Saturday Club Ride. She almost bought it.

Saturday wasn’t quite as good as the previous couple of weeks, it was fairly chill to start with, a cutting westerly slicing a good three or four degrees off the temperature, and arm warmers and gilets were the order of the day, at least until things warmed up a little.

I was out and across to the meeting place in good time, but still behind an ultra-enthusiastic G-Dawg, returning for his first official club run in 7 weeks and quite obviously chomping at the bit. Even Szell turned up for the second week in succession, even as we patiently explained Middleton Bank wasn’t on the route today and he might as well just go home. I must say he took this blow with a surprising degree of aplomb and decided to accompany us anyway, perhaps he too was hoping to ride with a certain Hollywood A-lister?

What route-architect Buster had originally planned was a drop down into the Tyne Valley and a trip westward to Corbridge. Apparently road works now meant we’d be turning before entering the confusing maze of one-way streets that form that particular burg, but there’d still be a long portion of the ride heading due west and directly into the full force of the wind.

G-Dawg determined he wouldn’t be heading into the valley as he wasn’t sure he’d make it out on his still gimpy leg. While he said pedalling was easier than walking, he revealed that one of his hardest tasks was unclipping and sometimes he’d found it easier to just pull his foot out of the shoe and leave it dangling from the pedal, while he hopped around barefoot under the quizzical gaze of bemused onlookers.

With the route briefed in, OGL stepped up to deliver a purely inspirational, empathetic speech, ostensibly addressing last weeks unfortunate accident that had grounded Zardoz for the foreseeable future.

Unrelated as they were, he somehow managed to squeeze in all the old tropes we’ve come to expect: how he’d single-handedly saved the club from dissolution, how there was a time when he was the only member, how we never look back when we ride, look out for each other and are always leaving people behind, that it’s a club run not a race, a social event where we should never push, or test ourselves in any way, shape or form, that if you want to ride fast you should put a number on your back and anyway, he’s the only genuine, experienced and accomplished bike racer amongst us and we are all just feckless dilettante’s who’d never amount to anything.

Perhaps he then finally remembered what it was he was meant to be talking about, as he hurriedly concluded that he wasn’t there when the accident occurred last week, but it didn’t matter because he’d checked and Zardoz hadn’t payed his subs, so wasn’t a club member anyway.

With those bright and inspiring words of encouragement ringing in our ears, the first group formed up and I set off with them, only mildly disappointed at the no-show of Mr. Harrison Ford.

I found myself riding alongside young Jake the Snake, the Dormanator, back from university in the far south-west looking older (not surprisingly) but also much bigger. Arrayed around us were the Cow Ranger, Goose, Crazy Legs, Andeven, Spry, Buster, Biden Fecht, the Big Yin and yet another FNG (YAFNG). A decent sized group which felt manageable, yet large enough so the workload of wind-taming could be shared out enough to keep people fresh.

I had a good natter with Jake the Snake about university life and Tour de France predictions (neither of us being able to see past a Slovenian winner, or at all certain that two of Ineos’s main challengers, Geraint Thomas and Ritchie Porte, would make it to Paris without falling over.) We did our stint on the front, battling the headwind, before the route took a southbound turn and we dropped into the Tyne Valley at Wylam.

There I caught up with Biden Fecht, astride his heavy winter-bike after he’d tired to replace the bar tape on his good bike and found a “penny sized hole” through the top of his handlebars. His LBS determined this was most likely caused by excessively long turbo sessions and Biden Fecht’s sweat eating through his alloy bars like Alien blood.

Worse news was to follow though, as checking the bike over had revealed a much less fixable issue, a crack in the carbon fibre of one of the seatstays. Repair or replace, either option sounds like an expensive remedy.

A little further along and the Big Yin rode alongside me and glanced down.

“Hey, did you design the club kit solely to match your shoes?” he demanded. I didn’t, but, truth be damned, I told him I had. Actually the (strictly unofficial) club kit came first and I just happened to find a pair of shoes on sale that were a remarkably good match (as well as being £100 below list price.)

At this point in proceedings the serious climbing began, as we turned to escape the valley, using the bridge at Aydon to vault over the 4 lanes of rushing traffic on the A69.

I found myself climbing alongside Crazy Legs who’d been chatting with the FNG and reported back that he was a Rupert in the British Army.

“That explains why he’s built like a shit-brickhouse,” I gasped, before realising I’d slightly mangled my words (I blame my legs, they were demanding all my blood in order to to climb and depriving my brain of sufficient oxygen to function normally.)

We paused at the top, mainly we could all share in the Big Yin’s complaints …

“There was a hill and at the top there was another hill and then when we got up there, just for a change, there was yet another hill,” he lamented, while Crazy Legs decided Shit-Brickhouse was an apt nickname for the FNG.

Through Matfen and on to Stamfordham, I took to the front again, alongside Buster, while Crazy Legs negotiated a change of route to take in his favourite bit of fast road, through Heugh down to Limestone Lane. The change was agreed on the fly and we burned down this dragstrip at high pace.

A couple of riders attacked off the front and I toiled away for a while to try and close the gap without much success. My legs and lungs were shot by the time a second group charged past in pursuit and I couldn’t latch on, eventually joining a few other stragglers as we pushed our way out to the café at Kirkley.

I joined the winter ride “nutters” (I prefer stalwarts, but each to their own) Crazy Legs, G-Dawg, the Red Max and Taffy Steve at a table in the bright sunshine.

“Did you watch the football last night?” Crazy Legs enquired.

“A bit of the second half,” G-Dawg conceded.

“I saw the highlights,” the Red Max replied.

“Was there football on?” I wondered.

“Italee vorsus Torkee,” Crazy Legs confirmed.

“Italy versus Torquay?” I pondered, “An entire sovereign state against a small town on the south coast of Devon? That doesn’t sound fair.”

Taffy Steve started chuckling, having had a similar conversation with a broad-Geordie work colleague on first moving to the region:

“Where’ve you been on holiday?”

“Tawkee.”

“Ah great, did you visit Babbacombe model village?”

“Nah man, Tawkee. Tawkee, ye’ knaa, Effasiss an aal that.”

This got us started on indecipherable accents with, naturally the dialect of Eshington (Ashington) being a particular favourite, celebrated in this very blerg (blog) and allowing Crazy Legs to tell one of his favourite Eshingtonian (Ashingtonian) jokes.

“Just failed me driving test. I hit a kerb.”

“Ah, man.”

“Aye. And I didn’t even kner it was berb a jerb week.”

We pondered if paying club subs could somehow magically protect you from serious accident, but then remembered OGL’s speed-wobble crash several years ago which had put him out for several months, so that couldn’t be true. To be fair though, in the re-telling, this been constantly embellished, moving from a 30kph accident to one that took place at terrifying speeds approaching 100kph, so perhaps “club immunity” only works if your travelling within the legal speed limit?

We thought that it was probably worth mentioning to non-club members (officially it seems club members are very, very strictly defined as only those who pay their subs, even if they never, ever ride with us, ever) to carry a spare tenner in their back pocket and if they are mortally injured, whip it out, present it to OGL. Then there’ll (probably) be a blinding flash of light, a chorus of heavenly angels will descend and bike and rider will be miraculously restored to pristine condition. Unless of course the accident happened because you were travelling in speeds in excess of 100kph. (Please check the small print. Terms and conditions apply.)

I mentioned my disappointment that Harrison Ford hadn’t tagged along on our ride today.

“Nah, that was never going to happen,” the Red Max informed me, “Not a club member.”

Meanwhile, Taffy Steve imagined the bragging and points scoring that a Han Solo appearance on a club run might invoke, adopting his best caricature of OGL’s voice and his penchant for exaggeration to declare,

“So what, I made the Kessel run in only 10 parsecs.”

Time to go and we rolled out and formed up in a sizable group. Dropping down the other side of Berwick Hill, Cowin’ Bovril pulled up alongside me and looked down.

“Did you deliberately buy shoes to match your jersey?” he wondered.

I looked at him in astonishment.

“Wait! What? Doesn’t everyone?”

Passing through the Mad Mile, while G-Dawg and Spoons disappeared to the left I swung right, almost immediately finding myself backed up into a long, long line of barely moving traffic outside the rugby stadium. My rambling peregrinations through the housing estates of Kingston Park to try and avoid this backed-up traffic would eventually reveal that the main road was closed (apparently for repair work on the Metro).

I ended up backtracking almost all the way to our meeting point, reversing the route in that I usually take in the morning and, while I didn’t feel the diversion added too much to my trip, I was approaching 80 miles by the time I made it home.

Still, I have plenty of time to recover as I’m not out next Saturday, so roll on July.