Ranger Training Day May 19th

A change of formate this year for Ranger Training Days with more local area meetings, rangers from Teeside, Durham, Tyne & Wear, Northumberland attended the meeting at the Miners Insitute - Newcastle which is ideally located close to the Central Station.

There was a good turn out by STARs with 11 taking part on the ride.
Doug, JohnK, Phil, Bob, Lindsay, Stuart, Jill, Marion, Ruth, Ken & Paul
Mike Dagley from Manchester office was on the ride along with many other Rangers from around the north east.
Three others STARs later joined for the meeting - JohnR (who missed the ride), Gareth & Rob

The day dawned bright and sunny but very windy with a near gale blowing down the Tyne Gorge, by 9:30 am about 30 Rangers had gathered outside the Miners Insitute ready to start the ride before return for the Training Day meeting. Waiting for late arrivals we set of a little bit late at 9:35 am. through the Orchard Street tunne and down to the Quayside via Forth Banks to join NCN 72 - Hadrian's Cycleway. Making swift progress with the strong wind behind us we made our way down river following NCN 72 - but knowing we would have to return against the strong wind later !!

Following the high route from St. Peters to Walker we arrived at the newly constructed replacement cycle path at the Cumbrian Estate development - pausing for a photo shoot on the new grass the main group continued on to Malaya Drive to return via the old diversionary route.

Meanwhile Doug, John & Phil doubled back and used the walking route to reach the riverside again ahead of the main group, here we removed two redundant diversion signs. Just in time we got the signs down from the post as the main group arrived - then it was back up river following the low route to St. Peters Basin.

With the strong wind it was a quite struggle along the Quayside where another photo shoot was made at the Blacksmith's Needle.

Due to the FA Cup Final, traffic on the Quayside was very light and the decision was made to return to the Miners Institute via the Side - unfortunately whilst crossing the road below the Tyne Bridge using the light controlled crossing a Ranger was knocked off her bike by a car pulling away without checking the crossing was clear.

The rider Ann Cope from Durham suffered a broken wrist, bruising to her hip and a cut on her head. Emergency services were called but meanwhile Rangers controlled the traffic flow around the scene.

Ann and her husband Michael have only just joined as Sustrans rangers and this was their first Sustrans event.

Leaving a small number of rangers at the scene the remainder of the group returned to the Miners Institute.

Here rangers who had not been on the ride awaited us, tea & coffee were available while everyone registered and mingled and got chatting.

The first session saw the invited guests from various local authorities give presentations about the cycle routes in their area - suffice to say some were much better than others !!!!

Photo by Ken

After an update from the various Sustrans Staff present it was time for lunch. As usually a good finger buffet was laid on and was quickly devoured. People could be found in small groups talking to Sustrans staff and local authority officers about all manner of cycling issues. On a positive note I managed to get approval from Neil Friar, from Gateshead Council to erect highway signs on NCN 14 in Gateshead - Neil will obtain these for our use to replace missing or damaged signs quickly whenever required. Also the South Tyneside representative was pressed on the issue over the closure of NCN 1 in South Shields. Hopefully a site meeting will be arranged soon to sort this problem out.

After lunch we split into two groups with two seesions one on signing and the other ranger work tasks - all too soon the day was over and we still had lots to talk about.

For an update on signing issues in the STARs group area click here.

We bid our farewells and made our way home - some stopping for a refreshing drink at the "Telegraph"

The new formate for Training days proved succesful with smaller numbers giving everyone more oppotunity to participate and to deal with more local issues,

I have since spoken to Ann & Michael Cope and passed on our best wishes for a speedy recovery.