Naughty Northumbrian Postponed After Consecutive Storms

Feb 9, 2022
by Naughty Northumbrian  
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Press Release: Naughty Northumbrian

The Naughty Northumbrian has been postponed. The event location in the Coquet Valley, Northumberland suffered extensive damage from Storm Arwen, followed by Malik and Corrie. The three consecutive storms led to a water and power outage for 7 days in parts of the Coquet Valley, roads being blocked and damage to many homes. As ever, this resilient community rallied round and helped those most in need with free warm hot dinners, accommodation for those who couldn't heat their homes and clearing said blocked roads to allow emergency vehicle access.

Estimations show around 8 million trees have fallen across Northumberland, England's most sparsely populated county. After talks with landowners along with multiple trail inspections between storms we have been left with no choice but to postpone the event. The Naughty now joins both Ardrock and the Malverns in having to be postponed due to extreme weather events with those two events both cancelled in 2019. Going forward, we will try to mitigate these weather events within as wider scope as we can, and adapt where we can't.

The 750 riders already entered will be refunded. Details of how to do this will be emailed directly to entrants in the next few days.

What riders could have expected......


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Winds were recorded at Kidlandlee House at speeds of up to 115mph. The highest recorded in the UK during these storms.

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Posted In:
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Member since May 31, 2021
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55 Comments
  • 49 14
 Climate change . . .
  • 7 1
 Unfortunately, in the coming years, I think a lot of outdoor events will have to think about the calendar dates when they were traditionally held.
  • 6 5
 The only constant.
  • 11 24
flag wanderingbike (Feb 9, 2022 at 6:04) (Below Threshold)
 Better give all your bikes away and go hunker in the bunker
  • 25 1
 #MakeContinentalIceSheetsGreatAgain
  • 16 36
flag Adamrideshisbike (Feb 9, 2022 at 6:46) (Below Threshold)
 Yeah, there were never any storms before. I believe the first recorded hurricane happened two years about Ford opened his plant in Detroit.
  • 9 2
 @Adamrideshisbike: Henry Ford was more or less directly responsible for the untimely death of many trees in his failed rubber plantation Fordlandia: theculturetrip.com/south-america/brazil/articles/fordlandia-the-ill-fated-1920s-prohibition-town-henry-ford-built-in-the-amazon
  • 1 2
 @Adamrideshisbike: hope you don't like playing hockey...'cause outdoor places to skate are going to become much less reliable in the next few years.
  • 1 1
 @wanderingbike: you build the first one and let us know how you're doing
  • 2 1
 @mi-bike: Also an anti-Semite.
  • 11 3
 @kabanosipyvo: Love pond hockey. Been out a bunch.

I don't at all deny climate change, just the bone-headed, every weather event is caused by climate change crowd.
  • 8 9
 @Adamrideshisbike: Maybe do some research on the increasing frequency and severity of extreme weather events. You don't at all deny climate change, just one big fundamental part of it.
  • 5 0
 @trailcoffee: Maybe take some reading comprehension classes so that you can understand @Adamrideshisbike? He said that *not all* weather events can be linked to climate change. What he said is irrefutable.
  • 1 5
flag trailcoffee (Feb 9, 2022 at 10:16) (Below Threshold)
 @mi-bike: What he said was: "I don't at all deny climate change, just the bone-headed, every weather event is caused by climate change crowd." That is what I was responding to.
  • 1 0
 @mi-bike: *man made.
Earth has had bad gas for a long time b4 man out a spigot on em.
Now trash into water is another matter.
  • 12 0
 Yeah it was pretty bad - we had no power for 9 days. Well no power other than the generator anyway. Still trashed up here. Most of Hamsterley and Chopwell is unridable, Thrunton is basically gone....
  • 4 0
 Thrunton is/was one of my favourite places to ride. One of the highlights of any trip to Northumberland.
Are the trails totally destroyed?
  • 5 0
 @Ac282: trails are there mate just buried. But once the machinery has done the job clearing the Forrest it’s going to look very different. Thrunton was my local ride, great for an evening training ride, devastated and now the naughty gone, a massive loss to north east mountain biking for this year.
  • 3 0
 @Ac282: A few lads I ride with said most, if not all trails around the car park are gone for good, stuff around the crag looked bad but they couldn't get close enough to see any trails because of the number of trees blocking fireroads, stuff nearer the middle may have survived
  • 6 0
 Gutted, for myself who was looking forward to another awesome weekend and for the locals and organisers who've been hit so hard by this! Look forward to getting there next time!
  • 13 4
 It was harder on the trees.
  • 5 0
 I've got friends who live in this area and they said all their local riding spots are trashed after these storms. It's going to be a long time before things are back to anywhere near normal.
  • 4 0
 We had a similar situation around here, but since high winds are something we and the trees are used to ( the majority of power lines are now running underground ) , it`s only when there is usually a combination of extreme weather that stuff like this happens. We had one of the wettest decembers I can recall, and with the ground saturated came a whole week of southern high winds averaging 90 km/h with gusts going up to 140 km/h right after Xmas... Caos on every single trail. It has been a very busy winter for our chainsaws.
  • 5 1
 Always makes me realize how stupid the access laws are when this unfortunate events and other forest work happens. Like we carefully protected these kinds of sites for years often barring MTBs completely and pow acres and acres of forest are now down and the machinery to clean up will chew the land to pieces almost irreparably in some cases.
  • 3 0
 looks like there are a lot of standing dead trees in the 3rd photo. is there an invasive pest doing that? forests in north america look like that in places thanks to wooly adelgids and emerald boring beetles and some other little nasties
  • 5 0
 Probably larch trees. Its deciduous so looks like dead trees in the winter.
  • 20 0
 They are alive - simply been stripped of their branches / limbs. The age structure of the forests wasn't fantastic, but we are lucky in that Phytophthora ramorum hasn't quite hit us here yet, and little to no evidence of Fusarium circinatum and Nematode....yet. However, (I'm an environmental scientist) I'm acutely aware that change is coming, pests will inevitably get here (our biosecurity in the UK is poor - Signal cray fish are already in Northumbrian rivers, out competing the native Whitetail cray fish ) and events are going to be harder to plan as the years go on.

But go on we will, as they are so important to us as riders and the locals in the valley.
  • 4 0
 @NaughtyNorthumbrian: All the downed/damaged trees will be harvested, correct? Logging will damage the trails even more. Years ago an area with trails I lived near was logged and the amount of work it took to get the trails usable again was huge. Shocking levels of storm damage there! My sympathies.
  • 6 0
 @kcy4130: Not sure yet, they are doing a CBA at the moment - but we are used to a rotational trail system where we have to create new ones every 3-5 years as the felling plan gets implemented and we lose others. We don't mind it too much as long as we know where the next ones are going.
We were really excited for this year as well as it would have been the first year we would have used the same trails for consecutive years. We'd been given a reprieve on felling where two of the oldest trails are due to Scots Pine price not being sufficient enough to fell. Hey ho!

Thanks for your sympathies, much appreciated. x
  • 2 0
 @NaughtyNorthumbrian:
Wow sympathies guys. We lived close and regularly rode Thrunton woods 28yrs ago, great trails and great memories, loved it. Sorry I can’t help with the clean up x
  • 3 0
 @NaughtyNorthumbrian: Thank you for giving a decent response that considers the balance foresters strive to make! Too many non-fact based responses on social media these days. Knowledge of pests/diseases/timber prices/world markets/climate change, all stuff that goes into decision making, and those decisions aren’t easy to make! I hope the trails aren’t too damaged and you can advocate for a light touch when harvesting around them!
  • 4 0
 Really sad not to be racing, but not at all surprised. The damage done by Arwen to Northumberland was mad. Decades of trail building at Thrunton just disappeared overnight.
  • 6 0
 8 million trees down in Northumberland alone. Mental.
  • 3 0
 Sorry to hear about all of this. Sounds like it was pretty brutal. Arwen had 100+ mph winds and 10 meter high waves in Scotland….sheesh. Just read up on it. Sounds like a scary experience.
  • 3 0
 Havok Bike Park in West Yorkshire took a massive beating by storm Arwen. Its unlikely they will ever open again. I took a walk up there and its a mess.
  • 2 0
 Wow, wasn't aware Corrie (named after Corrie van Dijk) made it across the sea and still is this strong. I can imagine it must have been a massive bummer to everyone but at least I hope people didn't get hurt physically.
  • 4 1
 My family all live up that way: this was Arwen that did most of the damage. It just wasn't reported much because it didn't happen in the South of England.
A lot of friends and family had no power for a week or longer.
  • 5 0
 @Rance: Not reported much? It was headline news every day for a week.
  • 2 0
 @bigtim: I didn't see much coming up on UK news down in Wales. Perhaps just missed it, but it felt like a good five or so days before the ongoing power outages started to be reported.
  • 4 0
 @Rance: I live in the valley - there was a fair bit of annoyance that it took so long for reporting to happen but we're stoic. Get up and get on. Still lots of powers crew out working and the helicopter has been looking at lines this week.
  • 2 0
 @NaughtyNorthumbrian: Just not much sign of AMT, I understand!
  • 2 0
 @Rance: Word! MIA is an understatement
  • 3 0
 8 million trees! Hope it's not down to the forestry commission to sort out. It's taken them 14+ months to clear 350 or so at Aston hill.
  • 4 0
 NorthShore Northumbrian 2023
  • 1 0
 Some of the comments really make me appreciate cycling. A one person sport. What you put in you get out. Seems like these days people can’t work together as a team to do anything other than divide.
  • 3 1
 Damn was really looking forward to this. But must he tougher on organisers and locals.
  • 1 0
 What a shame....such a cool event.
  • 1 0
 Isn't this event due in august though, or am I wrong?
  • 7 0
 You are correct.

We've been told forest operational work won't be starting until August, and we are bound by the 1981 wildlife act on some trails - so we would have had to clear them before March, then stop work until August first, even if a chain saw would suffice. Sadly, it needs big machinery. While Forestry England aren't perfect, we have a good relationship with them, and they are stretched across the board on this one. Sadly this forest is a lower priority tier as it isn't under visitor pressure like Kielder, Thrunton and Simonside are, and as mentioned there are a swathe of protected birds living in there. We totally and respectfully accept their position on this, however shit it is for the event Frown .
  • 1 0
 @NaughtyNorthumbrian: will you be email those that entered?
  • 1 0
 @Smollis: Yeah I'm wondering this too, they said people would be emailed last week. They've probably got delayed
  • 1 0
 Wow mikado forest
  • 2 1
 It was Uhtred Ragnusson
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