The Magical Bike Ride: When Warden Law became an early Youtube Hit. But where are they now?

“riding along singing my song next to a great big pylon“

Warden law is a village situated in between Houghton and the city of Sunderland. Last week, we posted about the area’s mythical history in reference to the founding of Durham, but locals were more likely to remember it for something else… in the article’s comments, people kept referencing a “magical bike ride” as if it were an insider joke of sorts.

A quick search on Google finds it was a reference to a notorious video uploaded to Youtube in 2006, which now has over 1.6 million views, where two charvers ride along the area of Warden Law, putting on silly voices and singing a rhyme. Having been filmed on a mobile phone that of that era (comparatively speaking, ancient technology to today!) the video is of a notoriously bad quality.

During the video, one of the lads challenges his friend to “pull the maddest Cowie face you’ve ever seen”. His hilarious expression has since become the staple thumbnail of that video. Given its age, the clip is probably one of the oldest viral videos on the site and one of the first related to Sunderland.

But we all have to wonder, where are the two riders today? Sources on the internet state one of the lads was called Brodie. The other, who pulled the infamous “Cowie face”, appears to be known as Andrew Reed, who is from Hetton le Hole.

Now well into his 30s or more, last year he was photographed posing in front of the Warden Law sign with a t-shirt saying “Pull your maddest Cowie face” showing his continued pride in that iconic video from his youth which gave him his five minutes of fame.