My afternoon was spent waiting in a garage workshop in Heckmondwike.
Oh dear ... I hope that you got the car fixed, and that it was not too expensive!
I look forward to your opus on the ride.
Looking forward to reading about your ride too.
Well, if you insist ...
We had great weather for the ride. In a perfect world, I would say that it actually became slightly too hot and slightly too windy, but considering the super-long winter we've been through a few months ago and how bad the weather became on last year's ride, I'm not going to complain about getting sweaty and tired!
I had managed to arrange a lift to Ribblehead and got there on time, just before
@Sea of vapours arrived. Soon after that there was an unexpected guest appearance by
@oldfatfool - he had previously expressed interest in joining us but had spent hours booking his mum into hospital the night before so we didn't think he would make it. My non-CycleChat pals Carrie and Kevin had parked some distance away and rode to the pub to meet us. (There was a British Heart Foundation charity walk taking place so even at that time in the morning there were a lot of vehicles parked up there.)
We had a quick chat and then set off at about 09:40. After only a few kms up the climb to Newby Head, oldfatfool stopped to make a call to the hospital. SoV and I waited at the turn down to Dentdale while Carrie and Kevin went on. After a while, o.f.f. texted me to say that he had better not continue, making it probably the shortest participation ever in any of my rides. I hope your mum is alright, Andrew?
I set off with SoV in pursuit of Carrie and Kevin. We found Kevin at the foot of the steep climb up the Coal Road past Dent Station. IIRC, Carrie had made the first of her '
bids for freedom'. She disappeared off up many climbs during the day. It wouldn't have worried me too much, except for the fact that she has a habit of getting lost when she does so!
The Coal Road used to have a really horrid surface but it has recently been sorted out. It was never much of a problem on the way up, but it certainly used to be when doing the very fast descent at the other end of the road down to Garsdale Head. I enjoyed the descent this time, with no potholes to worry about. I think that there were a few patches of gravel but for most of the descent there is a good view of the road ahead so one can see any hazards in good time.
We regathered on the A684 at Garsdale Head and headed about 1 km NE to the Moorcock Inn. We turned left there on a road which was new to me - the B6259. I had looked at it on the OS map a few times in the past and always assumed that it would be one of those narrow B-roads with quite a lot of traffic on it, and therefore one to be avoided. In fact, it was very nice indeed - very scenic, with only light traffic. SoV told me that is normal for that road. I will use it again in the future!
We arrived at the village of Nateby where we stopped for a short break before tackling the hard climb of Birkdale Common. My photos taken on the ride were not that brilliant and there were not that many of them. I really need to get a small bar/top tube bag to put my camera in for rides like that one. I really don't want to keep stopping to fish my phone out of my backpack to take pictures. Anyway, here are a few from Nateby ...
Nateby in the sunshine, with distant hills
The big hills of Birkdale Common, from Nateby
Note to council: Move to TOP of steep hill!
After our snacks (I just ate a small oat bar), we set off up the climb. We encountered another rider and I chatted to him on the way up, while the other 3 went on ahead. The climb is a brute in places. It didn't help that the full heat of the sun was beating down on us by then, and was being re-radiated back up at us from the road surface. Hot, hot, hot!
SoV awaited me at the summit, my pals had gone ahead.
A quick descent to Swaledale, where Kevin was waiting and then immediately a left turn up another vicious gradient. Carrie, of course, had gone off ahead ... We worked our way up the climb and found her waiting at our main stop of the day, the Tan Hill Inn. It seemed like about 300 other people had had the same plan. The pub is in a perfect location, but it was too busy for my tastes. SoV treated me to a very refreshing pint of cold Coke and I ate my second oat bar. Carrie drank a small amount of shandy, which seemed to go to her head! It didn't seem possible, but I don't think she was putting it on. She is tiny, doesn't drink much booze, and was probably a bit dehydrated, that might explain it. It concerned me because you really need your wits about you on a route like that.
Soon, we set off on our descent of Arkengarthdale, briefly interrupted by the small ford at Beck Crooks Bridge. There was a '
Close Encounter of the Sheepy Kind' some time after that. It might have been on the next summit; I can't quite remember - after the sun frazzling my brain for several hours, over numerous Dales peaks, in the company of hundreds of roadside Swaledale sheep, it is hard to remember which one of the daft woolly creatures decided that it would be a good idea to run into a (sheep-size + 50 cm) gap between Carrie's back wheel and my front wheel. Size really
does matter - a slightly bigger sheep, or a slightly smaller gap and I could have been rolling about on the road with a cracked pelvis and/or a pretzelled wheel!
It had been so good to escape from relentless, hot, steep Dales climbs for (what seemed like!) about 57 seconds, but then Mike's route inflicted another one of the damn things upon us ...
'
Reeth Low Moor' - it has a certain ring to it, doesn't it? It
is a moor and it
is near Reeth. It was the '
low' bit that I had problems with ... In UK terms, since when is an elevation of 427 metres (1,400 ft) '
low'?
(I suppose, given that we had already gone over summits at 538 m, 513 m, and 534 m AND we had another big b*st*rd lying in wait round the corner for us ... yes, it was
low!
) A rapid descent to Healaugh and then ... Hang on, I've just realised that Yorkshiremen do have a sense of humour after all!
'Healaugh' is derived from
'He's having a laugh', as in much amusement at the village inn after sending unsuspecting Lancastrians and other '
foreigners' up Fleak Moss!
'
Fleak Moss' - what can you say about that climb ...? My suggestions include:
- There should be defibrillators stationed every km up the climb!
- Avoid at all costs
- Send unfit people that you don't like up there
- Not for use during thunderstorms
- Time to consider finally treating yourself to that Pinarello Nytro
Well, at least I got up it without walking this time! It took me a long time and it half-killed me, but walk I did not.
Here are a few photos during the recovery on the summit:
Facing north
Facing south
Fellow masochists (L-R SoV, Kevin, Carrie; weird colours thanks to iffy HDR mode on phone!)
'
Fleak Moss' - what can you say about that descent ...? My suggestions include:
- Defibrillators won't help if you crash going down there!
- Avoid at all costs
- Send people that you don't like down there
- Not for use during thunderstorms
- Now test your brakes
We survived! My back muscles were in knots by then, but at least we then had an easy ride from Askrigg to Apersett. Unlike last year, we wouldn't have a headwind this time round. Except, we
did! I was a spent force. I think that 2 little oat bars were not enough food for that ride, and I hadn't even drunk enough of my carbo-drink because it was really warm and tasted yucky. The others kept pulling away from me, then waiting. then pulling away ...
Eventually, we had made our way to the last climb of the day, back up the B6255 to Newby Head, before an 'easy' descent to Ribblehead. SoV chirply remarked that it was '
only' another 6 kms and it was an '
easy' climb. About 3% gradient, yeah, okay -
BUT I WAS STRUGGLING ON THE FLAT BY THEN 
!
They went on their way and I limped up behind them. My warfarin alarm went off, and that gave me a good excuse to get off the bike for a couple of minutes. I swallowed my rat poison, stretched my back, and set off again. After what seemed like hours, I got towards the summit as SoV was coming back down to check on me. He u-turned and announced that I would need to draft him down to Ribblehead because a headwind had picked up. Pah, downhill is something I
can do, even when knackered ... Er, except in this case - give me that draft, boy!
I couldn't believe how long it took to get down from where we had turned off earlier in the day. It hadn't seemed much of a climb when fresh but it seemed an interminable descent into that wind!
At long last, we got to Kevin's campervan. SoV stayed and chatted a while and finally went on his way.
It was such a contrast being up there this year, compared to last. Last year there was an awful storm lashing us. Vehicles were throwing up massive rooster-tails of spray and had their headlights on. This time, brilliant sunshine.
Kevin had offered me a lift some of the way home so I didn't have to hang about for an hour for the next train and then spend 2.5 hours going home via Leeds. I got taken to the Cock Hill summit above Hebden Bridge, which gave me a lovely 7.5 km descent to the town. I stopped to phone a pizza order through to my local takeway in Todmorden and then did an easy 7.5 km ride back along the Calder Valley to pick it up.
So, that's yer lot - a very hard but rewarding ride in beautiful scenery, with great weather and fine cycling companions. We'll be doing something something similar next year. Pencil in the first couple of Saturdays in July if you fancy joining us, and start training now!
PS Oh, one last thing ... You know that people say that cheap sunblock doesn't work, and that you need to reapply sunblock every hour or so? Well, I burn easily and I had inadvertently turned myself into a sun exposure guineapig. Ladies and gentlemen, I humbly present '
Mysteriously shaped sunburn man'. Or, one of his 2 mysteriously burned legs ...
I have the same triangular burn on both legs. At first, I couldn't understand how it had happened so I replicated my pre-ride sunblock application. I realised that I apply the cream in a diagonal upward motion of my hand. I must have done it in both directions but missed a patch on both legs because I hadn't gone along the 'sock line', the top of the sock causing the straight line at the bottom of the burn. You can see that the rest of the leg is fine so the sunblock did its job. (The freckling is historic.)
I might get away without the burns blistering, but they are both tender today.
