Metric century from Harrogate, Friday, 24th August, 2018

[ColinJ]

I plan to do a ride from Harrogate railway station with @Oldfentiger, @Littgull, and my cycling pals Carrie and Kevin on Friday, 24th August.

We will be riding out (and back) on the cyclepath to Ripley Castle then doing a clockwise loop through Pateley Bridge, and up Nidderdale to tackle the one big climb of the day (Trapping Lane). After that we will head round to Masham for our one cafe stop before finally heading off back to the castle, and onwards to Harrogate. The ride will be 113 km (70 miles) in total and should take about 8 hours including stops.

The route does have that one tough climb, but the other climbing should be much less demanding. It should be a very pleasant day of cycling.

I've been considering the logistics and I think that Littgull and I will have to aim to arrive on the Leeds train getting to Harrogate at 10:34. If we tried for an earlier start then we would have to travel on crammed commuter trains with our bikes and I don't think that would be sensible or pleasant and maybe not even physically possible! (I tried getting on one such train in the past and it was so crowded that I couldn't even get my bike onboard.)

We could therefore aim for a 10:45 start. Now, we would only have 8 minutes to change trains at Leeds so it is very possible we would miss our connection. If so, we'd catch the following train which should arrive at 11:04 so there would be a delay of 20-25 minutes. I'd phone to let you know if that happened so you could go off and get yourselves coffees while you were waiting for us.

Hopefully, a few of you will be able to get the day off work to join us. If so, sign up below!

 

[Sea of vapours]

I'll keep an eye on the weather and just may join you for part of this. I've been meaning to do Trapping Hill again but it's a long way off; this just might be sufficient motivation. I'd aim to meet you between Pateley Bridge and Harrogate.

Having just checked, it's about 55km / 1,300m of ascent to get to Pateley Bridge. Hmmm...... that probably scrapes into the 'just tolerable' bracket if the weather's definitely good. Would you mind sending me a gpx of the route so that I can check on the options for intercepting you? I really don't think I could get going early enough to meet in Harrogate at 1045, but Pateley Bridge around midday is at least plausible. I'm assuming midday is about right for Pateley Bridge?

 

[Littgull]

I plan to do a ride from Harrogate railway station with @Oldfentiger, @Littgull, and my cycling pals Carrie and Kevin on Friday, 24th August.

We will be riding out (and back) on the cyclepath to Ripley Castle then doing a clockwise loop through Pateley Bridge, and up Nidderdale to tackle the one big climb of the day (Trapping Lane). After that we will head round to Masham for our one cafe stop before finally heading off back to the castle, and onwards to Harrogate. The ride will be 113 km (70 miles) in total and should take about 8 hours including stops.

The route does have that one tough climb, but the other climbing should be much less demanding. It should be a very pleasant day of cycling.

View attachment 424606

I've been considering the logistics and I think that Littgull and I will have to aim to arrive on the Leeds train getting to Harrogate at 10:34. If we tried for an earlier start then we would have to travel on crammed commuter trains with our bikes and I don't think that would be sensible or pleasant and maybe not even physically possible! (I tried getting on one such train in the past and it was so crowded that I couldn't even get my bike onboard.)

We could therefore aim for a 10:45 start. Now, we would only have 8 minutes to change trains at Leeds so it is very possible we would miss our connection. If so, we'd catch the following train which should arrive at 11:04 so there would be a delay of 20-25 minutes. I'd phone to let you know if that happened so you could go off and get yourselves coffees while you were waiting for us.

Hopefully, a few of you will be able to get the day off work to join us. If so, sign up below!

Nice one, @ColinJ - I'm in.

 

[Oldfentiger]

Yup, me too.
I reckon it will be more convenient for me to park at Ripley Castle and join the ride there, rather than fight with the Harrogate traffic.
@ColinJ apart from the leg between Harrogate and Ripley, is the route the same as the one I sent you?

 

[colly]

Count me in too Colin.

Sometimes things work out. I had something planned for the 24th. At lunchtime it was altered to the 25th.
GPX would be good.

 

[Julia9054]

@Almartino and i will join you for part of this. We have been taking it easy too much in France - i am about 80% cheese and wine - and not cycling nearly enough so i know we are not up to that climb! We'll aim to meet you in Masham and join you for the ride back.

 

[ColinJ]

I'll keep an eye on the weather and just may join you for part of this. I've been meaning to do Trapping Hill again but it's a long way off; this just might be sufficient motivation. I'd aim to meet you between Pateley Bridge and Harrogate.

Having just checked, it's about 55km / 1,300m of ascent to get to Pateley Bridge. Hmmm...... that probably scrapes into the 'just tolerable' bracket if the weather's definitely good. Would you mind sending me a gpx of the route so that I can check on the options for intercepting you? I really don't think I could get going early enough to meet in Harrogate at 1045, but Pateley Bridge around midday is at least plausible. I'm assuming midday is about right for Pateley Bridge?

It is about right, but there could always be delays if Littgull and I have problems with our trains. It won't be earlier than 12:00 but might be a bit later. Knowing how these things go, I'd say probably more like 12:15-12:30.

Yup, me too.
I reckon it will be more convenient for me to park at Ripley Castle and join the ride there, rather than fight with the Harrogate traffic.
@ColinJ apart from the leg between Harrogate and Ripley, is the route the same as the one I sent you?

It is very similar but I made a few minor changes:

1. I changed it to avoid Pateley Bridge centre and get off the B6165 as soon as possible. We will drop down through Glasshouses and take the lane through Bewerley instead.
2. The original route seemed to take a bridleway through High Lofthouse. I changed it to stay on the road through Lofthouse village.
3. Instead of turning left onto the A6108 at Abbey Hill and spending 4 km on it, I have taken us right and we will spend just less than 1 km on it. We'll join the original route higher up at Hutton Hill.

The rest of the route back to Ripley is the same.

Count me in too Colin.

Sometimes things work out. I had something planned for the 24th. At lunchtime it was altered to the 25th.
GPX would be good.

Excellent!

@Almartino and i will join you for part of this. We have been taking it easy too much in France - i am about 80% cheese and wine - and not cycling nearly enough so i know we are not up to that climb! We'll aim to meet you in Masham and join you for the ride back.

That's good. ETA Masham will obviously be even more approximate than Pateley Bridge. It is at 3/4 distance and is after the big climb so it will possibly take 4.5+ hours to get there? Say, 15:15 onwards.

GPX file attached. (Simplified to 500 points to suit my GPS trackpoint memory limit.)

 

[Sea of vapours]

Purely out of interest, @ColinJ what's wrong with Cote Lane then?

It looks even more laney than the road you're taking (Crook Lane, the left turn just beyond Fearby) and reduces the route by nearly 3km. Just wondering. As it happens, as a result of that choice, my 'shortest sensible route from home' comes in at 161km; a rather neat one hundred miles.

Depending on the weather, I'll join you for the Nidderdale bit. i.e. meet you in Pateley Bridge but turn left on the A6108 to head to East Witton and thence Coverdale. That's only 30km of course, but probably not a terribly rapid 30km.

 

[ColinJ]

Purely out of interest, @ColinJ what's wrong with Cote Lane then?

View attachment 425302

It looks even more laney than the road you're taking (Crook Lane, the left turn just beyond Fearby) and reduces the route by nearly 3km. Just wondering. As it happens, as a result of that choice, my 'shortest sensible route from home' comes in at 161km; a rather neat one hundred miles.

Depending on the weather, I'll join you for the Nidderdale bit. i.e. meet you in Pateley Bridge but turn left on the A6108 to head to East Witton and thence Coverdale. That's only 30km of course, but probably not a terribly rapid 30km.

The idea for the ride comes from @Oldfentiger. He did a charity sportive from Ripley Castle last year and suggested that we do a ride based on that route so I just took the original route and quickly went through it to see if there was anything that caught my eye. The 3 changes I made were things that I thought I could improve on but I didn't even notice the shortcut along Cote Lane!

The road via Fearby looks slightly steeper but the extra gradient and distance won't be a problem so we might as well stick with it. (Translation: I can't be bothered to edit the gpx/map/profile for such a small change! )

 

[Sea of vapours]

That makes sense. The original sportive it's based on quite possibly took the nominally safest route and Cote Lane appears to have a steep downhill to a blind, ninety degree, right hand bend. I'd certainly not encourage a change since then I'd have to concoct some annoying loop to avoid coming in at 158km for the day - I don't think in miles but I can't help finding 98/99 to be just mildly unappealing.

 

[ColinJ]

Early days for the forecast, but the trend seems to be for cool, blustery conditions on Friday. 14 degrees or so, but feeling 2-3 degrees less than that in the wind. Hopefully, we will also get the sunny spells and NOT get the showers!

I'll keep an eye on the forecasts and this thread, and will be back on here later in the week ...

 

[colly]

It'll be fine Col.

 

[Sea of vapours]

I'm doing the same re the forecasts. Annoyingly, it seems to be deteriorating and whilst I am just about prepared to do the 80km into the rather assertive looking headwind on the way home after leaving you, I doubt I'll do it if there's actual rain falling too. Of course, I'm only joining you for 31km / a couple of hours so no great loss there ;-) I spent quite a long time working out routes though, so I won't be abandoning the idea lightly.

 

[ColinJ]

I'm doing the same re the forecasts. Annoyingly, it seems to be deteriorating and whilst I am just about prepared to do the 80km into the rather assertive looking headwind on the way home after leaving you, I doubt I'll do it if there's actual rain falling too. Of course, I'm only joining you for 31km / a couple of hours so no great loss there ;-) I spent quite a long time working out routes though, so I won't be abandoning the idea lightly.

I would put up with an hour or so of heavy rain, or a few hours of sporadic showers, but not 5, 6, 7+ hours of downpours! Especially with hours of train travel to do afterwards ...

 

[colly]

Weather looks OK for tomorrow.

Edit: OK. So now I know today is Wednesday. Why did I think it was Thursday