Mytholmroyd - 36 or 52 mile hilly ride, Sun 5th April

[trio25]

Hope you have had a great ride it looks fab out! Looking forward to SITD

 

[colly]

Looks like you have had a sunny time of it today.

I've just been out for about 2 hours and I am glad I decided not to join you. By the time I got back I'd had more than enough. There is no way could I have gone on for another 2 or 3 hours.

 

[PaulB]

I had a mechanical so only did the first loop as I couldn't trust the small chainring on the climbs. Still, it was a good day. A wee bit colder and windier than the morning suggested but a good route all in all despite us having to cut it short at one point due to the road being closed by two police women in a car blocking our progress. Even on bikes they wouldn't let us through and told us we'd hear about the incident on local news later. According to Colin, this lost us about 4 miles as we were forced to miss out on the planned route and got back on track earlier than we'd wanted. I'll have to let the others speak of the second loop but it was up around Howarth so an area familiar to me anyway, unlike the Cragg Vale climb, the longest continual road climb in England and an obvious magnet to cyclists. It was very easy on a day like today but Colin told us it has taken him an hour or so in the past on a foul day with a strong head wind.

 

[goodspeed]

Thanks guys for a great ride today. Hope you enjoyed the last part of the second loop, sorry i could'nt make the last big climb, just ran out of time.....blah blah! Nice to have met you all and see you again in 2 weeks.

 

[longers]

It was definitely a great ride today.

Good weather, good company and a great route

Thanks

 

[marinyork]

I'm sorry I didn't make it. Some vandals turned up at my street at 4am and smashed up the car, it wasn't in a state to be driven to West Yorkshire and I didn't sleep too well. If you have another one in the next few weeks I might stop over in Leeds and get the train or some other arrangement.

Any photos of what I missed?

 

[Alun]

Yes, great ride !!

Thanks to Colin for organizing it, and to those who waited at the top of the hills (and they were hills) for me to catch up.

See you on the SITD in two weeks.

 

[PaulB]

Yes, great ride !!

Good to meet you (and all the others) yesterday Alun and the scenery around there is indeed great. I hope we can all do it again in the very near future.

 

[ColinJ]

Thanks for good company and encouraging me to make the effort to do some of these tougher rides lads. I sometimes lack motivation when riding alone all the time.

I'm sorry I didn't make it. Some vandals turned up at my street at 4am and smashed up the car, it wasn't in a state to be driven to West Yorkshire and I didn't sleep too well. If you have another one in the next few weeks I might stop over in Leeds and get the train or some other arrangement.

Any photos of what I missed?

Sorry to hear about the car, but that's a pretty good reason for not making it! That's everybody off the definite list accounted for.

Only one from the 'possible' list made it - Svendo off BikeRadar. He was a nice lad and very fit too so longers had some company on the steeper hills.

Funnily enough - goodspeed, Bokonon and I had bumped into Svendo on the original ride up to Buckstones.

As expected, Alun and I couldn't keep up on the climbs but we've lost a stone in weight each and are getting better. Give us another 6 months lads!

Now then - I've found out why the police women weren't saying anything about the 'accident' on Buckstones Road. They may have placed accident signs in the road, but there was actually a murder investigation under way after a body had been found dumped on the moor!

Our improvised change of route over Windy Hill only knocked about 5% off the distance and amount of climbing.

We didn't take many photographs yesterday, but we did manage the obligatory group picture.

[L-R: Alun, goodspeed, PaulB (inserting his shades up his nose for some reason! ), Me (ColinJ), longers, Svendo (BikeRadar)]

It's a pity that we didn't have a passerby to take it because there was a lovely view behind us of Baitings reservoir and the hills behind it. I had to balance the camera on the roadside and from that angle the view is cut off by the dry stone wall.

It had clouded over for a few minutes when that photograph was taken but we had long periods of sunshine during the day.

I might be doing a decent ride over Easter, probably to the Forest of Bowland so keep your eyes peeled over the next couple of days for a new thread about that if you're interested.

 

[ColinJ]

Good to meet you (and all the others) yesterday Alun and the scenery around there is indeed great.

What scenery...?

 

[PaulB]

What scenery...?

That's me, that is!

 

[ColinJ]

Oh, and one thing that all of us forgot to mention...

We saw a couple of nutters who had been trying to drive a Land Rover along a 45 degree rutted slope. It was stuck and appeared to be in imminent danger of rolling sideways off the hill so we stopped to watch what happened.

The passenger had got out on the upslope side of the vehicle and was trying to hold the side of the vehicle down. I was a bit worried when the driver bailed out on the downslope side of the vehicle - visions of the thing rolling down over him...

In the end, they gave up and got on the phone to call somebody out to rescue them. "Hello Fred, er, it's like this... !"

 

[longers]

Sorry to hear about your car troubles MarinYork, that's a bit poo that is .

Those that missed the second loop missed the sight of a stuck landrover.
It cheered me up quite a lot, not that I was unhappy, this was just a weekend warrior who got very very stuck at a precarious angle.

I wonder how much he had to pay a farmer to get him down?

Edit: cross posted with Colin!

 

[Aperitif]

Looks like bandit country to me - not a house in sight!


Looks like a fantastic 'viewpoint' ride - ours wasn't bad but the landscape behind Paul is superb.

 

[marinyork]

A stuck landrover and a body! Aperitif you're always saying how nice the landscape is, why not come up here and do a 100 mile ride. Encouraging folks and all that, you know you want to . P.S. I'm young and have never done one before.

I went on a cycle yesterday evening to Barnsley, not quite the same thing. Apparently lots of cars in the area got vandalised/broken into that night and we've even had Police patrols on MTBs routed through the area .