It turned out to be a very good ride. The weather was great for this time of year. I took long-fingered gloves for backup, but didn't feel the need to wear them. We did get a few dark clouds for a while later on, and I felt a couple of spots of rain, but that was it. As expected, the wind was significant, but not horribly so. We spent about half the ride being hindered by the wind but we didn't feel like we were killing ourselves to do a reasonable speed into it. The other half of the ride was wind-assisted and felt very easy.
No problems on the trains, so we arrived at Garforth on time and headed north on the road that we use on the Garforth imperial century ride. This time though, our route took us east on Parlington Lane, a bridleway across an old country estate through woodland near Aberford. This is currently a very nice, quiet path which I was able to ride (with care) on my narrow and slick-tyred singlespeed road bike. A little bit muddy in a couple of places, and of course at this time of there are lots of damp leaves lying on the surface. I say '
currently' because
plans are being developed to build a new garden village just north of the path. If the village
IS built, then that path will end up with lots of people going up and down it.
Littgull at Nellie's Tree on Parlington Lane...
Close-up of the sign...
Once we got to Aberford, we took the road and cyclepaths north that we use on the other Garforth ride, but only as far as Bramham. From there we headed off via Boston Spa as far as Little Ouseburn, and then turned to the NE to cross the Ure/Ouse*** at Aldwark toll bridge. Yes, it
was free for us to cross!
Once over the bridge we turned towards the SE and headed down to York. The last 5.5 km into the city were on the excellent NCN 65 path. There were a lot of people out walking their dogs and/or with their kids on little bikes so we had to take it easy and watch out, but we weren't in a hurry. We decided fairly early on that it wouldn't be a relaxed ride to aim to catch the 15:28 train home so we took our time and our backup plan was to cycle into Leeds from Garforth if it would be quicker than waiting at Garforth station for a later train.
When we got into York, the discussions above about Scarborough bridge turned out to be irrelevant - the bridge was closed for maintenance! We improvised another route to the station for a quick pee-break, then headed off to the TPT to Bishopthorpe.
We did do the detour to the
But First cafe. We ate our own food on a bench across the road from the cafe, then called in there for coffees. A nice little place. It was pretty busy, but we got seats outside. It isn't often that I have been happy to sit outside in mid-November - normally it would be quite cold, and it is easy to get chilled when sitting around after exertion.
It was clear that we would be doing about an hour of riding in the dark but we had lights so that shouldn't be a problem.
We went further south on the TPT than I have been before. It really is excellent down there. One day I will do the full length down to Selby. A deer ran across just in front of us. It wasn't close enough to cause problems, but we got a good look at it before it ran off into the trees on the other side.
We left the cyclepath at Riccall and headed west into the sunset.
@Littgull will be along eventually with the photos that he took, which include a sunset picture.
Eventually, we got to Aberford and headed back along Parlington Lane in the dark. That was a bit spooky, and especially when Littgull got significantly ahead of me because my front light isn't really good enough to see to ride safely on leaves and mud on a slope in the dark... Especially when you hit a bump which causes your light to switch itself off - that was a bit scary!
We did the last road section into Garforth and had got our timing about right. We had to wait, but not long enough for it to be worth riding into Leeds.
The train we changed to at Leeds was not going to stop at Littleborough so Brian had to alight with me at Todmorden and then head off into the night for another 9 kms. He could have waited for the next train from Tod, but was quicker to ride home.
It was around 108 km/67 miles for me; more like 117 km/73 miles for Brian.
A very good day out, and a route that we will probably do again next year as well as the original Garforth route. We will give more notice next time and it will be a month or two earlier in the year.
*** I was trying to remember the other name for the river. I knew that it was the Ouse as it passes through York, but it is called the Ure further upstream and the name changes near the toll bridge. I just read a few articles about where the names come from, and I could summarise the geographical historians' verdict as "
We have some ideas, but we don't know for sure"! Some combination of old English/Viking words being corrupted over the centuries...
As it was I spent the day sodding around with repairing the garage roof.
)
