Today's wind-assisted ride. Fab!

[Globalti]

It being half term Gti Junior and I set out today to get blown away. We started out in Settle and rode up in a north-easterly direction through Horton in Ribblesdale up past the viaduct to Ribblehead. The further we rode up the valley the stronger the tailwind, which blew us easily all the way up to the watershed and extremely fast down into Hawes in Wensleydale. It's quite a climb up Ribblesdale but didn't feel like it at all and going down into Hawes was a blast, literally, especially as the road has some nice swoopy bends. Stopped for lunch and when we came out it was drizzling that horrible wetting mizzle that you get when you're almost in the clouds. I was glad of my Castelli Sottile jacket as we splashed out in a westerly direction towards Garsdale Head where we turned north again as the rain stopped. A bit of a climb then a glorious eight mile descent towards Kirkby Stephen, blown by a stiff wind along empty wet roads, the air crystal clear in a way you only see after rain.

The last 700 yards up to the station were the worst of the whole day as we battled the headwind for the first time. The shelter of the perfect little Victorian waiting room was most welcome and within 15 minutes we were in the train for the 45 minute trip back over the viaduct to Settle, where it was dry and people were wandering around in shorts! Welcome tea and cake in the Naked Man cafe and a few minutes in the bike shop and our day was complete in the most satisfactory way. 38.8 miles blown and about 2200 feet climbed.

Next time if the weather is better we will divert over Buttertubs into Swaledale but we didn't fancy that today as the 21 miles from Muker to Kirkby Stephen are horribly high and exposed.

 

[ColinJ]

Sounds good!

I rode up the Keighley Road climb from Hebden Bridge this afternoon then turned round at the top and came back down. I did almost the same speed up the hill with a strong cross-tailwind as I did down it into the cross-headwind!