8< (rest of report) >8
Off we set again. I was beginning to feel slightly frazzled by now, and was looking forward to getting home to a soak in the bath then some nice food and drink. Unfortunately, that was still over 2 hours away! We rode on through Whitewell, and towards Great Mitton. All of a sudden Bill asked me if I planned to stop anywhere else on the way back. Actually, I had just worked out that I was probably going to run out of drink about 15 miles from home so it DID seem like a good idea. It turned out that Bill for once was starting to feel a bit hot and bothered himself. I noticed that his freshly shaved head was caked in a thin layer of salt.
We decided to stop at Whalley and bought 2 huge bottles of Coca Cola, thinking that the combination of sugar and caffeine was just what we needed to help us on our weary way home. After a lot of guzzling (and burping!), we mounted up once more and set off up the dragging climb to Spring Wood picnic centre above Whalley. Bill was slightly ahead of me but he still seemed to be suffering. I, however, had got a bit of an energy jolt from the Coke and decided to amuse myself by overtaking him at speed. I dropped back to get a good run at him, changed up a couple of gears, stood on the pedals and accelerated past him singing "It's the real thing, Coke is...". He looked astonished as I sprinted up the road round the bend to the lights at the top of the hill, but a wry smile appeared on his face when he caught up and found me stationary, gasping for breath, with my head slumped on the handlebars. "You'll pay for that later you know!" All good clean fun...
As usual, it was a bit tedious riding in the traffic through Padiham and on to the fringes of Burnley where I used to work. Rossendale Road rises gently at first and then rears up before levelling off towards the Manchester Road traffic lights. I always used to hate that hill when I rode back from work because I hit it after only 5 minutes and was never warmed up properly. Bill normally gains about 200 metres on me on the climb but I was able to stay within about 25 metres on Saturday. He was really surprised to see me there when he turned to see what damage he'd done at the top. I'm definitely getting fitter.
It's mainly downhill or flat from there to Todmorden and thence to Hebden Bridge. We did that last section fairly quickly, me 'wheelsucking' Bill the whole way - age before beauty and all that...
A fine day out - 7.25 hours of riding with 1.25 hours of stops on top of that. Bill seemed to be pretty happy with his new bike. and my Cannondale had been great to ride, as usual. When I got to home to Hebden Bridge I'd done 99.50 miles so I went once round the block to complete my imperial century - as you do!