I'll start at the beginning ...
Oldfentiger had kindly offered me a lift so he picked me up in Todmorden and we drove over. We had noticed that the Park and Ride car park that we had intended to use offered free 'Park and Pedal', which is good. I then noticed that the car park is locked up at 20:30, which might not be so good. It was unlikely that we would be that late back, but it would be highly annoying (and expensive!) to be unable to get the car out. We searched for an alternative and we found one in the nearby Pay and Display car park. £4 for 24 hours - that would do nicely!
We arrived there at about 09:20, which left us plenty of time to get to York Minster, less than 3 miles away. We spotted Kestevan in the car park getting his bike ready. We also couldn't help noticing something else ...
People don't like paying £4 to park when there is a free car park next door!
We had time to ride over to the big Tesco store and buy some goodies and use their toilets. Then we set off down the A1036 into the centre of York. We made a mistake as we got closer to our destination and ended up doing a tour of York, finally getting to the Minster a few minutes late, by which time various members of the assembled throng had gone off in search of toilets. That was why we ended up setting off at about 10:18. Those 18 minutes and a rather extended stop at Goole were enough to delay our arrival at the cafe stop later, and as mentioned by others above, food preparation stopped at 15:30 so we just missed out. I was happy enough with my scones and coffee, but yes, an earlier start and more disciplined stops would be a good idea on such a long ride.
It was good to be doing a largely flat ride for a change. I do love the hills that I normally ride in Yorkshire, Lancashire and Derbyshire but it means that most of my rides are mega-hilly. Easy spinning makes a nice change. Busdennis had built himself a singlespeed bike which he was using for this ride and it was ideal terrain for it. I am thinking of building myself one, and I will ride that if I do next year's Humber Bridge ride, which I certainly hope to.
So, we ambled along to our cafe stop at Barton-upon-Humber. The weather had been good until then. It was pleasantly warm rather than uncomfortably hot, and breezy rather than horribly windy. And it was dry. Unfortunately, that was not to last ... The forecasts had been pretty clear, but some of the optimists in our group had ignored them, or neglected to check! My photo of the Bridge will show you what faced us ...
There's always one, isn't there ... You arrange for the photographer to take a picture of an amazing piece of civil engineering, and a bunch of photo-bombing cyclists dive in the way!
L-R: Right arm of backup photographer (Kevin), star turn by Humber Bridge, guest appearance of storm clouds!, Kestevan, Carrie (trying desperately not to look like a short-a**e and failing miserably - note the feet!), ColinJ (saying goodbye to his amber cycling specs which broke in York!), Slioch, Oldfentiger, Busdennis.
Once the riffraff had been shooed away, there was a clearer view of the bridge in the foreground, and the ominous clouds building in the distance ...
Busdennis uttered the fateful words "
I think it might be blowing away from us" and that utterance sealed our fate!
We ascended the slight climb up the bridge*** and whizzed down the other side and almost immediately we were engulfed by the storm. Even though it was only about 17:00 it went very dark. Those of us with lights put them on, and those of us with wet-weather clothing put
that on!
I had bought a lightweight wind/rain jacket in a sale at Aldi recently, reduced to about £7. I wasn't really expecting much from it at that price but was pleasantly surprised yesterday. It was not 100% waterproof, but it did keep the wind out and most of the rain, and more surprisingly - it was not 'boil-in-the-bag'! It is very easy to make things waterproof - a bin bag is waterproof. Making them comfortable to wear and waterproof is more tricky. I was able to ride in the jacket without getting soaked in sweat. A Good Buy!
I think the storm lasted about 20 minutes before blowing over. It was VERY spectacular, and somewhat intimidating. Some of the lightning strikes were not that far from us and the thunder was incredibly powerful.
The worst part about the deluge was getting soaked feet. I had contemplated wearing overshoes, but who wants to do that for 10+ hours in warm, sunny conditions to cope with a short storm (or TWO - see below!)?
We pressed on but I soon realised that we were not going fast enough for Carrie and Kevin to get back before their car park got locked up. Busdennis also had to catch a train home from York. They were quick enough to make it if they cracked on, having about 2 hours to do 30-odd miles. We agreed to separate into 2 groups Busdennis, Kestevan, Carrie and Kevin went on ahead. Oldfentiger, Pale Rider, Slioch and I rode along at our pace.
It soon turned quite pleasant again and we were making steady progress until I noticed that my front tyre was going soft. I had to decide whether to pump it back up and hope that it stayed up for a decent length of time, or just get stuck in and sort it out. I decided that it would be quicker to just do it once rather than keep stopping to use the pump and inevitably change it later anyway.
I was surprised to find that there was nothing stuck through my tyre and the rim tape on the wheel was intact. I had not hit anything in the road, so no 'snakebite' puncture. I got on with putting a replacement tube in and the others pumped up the old tube to see what was wrong with it. They didn't spot the problem, but I investigated this afternoon and found it ...
The tube's seam had split just where the patch met it, causing a slow puncture. I like to be 'green' and repair tubes a few times before binning them. You can see how well that patch is stuck down, but the patch was there because that tube had already split once before on the seam. I should not have given it the 'benefit of the doubt'. In future, split seam = bin!
We set off again. And so did the weather -
Donner und Blitzen! 
Eventually, we 4 drowned rats washed up back in York. Slioch gave Oldfen and I directions back to the car park but we somehow managed to get lost again! And then Oldfen finally remembered that he had a TomTom satnav app on his phone, and that was already in a waterproof bar-mount, just waiting to be fired up - d'oh!
(I also have a satnav app on my phone, but I don't have the bar-mount. I'll buy one ASAP!)
We then got back to the car without difficulty and our distance for the day (including our bonus tours of York!) was 182 km or 113 miles. Oldfen's longest (adult) ride and a good leg-stretcher for me.
I was dropped off in Todmorden and headed straight round to my local takeaway where I bought a 12" veggie pizza. I had a quick shower and then got stuck in to the pizza. Guess how long it took me? Hint - I had only slept 4 hours before the ride ... It took me 4.5 hours! I'd eat one slice and then doze off. A couple of times, I actually fell asleep with a half-eaten slice in my hand!
I didn't manage to drag myself up to bed until 03:35 ...
Great to ride with everyone. Thanks to Oldfen for the lift, and Busdennis for organising the ride.
*** I didn't mention it to anybody on the ride, but when looking across at the storm from the bridge, I thought I spotted a mini-tornado forming in the distance, north of the river. When I got home last night a found mention of it online but I can't remember where.
