My ride yesterday turned out to be really satisfying.
Earlier in the week @ColinJ and I had planned to do an imperial century on Good Friday. Our route was going to centre around the Mirfield hinterland and beyond. If either of us subsequently felt like doing less than the 100 miles we left ourselves the option of reducing it to a metric century and travelling to and from Mirfield by train as it doesn’t take long and the off peak fare with our railcard is very cheap. Unfortunately, by Tuesday the weather forecast was looking grim for Good Friday, Colin needed some more time to refine the route to avoid the busy bits and I was still not feeling in top nick due to a minor chest injury after being knocked off my bike by an idiot taxi driver the previous week. So a combination of all these factors led us to defer our ride until a couple of weeks time.
Surprisingly, by Thursday, the weather forecast had significantly improved as had my chest injury. The only adverse factor was the forecasted strong easterly wind which would not have been pleasant cycling into it for long periods. So I made a snap decision on Thursday evening and decided to take the early am train to York and ride back home to Littleborough. The initial route www.cycle.travel provided me with was 65 miles and included some roads (albeit very traffic quiet) in very dodgy areas on the outskirts of Leeds. So I adapted it to avoid these and rejigged my route to go through the small West Yorkshire town of Rothwell. This resulted in a total of 73 miles from York to Littleborough. I wanted to ride an imperial century so the shortfall of 27 miles needed to be added. I accounted for 6 miles by cycling to Todmorden to get the train in the morning. Then at the end of the route, on arrival back in Littleborough, I repeated my former work commute to Bury back which just happens to be a round trip of 21 miles.
My main intention of riding from York was to get full benefit of the easterly tailwind. This was partially achieved, the first 30 miles being more of a cross/tail wind. But in any event the strength of the wind was quite a bit lighter than forecasted.
On arrival at York I rode the 10 miles to Tadcaster which was almost entirely by cyclepath. Firstly, through York Racecourse then 6 miles or so on the cycle path that runs parallel to the very busy A64. Perfectly safe and traffic free but not very pleasant due to the close proximity of constant traffic noise.
Tadcaster is the home of John Smiths Brewery and their premises dominate the town. I didn’t consider popping in the Brewery Shop as I’ve been teetotal now for over 12 months!
From Tadcaster, my route took me on a mixture of quiet lanes and cyclepaths. After Rothwell, I skirted through the outskirts of Wakefield and Mirfield before eventually picking up NCN route 66 at Brighouse from where it is familiar territory all the way home. I was feeling a bit fatigued on reaching Littleborough but pressed on with the ‘required’ 21 miles to Bury and back. Apart from a bit of light rain early am as I cycled to Todmorden the day had been rain free up until then. However, as soon as I reached Bury the heavens opened and it began to rain very heavily along with a much stronger wind. So my last 10.5 miles were battling a vicious headwind and getting a good soaking. But despite that, it was a very enjoyable day out and my first imperial century of 2018.
I’ve set myself a target of 12 day imperial centuries for the year (so an average of one per month). Last year I completed 10 but these were all done between mid May and the end of September. I don’t fancy being up on dark unlit moorland roads with lots of miles to complete so late September/mid October is the latest in the year I will attempt a century ride. So with ‘one in the bag’ by the end of March I think I’m on track.
Earlier in the week @ColinJ and I had planned to do an imperial century on Good Friday. Our route was going to centre around the Mirfield hinterland and beyond. If either of us subsequently felt like doing less than the 100 miles we left ourselves the option of reducing it to a metric century and travelling to and from Mirfield by train as it doesn’t take long and the off peak fare with our railcard is very cheap. Unfortunately, by Tuesday the weather forecast was looking grim for Good Friday, Colin needed some more time to refine the route to avoid the busy bits and I was still not feeling in top nick due to a minor chest injury after being knocked off my bike by an idiot taxi driver the previous week. So a combination of all these factors led us to defer our ride until a couple of weeks time.
Surprisingly, by Thursday, the weather forecast had significantly improved as had my chest injury. The only adverse factor was the forecasted strong easterly wind which would not have been pleasant cycling into it for long periods. So I made a snap decision on Thursday evening and decided to take the early am train to York and ride back home to Littleborough. The initial route www.cycle.travel provided me with was 65 miles and included some roads (albeit very traffic quiet) in very dodgy areas on the outskirts of Leeds. So I adapted it to avoid these and rejigged my route to go through the small West Yorkshire town of Rothwell. This resulted in a total of 73 miles from York to Littleborough. I wanted to ride an imperial century so the shortfall of 27 miles needed to be added. I accounted for 6 miles by cycling to Todmorden to get the train in the morning. Then at the end of the route, on arrival back in Littleborough, I repeated my former work commute to Bury back which just happens to be a round trip of 21 miles.
My main intention of riding from York was to get full benefit of the easterly tailwind. This was partially achieved, the first 30 miles being more of a cross/tail wind. But in any event the strength of the wind was quite a bit lighter than forecasted.
On arrival at York I rode the 10 miles to Tadcaster which was almost entirely by cyclepath. Firstly, through York Racecourse then 6 miles or so on the cycle path that runs parallel to the very busy A64. Perfectly safe and traffic free but not very pleasant due to the close proximity of constant traffic noise.
Tadcaster is the home of John Smiths Brewery and their premises dominate the town. I didn’t consider popping in the Brewery Shop as I’ve been teetotal now for over 12 months!
From Tadcaster, my route took me on a mixture of quiet lanes and cyclepaths. After Rothwell, I skirted through the outskirts of Wakefield and Mirfield before eventually picking up NCN route 66 at Brighouse from where it is familiar territory all the way home. I was feeling a bit fatigued on reaching Littleborough but pressed on with the ‘required’ 21 miles to Bury and back. Apart from a bit of light rain early am as I cycled to Todmorden the day had been rain free up until then. However, as soon as I reached Bury the heavens opened and it began to rain very heavily along with a much stronger wind. So my last 10.5 miles were battling a vicious headwind and getting a good soaking. But despite that, it was a very enjoyable day out and my first imperial century of 2018.
I’ve set myself a target of 12 day imperial centuries for the year (so an average of one per month). Last year I completed 10 but these were all done between mid May and the end of September. I don’t fancy being up on dark unlit moorland roads with lots of miles to complete so late September/mid October is the latest in the year I will attempt a century ride. So with ‘one in the bag’ by the end of March I think I’m on track.
