Family Friendly Camping Trip - Selby

This year's RSF family friendly camping trip was at Selby. And this was my first time there as part of a family and Frank's first camping trip at 11 weeks old.
The cycling was probably the easiest we've ever encountered on a family friendly camp, but this year there were significantly more children riding their own bikes.
Stephen and I took a shift system on Sunday's ride since Frank's too young to be in a bicycle seat. So I stayed in the tent on mum duty in the morning whilst Stephen pedalled, I then met up at the lunch stop and we swapped over.

Ian had ridden over from Southport the day before and since we'd both missed the saturday ride, after the sunday route finished, we blasted around the other route- some strong headwinds, but with a pub stop we had some beery energy. At another pub we passed we heard cheers and saw three other members who had decided to ride to another pub. We regrouped and enjoyed some fun whizzing back to camp.

Frank did really well in the tent- just two extra blankets in his travel cot (one underneath and one and top) and a hat and he slept through til the birds woke him up at dawn.  The only real problem was that everything was too interesting to him, so there were no naps and it took quite a while for him to settle down for sleep.





On Monday I'd hoped to cycle back to Hadfield on the Trans-Pennine-Trail to get the train back from the Manchester area. Ian was going back in the same direction so we set off into a headwind. We managed to loose the trail (possibly a missing sign) so decided to skip part of it and after some discussion with two cyclists in a cafe, a route through some pretty villages was established. This made for some smoother cycling (I was on my mixte so this was ok) and cut off a corner near Doncaster.

The lanes here had lovely gentle hills which made for very enjoyable cycling. We rejoined the trail near Mexborough and made a detour into Barnsley for a McDs fuel stop. Alas as we neared Silkstone Common my muscles were feeling it- there's not much protein in McD's veggie options- that combined with a headwind, a prompt pace, a more road orientated bicycle on rougher terrain and the lack of long-distance throughout maternity leave meant I was spent by Pennistone.

The section between Silkstone & Pennistone was brilliant fun though; really lovely views and fun tracks that was just up my street.

At Pennistone we got on the train. With hindsight it would have probably made more sense to get a proper tea and a rest and carry on for the 14 mile section over the Woodhead Pass & into Hadfield; the trains were an expensive chore (two changes) and three & a half hours later I had to get Stephen to collect me from Todmorden since the train home wasn't going all the way & I didn't fancy getting a fourth train later. I got back home about 10.15pm. The trains put a bit of a downer on what had been a lovely day's riding. But I have an open return so plan on doing a further section soon.