York hen party trip

This weekend I loaded my bike panniers up & set forth towards York to meet up with the hen party goers. Rather than trekking on the road, I'd planned to take the Leeds Liverpool Canal all the way to it's eastern end and then join some of the National Cycle Route.

I started on the familiar stretch of Route 68 that the RSF Family Friendly Group ride on a regular basis.  I had planned on doing the ride as a DIY 100k Audax, I set my gps to record.

Pendle Hill from Reedley Marina

I was making fantastic time and had reached Salterforth in an hour. This stretch was the easy part though. It's well surfaced until you reach East Marton.

A bumpy stretch of tow path slowed my progress significantly. With heavy panniers in tow, rutted ground made the rear of my bike a little unsteady and there were one or two hairy moments where I had to fight to stay out of the water. It made things interesting... pretty much all the way Bingley.

The pretty views kept my spirits up as I slogged on.

Looking at the ground, there were dozens of muddy tyre tracks all over the place, its very obvious that people want to cycle here & do cycle here, so why the local authorities in the area dont put some proper provision of a decent track down, goodness only knows. Improving the towpath quality would keep it in better condition for everyone to enjoy!

I was very pleased when some smoother surface was under my wheels again. Cycling on the canal when carrying a load means one thing; unrelenting peddling! Bingley's Five lock rise was pretty much the only bit of free-wheeling of the day. But I stopped to take a picture :-)
 

My progress was going guns again and I reached Shipley and onto Leeds without much effort.


I met a father & son who had cycled from Liverpool on the canal over the course of the week. I dont often see young teenagers touring, so it was refreshing to see this lad out & about with his dad. After chatting for a while, I sped off - I still had some miles to cover.

The ride towards Leeds had lovely open views before the cityscape appeared. In the bright sunshine, the modern high-rise buildings made the city look more American than British and the canal took me right into the heart of a newly developed area.

From here, I followed the Route 66 signs, which took me out of the city without fuss. One deprived area was a bit grim (probably more so because I was on my own in an unfamiliar place), but I quickly left that behind and found myself in the blubell lined woods leading to Temple Newsham, where I decided to have my lunch... at 3pm!

From here I'd planned to use various bridleways to take me to Tadcaster. I reached for my gps... it had glitched and was not recording my route. I was somewhat irritated that this meant I couldnt submit the ride as an Audax and I was making reasonable time on the route. Heyho.

I beetled round various interesting looking bridleways enjoying seeing what I could find now I didnt have a time limit to make.

fields of lovely smelling rape

I reached Saxton, where my b&b for the night was and called them up to check if I should turn left or right at the main road.
When I arrived, they were stoking a fire for me and I had a big pot of tea and a slice of cake waiting. It was certainly a warm welcome at the Old Presbytery b&b and I enjoyed relaxing in the chair listening to the clock tick and the fire crackle - after a day in the saddle, I could have fallen asleep there and then!
I wandered into the village for a pub tea and returning, the other guest had checked in for the night & we nattered for a few hours by the fire.

By morning, the rains had arrived, it was drizzling as I had breakfast, but by the time I was due to leave, it was torrential. I had a short ride into Church Fenton to get the train to York (I had planned on cycling, until I saw the forecast) & was sopping by the time I got on the train.

waiting to board

I dropped my bike off at the secure cycle parking and enjoyed a lovely weekend of hen-do festivities including a chocolate making workshop at the Cocoa House York followed by a lovely canal boat cruise with a bbq and dancing in the evening.  There was much singing, dancing & drinking!

River Ouze

 Thankfully we did not literally 'rock the boat'

York Minster

The train journey home

 I wasnt so rough that a ride home would have been tough, but I got the train home to enjoy the company and have a leisurely morning in York enjoying the sunshine and the spring flowers in the minster gardens.

More party fun when the wedding arrives. I might convince Stephen to cycle to the wedding - after all, it's not as far away as the hen do was!!

My legs are now feeling better prepared for the summer's 300+mile tour.  In fact, when I got off the train, I had a mile of uphill and even with a loaded bike and high heels, I managed to sail past a guy on a road bike (always a good feeling - tho I'm often overtaken by real speedsters).

And I'm now decided that I'll stick to organised Audax rides rather than faff around with technology that somehow always seems to let me down.

Llangollen

Llangollen, Denbighshire was the destination of the second weekend trip for 2013.  After the success of the Lakes, the weekend had a lot to live up to. 

Friday morning, laughing about being off work, we set off and had our lunch break in Chester. I've never been there before and had heard much of it's charming Roman walls. We walked along the walls to the River Dee (the river we would be stopping next to all weekend) to the castle.


We lunched at The Falcon. I was happy to discover it was a Sam Smith's owned brewery - 6 different Sam Smith's brews on tap. I will need to go back when I'm not driving!

We set off again destined for the tallest single drop waterfall in England and Wales, Pistyl Rhaeadr Falls. The road twisted and turned until we reached the end of the valley, stopped by the waterfall. The place was deserted, even the tea shop was closed.

The climb to the top had lovely views, not to mention patches of ice and icicles on the waterfall.  You can stand right on the top of the falls, in summer I suspect this would be an amazing picnic spot.

Saturday morning we woke bright and early to a beautiful sunrise, eager to get some peddling miles in. 

River Dee

I have wanted to visit the famous Telford Pontcysyllte Aqueduct since the first time I saw it on tv, so I peddled along the Llangollen Canal (Route 84) smiling into the sunshine. 

 














Stephen was much braver than me - he cycled most of the way across, where it took me until almost at the end to brave putting any pressure on my pedals. It was giddying!

We cycled down to Chirk, around the castle, then back on ourselves to a lovely lunch in a Victorian style tea room. We were seriously under-dressed for the place - I wonder if that's why the waitress kept giggling at us (not convinced my jokes are that good).  We admired the vintage Raleigh bikes before we set off for the long climb ahead.


We climbed up afew miles, to be rewarded by a view of the aqueduct we had just left, the viaduct and road bridge in the distance...

count the bridges... view from Garth

...we thought it was the top of the hill.... it wasnt ...

but when we rounded the corner at the top, the view that enfolded was better than we could have imagined.

I looked at the time, 3.30pm - I knew this would be a worthy sunset spot, so we spent two hours off-roading at the very tops over Trevor Rocks, watching our shadows lengthen.

 




















We watched the clouds come in... and thankfully some colours develop as the evening chill moved in. 

We had the road to ourselves by this point, so enjoyed a carfree/carefree freewheel down to the bottom of the valley on the twisty road. A perfect end to a day in the saddle. 





On sunday, we enjoyed a walk to Horseshoe Falls and then a wander round the town, enjoying plenty of the tastes on offer and picking up a Llangollen patch to sew onto the pannier. An ideal place to explore over a long weekend. 

Brilliant week of excellent winter rides

December is always such a sociable month. Meets with friends, colleagues & cycling groups. Usually by the time January comes about, I'm ready for a rest.
This December is no exception - in fact as life goes on, I end up with more & more December events.  The fact that I no longer get school holidays is just bobbins - I could have all of December off work & fill it up.

This week has been a brilliant cycling week inspite of the bitter cold weather we've had. And I now realise just how un-aerodynamic reindeer are!

The Long Causeway

My cousin was home from Wales last weekend, so I convinced her to come for a leisurely saturday ride to Hebden Bridge. She has an old heavy 90s mountain bike with low gear ratios which made the road ride over the Pennines challenging.


The views were spectacular after the snow earlier in the week - the hills salt & peppered with left over white stuff.  It was beautiful and after that initial warming climb, you can really enjoy the views before you start the cold descent to the valley bottom.

Stoodley Pike

 The sky was dramatic! Stunning. And it was delightful having some solo girly company on the ride. We lunched & then caught the train back as Roz had no lights on her bike.

click for full size. Amazing skies

I took Tuesday & Thursday off work to enjoy some Rough Stuff trips.
After a ride at 8am in minus 5 degrees to the meet point, my hands felt like a sledgehammer had trashed them.

sunrise over Alcincoates Park, Colne

Burwain

I contemplated going home - but after I'd warmed up and got chatting with the guys, I donned an extra pair under my ski gloves and we headed along  the frozen canal towards Yorkshire. Ducks and swans skated about and it was picture perfect. The muddy fields were frozen solid in most places which made for a very bumpy and unforgiving ride between the canal and the disused railway.

The last few miles were on the busy A59 before enjoying the road into Carleton, which happily was closed to motor traffic whilst diggers had made an impassable hole. It meant we could cycle 3/4 abreast, chat, not worry about cars and look out at the beautiful hills in this pretty spot.
We joined with the Yorkshire Rough Stuff faction for their festive lunch. I met some new faces & caught up with riders I'd not seen in many months. The lunch passed far too fast before we had to set off back.
Because it was just so cold, I took very few photos, but two pairs of gloves did just about save me from agony.

Pendle Hill & Blacko Tower at sunset

Thursdays forecast predicted slightly warmer weather, so after surviving the ride on Tues, I set off with a big smile for a ride in the Ribble Valley.  Clitheroe was bathed in winter morning sunshine as we set off. Over the River Ribble and into Waddington for our first brew stop. It is chocolate box picturesque here.

Pendle Hill from the base of Bradford Fell

We started to climb up and by the time we reached Bradford Fell there was nothing, but thick freezing fog. It was like being on an alien landscape - the muddy ground was solid and interspersed with frozen, glacier-like puddles, which made any actual cycling nigh on impossible.

Frozen puddles

Freezing fog

 
At least walking was warmer than riding. It was bitter up on those tops - much colder than I'd expected. I felt like I was on an Arctic expedition.

Brian's group shot

another of Brian's photos

We pushed our bikes for miles, I thought the lunchstop would never arrive. It eventually did at about 2o'clock. Hot soup, hot tea. It thawed my hands, but not my feet.

We cycled the last few miles on the road back into Clitheroe riding into a beautiful misty sunset... but trying to beat the sunset, we didnt stop to take any photos.






Thursday night was a really good bike maintenance course through work. Really useful - I now know I can change a back wheel puncture no problemo. Easy tips on changing your brakes and other useful tips from the people at Go Velo.  If you get the chance to go on the course, I recommend it. They also do cycling classes for all levels too.

a winter's night in Pendle Witch country

Saturday was a day off the bike, but in one of our lovely Cycling Cities, Lancaster. I've only ever really peddled through Lancaster before so exploring the centre and the castle was really interesting. Next time I'm in the area on my bike, I'll take an extra hour or two to pop into the centre again. Very picturesque and with some interesting shops; my favourite being a tea & coffee merchants that felt like stepping back into Victorian times. 

Lancaster

Lancaster Castle

Sunday was the highlight of the week. We took the tandem over to Liverpool to ride to Alder Hey Children's Hospital to deliver Christmas presents to the children who are in over the holidays. A couple of hundred cyclists in santa outfits, with the odd other costume cycled through the city to car toots and waves and cheers. It was lovely and for the first time this year I got that festive feeling.

Brrr hunched up from the cold

There was a sergeant major keeping us all in check in his parade boots. I didn't know a human being could shout so loudly!!
There were four tandems in all and we chatted to a lovely couple who regaled us with their tandeming exploits over the years.

After warming up at the hospital with brews and choccies, we all made our own way back. Even though there was just Stephen (santa) & myself (a red nosed reindeer) cycling, we still got lots of waves and children looking in awe. It was lovely.

My antlers were far from aerodynamic - any slight gust of wind pushed against them. Thankfully my skills at plaiting my hair around them kept them in place.
We pushed the bike back through the centre to have a quick look. It's 13 years since I last visited Liverpool & a lot has changed since then. Looking forward to the new year for a proper trip back there to explore the fine historical city, admire the old & new architecture and hopefully utilise the cycling Liverpool map that Dug donated to us.

What a fantastic cycling week it's been!