Monday 21st May

Well, it appears it's taking me longer to write this up than it took to ride the bloody route.

Well, where was I? The New Inn at Appltreewick, lovely morning, sun was shining and it was going to be a hot one. Below is a couple of views looking out from the front of the pub followed by a couple of piccies of the pub itself.







John's got the livery at the back of the pub and is well worth having a chat with.

The vodafone signal is non-existent here so bring plenty of change for the phone box over the road.

From Appltreewick I headed off to Linton and then Linton Moor coming out just past Cracoe and then taking the path to Hetton Common via the side of the reservoir.




You can see the path back from the first picture above, the edge of the reservoir is just visible and you can see from the path that it was an easy, hard surface. The view to the west was also great. This looked like it was going to be an easy and enjoyable day. Fool that I was.

From the top of the Weets you can see the great scenery:





And below is the worlds stupidest animal, more about them later, (believe me, lots more) :


So from the Weets I trotted off to Street Gate. A simple and easy enough ride then a right turn over High Cote Moor. At this point I should have guessed what my day was going to be like. It was more of the soft, steep, grassy terrain I'd seen the day before, hard work riding, slow work pushing and a good few kilometres of climb before I got to the top and I had my lunch on a set of rocks at the top.

As I was writing this I was trying to remember what I had for lunch and then I remembered. Now here's a tip for you. At breakfast I asked the owners of the New Inn if they could make me up some ham butties, they were good, nice think pieces of proper ham all squashed at the bottom of my bag, heaven.

Over this whole distance I'd met only two other people, two blokes, on the mobile phone, just in front of me eating their lunch. Can't get away from the things. Mind, around there you have take advantage of the high points when ever you can.





The decent was better than the climb thankfully and off I went to Arncliffe to head over Moor End Fell. What a climb, no chance of riding this, slogging it up to the top over peaty, boggy ground before descending into Starbottom and another climb up to Walden Moor. Here I met a bloke who had just walked down from Buckden Pike and was gobsmacked I was taking a bike up there, should have had the alarm bells ringing really shouldn't it..

It was a long push up to the top of Walden Moor but the views were worth it:





Now the first picture shows the way marker so I knew where I was, then...and off I went.

I followed the track as well as I could make out and from that point it was all down hill to the road in the valley but it was a little boggy in places and broken up. Eventually I came across a well laid out farm track and took this to be the bridleway, well you would wouldn't you with no other obvious tracks around. Off I set and this is where those bloody sheep got on my wick. They have a really clever trick for getting away from you. They stand in the field where you're obviously not going to go, wait for you get close and then run onto the bridleway, lolloping off shitting themselves and if you stop, so do they, you just hope they have a bloody heart attack so you can get on with the ride.

Anyway, this track meanders around the hill side and eventually drops down to the road but I've come out near Hill Top Farm, about a mile further up the road than I was expecting to and the track I've just ridden on isn't on the map, bizarre. And to make matters worse Hill Top Farm has a Jack Russel and an open gate so as I ride past the drive the little sod comes running up trying to nip my feet, oh for an engine and a reverse gear...

The rest of the days ride was on the road and the bunkhouse at Thoralby was fine. There was one other person in the place and, luckily, he knew which way the pub was so we set off at about seven for something to eat. Lovely sun, nice day. I'd put my clothes in the wash before we left and hung them to dry and suddenly realised I'd washed all my notes so I've been blagging it so far, no notes to work on and the note pad wouldn't work from this point on. Mice and men, mice and men.

I did make one decision, after the days struggles, it had taken me over eight hours to do sixty kilometres, I was leaving early the next day, I was getting caught out in the dark on the eighty kilometre days.

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Sunday 20th May

Sunday 20th was a lovely day, very hot even at 8.30 in the morning. I set off from Ripponden round the back of the town climbing up to Soyland Town. You can see the view from the picture below:

I got a little lost not long after taking this photo trying to get through Mill Bank to Cotton Stones. Try as I might I couldn't find the route. I knew I was in the right place with the pub, church and phone box all being clearly marked on map but I must have been missing a turn. It never ceases to amaze me how often you get a picture in your head about what the route should look like and it doesn't relate to reality. Simple things like give way signs completely change you're view of the route, you think there's a road coming in from the right and when you get there you find you're on the side road.

I decided to go up the side of the church at Mill Bank and get to Cotton Stones and on to Mytholmroyd. Stake Lane before Mytholmroyd was steep, wet and stony and just a little technical, like to have a go in the dry, then I headed for Midgley Moor.

Now the route from Midgeley through Broad Fold caused me some problems, I just wasn't concentrating and kept taking farm tracks instead of staying on the proper track, each time I got to a farm house I had to turn around. Nonetheless I got there in the end and started the climb up to the moor. The view was great on the way as you can see, the first picture shows the trail I'd climbed, this was hike-a-bike, not really rideable, the other image is looking north/north-east ish along the valley:




It was at this stage I realised I needed to keep an eye on the odometer and use my compass. At the top of the trail I had the option of two paths I thought, but with sheep on the moors you never know what are paths, bridleways or simply sheep runs, so I used my compass to push on along the right track. Later on I found myself at a t-junction of paths that really didn't fit the map which spread the seed of doubt on my earlier choice but taking the path that went west I came out on the A6033 at exactly the right spot.

It was at this point I realised I'd made an error with the maps I'd printed. I'd printed the tracks as red lines and because of the rather rough manner in which they were drawn they obscured the true direction and variations in the bridleway. I'd taken the decision to bring virgin maps with me as well and later on in the ride I became thankful of this.

It's definitely the case that moors are hard work, it isn't easy to cycle on soft peaty ground.

Crossing over the A6033 I headed off towards Lane Head and then Howarth. Now, it'd been a nice day, sun cream weather, and I felt in a good mood, heading off on the second day had sort of made it an adventure now. I was too far to turn back, on the Saturday I could easily have turned around and gone back home but being more than a day away it was onward and upward. Riding on the country lanes heading into Howarth I thought I might stop and get some lunch. Dropping into Howarth the sides of the roads began to fill up with cars and visions of tourist centres and somewhere good to stop started to fill my mind.

Was I in for a surprise.

As I entered Howarth I came across some old sharras, windows taped up in a criss-cross fashion all along the street and then groups of people all dressed in WWII battle dress. They town was having a forties weekend and to be honest they'd done an outstanding job, check out some of the pictures:











I particularly liked the two German's against the railings, they stood out a little more than the
others.

Anyway, it was too much of a struggle to get the bike through the streets so I had a hot-dog next to a road block and headed to Pickles Hill and then meandered around until Keighly, which I have to say I didn't like, typical big town, I got out of there as soon as I'd been to the bank. Riddlesden was next before going over High Moor, past Double Stones, Hang Goose Farm, and Cringles before messing about on bridleways and tracks to Addingham and Draughton.

Double Stones:


Here were the first indications of what was in store for the next couple of days but I never really recognised it at the time. Tired, with fast rolling tyres, I had soft peaty ground that went uphill for ever, it was hard and time consuming riding when I could pushing at other times practically all the way along the hill until the crest just before dropping into Bolton Abbey. It had taken so long I couldn't be bothered to stop and look at the Abbey, I didn't care about the ruins, I just wanted to get washed and fed.

Heading up to Westy Bank Wood, which was OK and then another slog across the soft ground until turning north-west to Barden Bridge. Again, stuff the ruins, food and beer were the only things in my head, so much so that for the last 5 km I stayed on the road all the way to Appletreewick and the world famous New Inn, 6.30pm, ten hours riding, bolloxed.

Was it worth it, you bet. I put my bike in the livery after I'd washed it down, had a cherry beer which was just so refreshing, got cleaned up, had a lovely meal, had an even lovelier beer, got my head down for 10 minutes which soon turned into and hour and a half before I went back to the bar for a couple of pints.

Good day, good evening, but oh so very hard.

Never mind, Monday was going to be my easy day, wasn't it???


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