A ride round up 9/4/16

[James Milner]

Ten of us gathered in the square on a rather drizzly morning to tackle the route Tony had devised for us, but without Tony! We were, Rich, Graham, Dr Dave, Dr Joe, Kev N, John B, Jon G, Ben, Pete S and myself.

We headed out through Haxby, Strensall and on to Farlington and Brandsby with light rain falling but spirits undampened at the prospect of a good day's cycling and some serious hill climbing ahead for those that wanted it. The route was full of options and we all headed up White Horse bank with the sun now shining and took the decision to have a quick pit stop in Helmsley and split up thereafter. We took the direct route from White Horse via Scawton and Rievaulx before gathering in the ice cream parlour in Helmsley where myself, Rich, Graham, Ben and Dr Joe left the others still ruminating while we headed off to do the Cockayne loop clockwise before taking a decision on whether we wanted to continue via Blakey Bank or Blakey Ridge.

Myself and Ben seemed to have brought our climbing legs with us and made good time tapping away a gentle rhythm up the steady ascent with Rich and Graham some way behind us and Dr Joe bringing up the rear. We re-convened at the gates at Cockayne before continuing on to Gillamoor. Ben and I waited a few minutes for to rest to catch up before deciding that we wanted to take the Blakey Bank route along with Dr Joe, while the other two took the alternative route up the ridge. It's as broad as it's long really so we anticipated meeting up at the top of Blakey Bank in fairly short order. This proved to be the case with Rich and Graham arriving just a minute or two after myself and Ben, Dr Joe having already suggested that we continue on to the café in Rosedale while he made his way there at his own pace.

With over 70 miles already in the legs and a fair bit of climbing to boot we were ready for a rest and a bite to eat at the Graze on the Green café in Rosedale Abbey. The café is under ( relatively) new ownership and is surely one of the best on our route map right now. Dr Joe joined us after 15 minutes or so delighted that he was not too far behind us and still feeling that he had more climbing in his legs. With two Chimney Bank virgins in the group, namely myself and Dr Joe the consensus was overwhelmingly that we should take the high road out of town and head home via Hutton le Hole.

With full bellies and cold legs we took the 'gently, gently catchy monkey' approach to climbing the bank and all reached the top feeling it was the easiest of the three main climbs of the day. The grin on Joe's face as he crested the brow was something to behold. Hopefully this was captured in glorious technicolour on Ben's phone!

With all the big climbs behind us we kept a fairly tight formation on the final fun in home, coming back via Great Barugh, Amotherby, Easthorpe, Coneysthorpe and Castle Howard.

I had a suspicion that the fun was not quite over for the day and was therefore careful to keep Rich within striking distance as he eased past me on the climb up to the monument at Castle Howard. Once in the space of a year is quite enough to be beaten by the intrepid Mr Chester on a steady climb and fortunately my legs were up to the task on this occasion! As Rich graciously pointed out later, it must say something for our fitness if we are still contesting hill climbs at speeds in excess of 20mph with almost 100 miles in our legs.

The usual team time trial ensued on the flat lands of Flaxton and Strensall before a late landing back home with 107 miles on the clock and not far short of 9000 feet of climbing for them as wanted it!

All in all, a great day out on the bike with great company. In fact we were in such good spirits we even allowed Ben some time off the front for good behaviour while the rest of us old codgers showed him how it should be done. Trouble is he's getting faster by the week!

See you in the Square next week!

[Dr Dave]

As James has mentioned, we had a planned split at Helmsley. John B and I - being on the way back to full fitness - decided to follow the others at a discrete distance around Cockayne before heading straight back to York.
As always the Bransdale road didn't disappoint - I think I prefer it clockwise TBH - and we had a steady ride back to town. 'Only' 90 miles for me but a good run out and hopefully I'll be able to last the whole ride before long.

Incidentally given that we are all part of Clifton I'm not sure we need a separate thread for this - could someone - mods?? merge this thread with the weekend round-up? Thanks