Weekend Roundup 23/24th April

[Rob]

Fantastic route for the 4th running of the Illegitimate Banks ride, expertly crafted by Steen. He's tweaked it each year, like a true artisan, and todays version was fabulous. Lanes I've rarely or never been on, no traffic, fantastic scenery - Yorkshire at its best.

And the 10 Clifton riders put on a display (not that anyone was watching) of impeccable group riding. The tempo kept us together on all but the most vertiginous of gradients (fair to say there were a few of them) and we kept things moving, such that we were back in York at 4-30 after arguably the hardest ride yet this year.

James, Dr Dave, IanH, Austen, Steen, AndrewNG, AndyG, Jonny and PeteP - take a bow, you are all officially awesome

[craigdabrown]

Wasn’t sure what the weather was going to do on Saturday, threats of sleet in the afternoon, but the sun was shining early on, I’d been out on my lighter bike during the week and I wasn’t really up for swapping back to mudguards etc. for the Club ride.

Joined 13 others (Dawn, SteveS, Jacqui, Claire, JohnC, DaveI, DaveC, MarkF, PeteS, Julia, Bernard, Connor and Kevin) on the “K” Ride to Sledmere. Out via Stockton on the Forest, where Steve had a puncture, and then the usual route to Leavening. Bernard and Julia continued straight up the climb and the rest of us took a left. Claire had the second puncture of the day shortly afterwards and while that was dealt with we were joined by Alison.

Kevin and Jacqui departed for Millington, via Birdsall, and the remainder tackled North Grimston and onto the cafe stop at Sledmere House. Have to say the food was very nice – especially the choice of cakes. The two “Try me!” samples, begging to be tasted while we queued, certainly did their job and secured a few purchases. Although, let’s face it, we don’t normally need much persuasion in such matters.

DaveC had regaled us all morning with wild tales that the road between Sledmere and Wetwang had been resurfaced with proper tarmac, no chippings. Sure enough, it had been. Another treat!

A minor hailstorm towards Huggate was really all the weather gods threw at us all day and we flew down Millington Pastures, back through Stamford Bridge and into York with around 70 miles on the clock and another good ride.

[Jon G]

8 out on the A ride to Bolton Abbey on Saturday. Really enjoyable ride in the company of Tony, James, Graham, Kevin N, Kevin, John B and Rich. Joe had set of earlier in the morning and the plan was to meet him at Bolton Abbey but this never happened. As we left the cafe James had heard from him and he was in Pateley Bridge. Hope you had a good ride Joe, would have been good to see you on route. Absolutely loads of cyclists out on the roads between Otley and Ilkley. So many in fact thought there was an event going on. They were all heading in the opposite direction to our selfs but it does demonstrate what effect the Olympic success and 'Le Tour ' as had on cycling participation overs the last few years. That part of the world as always been popular with cyclists but there were such a wide range of riders in the groups. We were lucky with the weather, avoiding the worse of the showers above pateley bridge, some of which were snow flurries in April and stayed dry all day amazingley , Hope the FW gang were happy with the route and felt there were enough hills and miles for the day. Some discussion was had about what peoples plans were for the Tour de Yorkshire Weekend, my plans were in a previous thread but would be good to hear later in week if there was a plan to ride to see the race. Possible ideas were to ride to Harewood Bank via Wetherby on the Saturday, if this was the case may consider riding out to meet up, if not see you all in couple of weeks and the FW gang the week after

Jon