Sunday 23rd October

Short Awaday Ride

Although it was disappointing that there were only three of us signed up for the last short awayday of the season, our numbers allowed us the flexibility to change the day of our ride to Saturday on the basis of a grim looking weather forecast for Sunday. Accordingly, Sarah, Mike and I set off from Boroughbridge on a glorious morning not heading for Beningbrough, as advertised, but for a slightly longer ride to Easingwold, via the Dunsforths, Gt Ouseburn, Aldwark, Tolthorpe and Flawith.
17 miles later we were enjoying our coffee sitting in the sunshine outside the Olive Branch watching the world go by – including a very spruce vintage steam lorry.  Our return was via Alne and Aldwark Bridge to retrace our outward route to Boroughbridge. 32 miles on the clock.
Note for all potential sloe gin makers: there are some enormous sloes to be found on the road between the Dunsforths! FW

Wheel Easy Stalwarts

The forecast was for rain all day so only 8 steadfast riders turned up at the Showground for all today’s rides. You couldn’t get a a broader range of cyclists! There were the 3 leaders for the day – Mike C for the short ride, Liz P for the Medium and me for the Medium Plus. And there were fast riders; and those who normally do short rides; and everything in between.
Despite the forecast and despite the varied group, we decided to stick together and see how we fared. We were moderately dry as we went along the Greenway and along Holly Bank Lane
I have this theory. On the whole weather forecasts tend to be very negative and it’s often dry when it says it’s going to rain – in other words, best ignored. Well, this time they were right! Boy did it rain.
It started to come down fairly heavily (not a complete deluge) around Burnt Yates and stayed that way for the next few hours. We went past Brimham Rocks and decided it probably wouldn’t be much fun to do the planned ride over Dallowgill Moor. Instead we headed towards Sawley and on to Fountains. We were a very wet group when we arrived at Fountains Abbey Visitor Centre for a dry, a warm and a bit of something to sustain us – we were congratulated on braving the journey to get there.
3 left us to head for home and the rest of us set off down through the Deer Park. That’s where the deluge started – water doesn’t come out of our power shower as hard as that. The last part was through Littlethorpe and Bishop Monkton. Then the rain stopped and we had a lovely ride back to the showground in our wet gear.
As always with Wheel Easy, we had a lot of laughs along the way. Thanks to everyone who made it a fun and worthwhile ride.
I’ll certainly go out again if the forecast is like that. It proves the old saying “there’s no such thing as bad weather, just wrong clothes”

39.8 miles 1540 ft/ 470 metres of ascent SW