The idea was to catch a train to Scarborough and then take a couple of days to ride home, most likely staying overnight in York. 100k each day. Various things such as train times/logistics/strikes... well, actually, mainly the train logistics- meant that a slightly different plan had to be planned. Eventually something was cobbled together, and, to be honest it was Catherines rather excellent knowledge of the railway system, and especially the way in which you can actually get bikes on trains etc. that enabled this to happen.
The plan was simple. Bike to Stalybridge, train to Scarborough, then bike to Whitby- staying over there for the night. Bike ride to Toms parents house near York, overnight there, and then cycle home. Job's a good un.
The exciting thing about it all was the weather forecast. As ever, in the UK in July, you can't be guaranteed of anything, except that it might well be ANYTHING. Rain was kind of forecast, but it was a bit of a "maybe, maybe not". What was *definitely* forecast was wind. A westerly, and gaining in strength through the weekend up to a Force 5-6 on Sunday. Pretty much a block headwind all the way home. Great fun!
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| Looking forward to the ride! |
The route itself was made by Catherine, and was intended to take in as many cake and tea stops as possible, which is a most commendable ambition for a bike tour. The crux of the whole thing was getting on a train that would accommodate 4 bikes. Normally, the train from Manchester to Scarborough only has a small number of carriages, and so therefore only has 2 bike spaces. However, there are 2 trains a day that have twice as many carriages, and so therefore, twice as many bike spaces... a massive 4 bookable spaces! (Yes. the ability to transport bikes by train in this country is truely woeful. They say "not many people want to take bikes by train".... but it's a nightmare to book them onto a train, and even if you do, there are barely any spaces to do so. But I digress.
One of these magic trains leaves Stalybridge at 5:50am. Which means leaving home to ride over the hill to Staly a fair bit beforehand. Which means getting up really quite early. However, we'd rather be early rather than late, so off we trotted, nice and early, making FULL use of Lynnes thermal bidon for a decent amount of coffee. All 4 of us joined together on the road just up and past the Waggon and Horses, and convoyed down to the station- the train was caught without a hitch, and the journey to the coast simply flew by. I was expecting to get at least a little sleep on the way, but was utterly surprised when the tannoy told us we were approaching the last stop.
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| Classic early morning shot |
First things first in a new town at 8am on a sunny morning- find some more coffee. We spent some time touring around Scarborough looking for likely places for coffee, and ended up back at the place at which we started. After a delightful second breakfast we set about working out how to get to the Cinder Track, and work our way north toward Whitby, where we were staying the night.
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| Let's fund us some coffee |
3 Wahoos and a phone just about managed to get us out of Scarborough and the next few hours were spent on a splendid ride along the Cinder track (cycle route 1) - which had some nice bits, some muddy bits and some bumpy bits (that Lynne really wasn't a fan of). The sun was out, the wind was not against us, and we made pretty decent time to Robin Hoods bay, where we decided to stop for a cake and another coffee. Nevermind that it's down a 30% hill- we'll deal with that when we want to come back up. So down we went along with 30 million other holiday makers, and managed to bag a table at a cafe near the sea.
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| Cinder Track |
The tide was very very in, so Lynne and Catherine decided to postpone
their swim until later, when we got in to Whiby. We steeled ourselves
for the climb back out of the bay and attempted to weave through the
hordes as we scrimped our way back up the hill to the Cinder Track.
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| Getting out of Robin Hood Bay |
Onwards and Northwards, we wound our way and in a relatively short time made our way into Whitby. We were a little early for the hotel to be ready, but they let us leave our bikes in a side room while we went out to explore the surroundings until the rooms were sorted.
"Explore the surroundings" basically means "wander around and work out if you've been here before". Whitby, it would seem, is very reminicent of every seaside town I've ever been to that has a harbour, amusement arcade, candyfloss places, an RNLI museum and crowds of people trying to by fish and chips. Lynne and Catherine got their swim/being hit by waves thing done, while Tom and I stood by and made sure the Seagulls didn't nick our stuff.
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| Whitby |
The evening was taken up by more wanderings, up to the Abbey, around the town (again), fish and chips, and a walk out onto the breakwater- which is fairly impressive. Bed time came early as we'd been up since silly'o'clock and there is only so far that much coffee can take you.
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| Whitby Abbey |
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| Looking Off. |
Day 2
A quick ride down the hill into town for a breakfast from the coffee shop that we made sure would be open in the morning. Whilst sitting there, routes were downloaded and synched into mapping units, and we were pretty much ready to go. The idea was to very much NOT go on the massive A64 out of Whitby, as it would be all kinds of horrible to do that on a bike. So the slightly more exciting/hard/challenging option of offroad was taken. (I could digress here into a bit of a rant about safe cycling provision in this country, but won't).
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| Don't want to join the trucks on an A road? This is the other option |
Anyhow, let's just say the ground under tyre was a little less than optimal, and our average speed was somewhat curtailed by it. It was a lovely route, and very well planned- heck, it was marvellous not to be on the A64 getting close passed by the various psychos in cars and trucks, but you'd think that if something says "bridleway" on it, you might be able to actually ride a damn bike down it...
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| It *might* have been ok going downhill. Actually. No. It wouldn't. And people wonder why we don't always use bridleways. |
It took a while until we managed to get to much more rideable territory, but once there, the miles steadily ticked by. Sometimes on road, sometimes off- and at one point, the excitement of riding downhill at speed rather got hold of Tom and Catherine, and off they shot- only to be rewarded by a rather impressive rear wheel blowout at speed.
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| THIS is more like a bridleway |
The repair took a while- (I was rather confused as to why my pump wasn't pumping up the tube, and it turned out to have rather more holes in it that I realised, so there was no way it was going to get pumped up, no matter how good the pump).
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| Standard puncture faff |
We did indeed carry on, and lunch was had in a place that rather reminded me of Castleton. The cafe had the largest pieces of rocky road I've ever seen, but considering that there was going to be another cake stop in a bit, I decided to refrain.
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| Some single track that Lynne *really* wasn't appreciating |
Onward and into a bit of a headwind, we wove our way south and westish and it was all a bit of a blur really. The route took us to where we needed to be, and that place eventually ended up being a cafe with white chocolate cheesecake. Marvellous. From there, it was not a long distance to get to Tom's parents, which has an amazing garden, and very welcoming hosts.
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| Across the moors. |
Much food, tea, wandering around the marvellous garden, and a bit of bike maintainance was done. Lynne was a bit done in by the end of the day- this being her longest ride to date, so I did the gallant thing and tended to her bike for her, instead of asking "dyou think you might need to do anything to your bike this evening?".
Again, sleep came early.
Day 3.
A strong coffee set us up for the day- the ground was damp, so it was evident that it had rained overnight. The clouds were scudding across the sky in a somewhat unhelpful direction, but it was sunny as we set off. Always a bonus.
Today there was more promise of roads- not so much on exciting offroad adventuring. This was a day that was going to be over 100k, so again, Lynnes longest day on a bike ever (and by quite some margin), so what with the headwind, easier terrain under the tyres would probably help. As we left the delightful company of Tom's parents I took the lead and cycled into the wind at a steady pace. We managed somewhere in the region of 20kmph for the next decent while as roads and places and hedgerows passed us by.
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| Coffee stop |
A tea and coffee stop was had at an RSPB reserve, and once energy levels were restored to appropriate levels, we continued on into the wind. The weather stayed pretty decent, with only a couple of light showers occuring. Despite the promise of "mainly tarmac", there were a couple of areas of somewhat more interesting surfaces, including mud and standing water, but that in no way reduced the enjoyment of the journey.
Refuelled and slightly rested, we gamely carried on, trying to ignore the profile for the rest of the trip, which, while not resembling quite a dinosaurs back, certainly had a certain "humpiness" about it. Through Yorkshire Sculpture park (well, around it, I suppose), and up and down across the roads to the south of Denby dale, we slowly started to see places and place names that were more familiar. Holme moss transmitter mast appeared on the horizon as we steadily worked our way westward. At some point, I took Lynnes pannier from her as she was starting to feel the effects of 3 days of cycling, extra weight, hills and a headwind.
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| Yorkshire Sculpture park |
As we got closer to home, the headwind seemed to intensify, (was it really coming from Glossop?!), but the number of hills was slowly coming down. We passed Woodhead mountain rescue base, which meant we were getting closer still- then the turning to Hade Edge, where we skirted down to Snailsden reservoir. A final pull up to the Woodhead pass, and then the downhill section to the Longdendale trail, where we hit 100k.
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| Snailsden- nearly home |
The end was in sight, and we cycled along the trail and up the hill to Devil's Elbow, before rounding the corner to see Glossop below us. Home.
What a fabulous adventure with excellent company. As you would expect, there were a few dark moments thrown in there, with people experiencing lows at different times, but coffee, tea and sugar certainly helped us through. Although it would have been nice to do the original plan (especially if we'd have had THAT tailwind), this very much ticked the box.
Thanks to Tom and Catherine for enjoying the trip with us, and to Tom's parents for being such amazing hosts.
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