What Doesn't Kill You...

Just a very quick post for now to say that all four of us survived the Yorkshire Dales in one piece, and we'll all be stronger for it.

Which is more than can be said for one of the bikes, as John H's rear hub gave out on him for the second time.

The good news is this was Sunday, so he'd done a fair few testing miles already over the one and a half days. Those hills are steep! Which is probably a contributing factor to the mechanical failure, but his hub had been creaking the previous day.

And fortunately, he was stranded within a hundred yards of a train station. Unfortunately, he had missed a train by five minutes and had three and a half hours to wait for the next one.

So while JR volunteered to cycle back over the mammoth hill we'd just climbed to keep him company, John C and I set off to try to beat the train! (With a three and a half hour head start, that is.)

We kind of managed it. The idea was that John would drive back from the hostel at Haworth, where we'd stayed the first night, to collect JR and John H (and bikes) from Settle. In fact, there is a steam train service from Settle to Haworth, and the two stragglers used that to get to Haworth about five minutes after we did. John just drove down the hill to collect John H and his stricken bike, while JR rode the last half mile or so up to the hostel.

Trying to hurry back while climbing those monster hills was a test, as was racing along the dual-carriageway from Ilkley to to Keighley in the pouring rain. But it was certainly a good workout at the end of a 150 plus miles weekend of fierce climbs and thrilling decents.

I'll post some more pictures soon, but here's one to be going on with:

Roy