Autumn or late summer?

Herb and I picked the right day for a bike ride - a stiff easterly breeze but increasingly clear skies and reasonable temperatures.  We'd decided on Otley "the lumpy way" as this offers a couple of stiff climbs and a visit to Dunnie's caff.

I seemed to spend far more time out of the saddle on the climb up Halton Heights, but suddenly became aware that I was alone.  Normally I have the sight of Herb's arse disappearing into the distance, but it became clear that I had somehow left him behind - odd, as since the early summer I've been the one getting dropped on the climbs.  By the time I got up to the top and dropped down the other side he was quite a way back, having suffered riding into the wind.

We couldn't decide if I'd gone up the climb quickly of whether he was having a bad day, but either way it seemed I was feeling better on the day, which makes a nice change if nothing else.  Having looked at a couple of other ascents of this climb, we weren't going much quicker than normal, so maybe it was Herb's legs having a bad day - whatever, I was going to make hay!

He speeded up quite a bit on the ride down Wharfedale and was alongside most of the way up Langbar (with me out of the saddle again), but dropped back on the final section.  2-0 to me!

We decided against inflicting further punishment on ourselves by not bothering with the Askwith moor road, so arrived a Dunnie's with 18m on the clock.  A "double" sausage sandwich (which on reflection isn't as good as the "single with egg" and a brew later we were on our way, having tired somewhat of a series of large noisy motorbikes with large noisy men on them coming and going.

The ride home was fairly sedate and enjoyable (apart from a spectacularly stupid overtake from some woman in a Freelander who seemed unsure whether to nearly kill us or some pedestrians, so opted for both), and we got home with 35 miles done at an average of just over 15mph.

Possibly my Cannondale's last trip out this year, unless the roads are salt-free for either of the upcoming winter sportives.