Shorter but lumpier

Look at the lumps on that...

Bonus bike ride with l'Herb today - K is in London seeing The Take Thats, so I am on child duty for the weekend.  M, with her astounding social life, disappeared to Harrogate yesterday with one of her mates then stayed over for a sleepover, so it was just me and the Lilster.  We watched Gulliver's Travels (quite funny) and drank pop, and in the middle of it a delightful offer from Mrs l'Herb to have both our kids this morning.  A quick text to Maisie and we were sorted.

Herb arrived about 10, and he'd had an idea about doing something vaguely Pateley.  I wasn't sure if we'd manage that in the alloted two hours, but we headed over Halton Heights and Barden toward App'trick.  We turned right instead of our usual left and rode up the lane towards the Pateley Bridge road - which I've been driving along quite a lot recently as the A59's been shut for repairs.  I was expecting quite a tussle, but it was pretty reasonable, albeit very pretty.

Herb above Appletreewick

We were debating whether it was feasible to get to Pateley, but even though we hit the main road with only about ten miles on the clock, we'd taken about 50 mins to get there.  We decided to turn right at Greenhow, then see where our noses took us.

The road to Greenhow had a couple of cheeky little climbs on it, and we were glad to turn right towards Blubberhouses.  We decided that we didn't have time to get all thew way over to Askwith, although that'd be a good longer ride for sometime, so we tirned right again towards West End.

This had a tough little ascent on it too, and this took us to the right turn that avoids the gnarly bit of the Kex Gill road.

The climb going towards West End

Just before you hit the A59 there's a nice stretch of paved bridleway that desposits you at the top of the descent - but unfortunately the contractors have used the last 400m of it as a dumping ground for waste tarmac:

Waste tarmac - can they do that?

We debated flogging through the long grass to the side, but in the end turned round and rode an extra half mile of horrid A59.  I'm no expert on rights of way, but I'd have thought dumping hundreds of tons of crap on a bridleway has to be against the rules.  I feel a letter coming on...

Anyway, a whizz down the A59, a quick brew in Bolton Abbey and we were soon home, having burned significantly more than our two hour passout but having put nearly 30 miles and 1,000 metres of climbing into our legs.