Actually, the title of this entry is to make myself feel better about the fact I'm desperate to get back on my feet, and get inexplicably angry with anyone I see out for a run! However - we should be grateful for what we have, and what I have is the good fortune to live in an amazing place to do bikey and runny things. As runny things are off the agenda for another week (pleeeeease only another week!) I did another bikey thing today. Angry and the Gym-Bunny were absent, but Wood trecked over to Embsayville and l'Herb managed an afternoon out of his busy mothers' day schedule.
We set off, as one usually does, over Halton Heights, which gets the blood pumping right from the start and headed via Appletreewick and Hebden to Grassington. There were signs of a stiffish westerly blowing, and with the route we had planned there was going to be some tough conditions. Nevertheless the sun was out and the roads were quiet, and the Dales looked stunning with patches of snow still in evidence higher up.
Sure enough as we turned up Littondale the wind hit us full in the face and it became a real effort to keep our speed up. As I'm still using these rides as a replacement for running I worked hard to keep going and found myself out on my own a few times. Herb was suffering with his back quite badly, and wasn't able to do his usual stint at the front - still, from looking at my HR stats I'll have done myself some good.
We turned left in Arncliffe to climb over to Malham, a climb I've not ridden for a few years and not at all since I got a bit fitter - I remember it as an absolute monster when ridden on a triple, so doing battle with a compact double would be interesting.
In the event it wasn't all that savage, but it does keep at you, with a longer steep section than many Dales climbs. I took the opportunity to grab a rest and photo at the top of the steepest bit!
These pictures probably don't quite capture how steep it felt, but they do show what a spectacularly beautiful place Littondale is - we're very blessed to be able to set off from our front door and cycle in a place like this.
About half way up the climb the road drops ridiculously steeply to a farm and then climbs again more gently for about three miles to eventually come out at the top of Malham Moor. We then descended into Malham via the cove road, and as usual my thoughts went back to the hilarious sight of Vic sliding underneath a five-bar gate as he overcooked the sharp left-hander half way down. We all made it down unscathed and grabbed a brew before the wind helped us on the way across to Rylstone.
A blast back down the Grassington road and a nip down Brackenley Lane saw us home with 40m under our wheels in a very respectable average of 14mph - something around 3,700' of ascent.
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