A windy blast

We've had a curry and a few beers in the diary for several weeks, so we decided to earn out beer with a few bike miles yesterday afternoon.  I'd originally thought it was just going to be me and The Herb, but in the end there was five of us, with Steve, Bob and Ian Ryder joining us.

Ian is a mountain biker and was on my winter bike - which as he's a good 2" taller than me looked like a TT bike with the saddle racked up.

We set off over Halton Heights with a blustery wind behind us, that brought in a sharp shower as we headed down towards Bolton Abbey and Langbar.  Ian was struggling a bit with my bike - the rear mech seems to be gummed up and the gearing is a lot higher than he's used to, but we managed to keep together with a few pauses.

Langbar was, for me, not as tough as usual, but Ian had a hard time up it, and was looking decidedly cheesed off with life!

We headed down into Ilkley on wet roads, and I had a very near miss coming down the last part of the hill when I went too fast into a corner, braked and locked both wheels.  I could see the rather deep and uneven gutter approaching but somehow managed to remain upright.

We then rode up over Addingham Moorside, with Ian again finding it tough, so we made an executive decision to go back via Bradley instead of the long climb up to Lothersdale, which given the wind direction would have been a toughie.

As we hit the top of the last hill before dropping into Skipton the sun made a welcome reappearance and we dried off nicely before the end.

Just 26 miles at a very moderate average speed, but my legs felt better on the hills than they have for some time, so things seem to be moving in the right direction.  I've even started to get some weight off at last, with 4lbs somehow disappearing in the last 10 days or so.