Hot & Hilly!

Cor, what a scorcher today. Don't know what the temperature has been but it must have been in the high 20's at least. Sunny all day too. Well, that's a perfect excuse to do some miles in Espana mode.

At Lindley Wood before the big climb

To cut a long story short I put all the bags on and set off to go out through Pool towards Pately Bridge. There is a good climb across the Washburn Valley up from Lindley Wood. From there around to Knaresboro, Wetherby and then home. It clocked 50.08 miles and I reckon I've guzzled about 5 litres of liquid during the ride.

The road climbing away from Lindley Wood is in the region of 20/25% for about half a mile before it drops to just plain steep. Being hot I got rid of the crash hat for the climb as it's heat building up that causes climbing problems more often than not. I dropped down to tractor gear and down to 3 and then 2 at the back to go steady away. Coped well with the climb despite the heat. Towards the top there is a cyclist rocketing down the other side of the road, and said cyclist turns out to be my old mate Mr Mee. So it's a stop and a chinwag to catch up. Then off again to the top. According to bikehike.co.uk the distance from bottom to top is 1.2 miles with a height gain of about 570 feet. That's near enough Pyrenean for me, except the climbs there go on for 20 or so miles!

Random acts of kindness too. I took a break by the riverside at Knaresboro and ended up talking to a couple about cycling (as you do) and they gave me a fiver to put into the sponsorship pot. Big Society is made up of small acts like that.

After sitting at Knaresboro for a while the energy was being baked out of me by the sun. Despite that I opted for the hilly way back from Wetherby through Collingham and East Keswick.

A hard 50 miles but very enjoyable.