Rain what rain?
Oh you’re gonna get wet, so wet, they said, well a leetle bit of rain doesn’t hurt does it, skin is waterproof and so is the gear. The familiar phrases, “I won’t ride in the rain or I don’t mind riding in the rain a bit but I won’t start a ride in it” were noted.
Although some of the team had got a bit wet travelling to Squires it wasn’t actually raining when the intrepid team of 10 set off a bit later than usual as Chris was promised we wouldn't start without him, he was in the committee meeting that morning.
After all this was the inaugural ride of 2023!
Thanks to Alan Broom for taking the setting off piccies!
Don't tell me this is a piccy of our leader leading from the rear!
So we did set off right out of Squires left down St John’s Lane (yawn, same olds) and through Tadcaster, down Wighill Lane to Rudgate, skirting Tockwith along to Cowthorpe then hanging a right up to Little Ribston and onto the B1614 that runs up to Knaresborough. All nice relaxing sweeping
roads promoting a good pace :-)
Riding up to Farnham, Copgrove and Burton Leonard we briefly joined the A61 and then off towards Markington. During the ride the Sun (yes Sun!) which of course is hanging pretty low at this time of the year, had been giving us the odd problem as the bends swung us into its sphere but the part to, through and out of Markington was actually a bit of nightmare as we were travelling pretty much due West. As the roads there are wiggly delights with many elevation changes you can just imagine it I’m sure :-(
Anyway we slid right down to Ripley and into the courtyard area in front of the castle to grab a drinkie etc. which we consumed outside; yup you guessed it still no rain all the way :-) Also we completely failed to get a Team piccy, DOH.
Now then the next bit of the route including squiggling away up to Risplith and down that absolutely brill road to Ripon, bend after bend some challenging but all just delightful, seems to have completely disappeared from the new SatNav Garmin XT, grrr, yes it is better than the old Zumo 660 in many ways but getting the data saved in it and then retrieving it is still a nightmare, to me anyway!
And something weird happened to the planned route out of Ripon so in Bluetooth communication with Chris O we agreed the second part across to Boroughbridge was the best way to go given the time of day.
I know that apart from the old rule of T5 was a ‘mandatory’ U-turn there was another that said ’If you go wrong when leading a ride, don’t tell anybody cos how would they know’ but I do think I should own up that the first part of this ride was one I recycled from one of Chris’s.
Anyway conscience cleared, we headed over to Thornton Bridge, a good enough road in itself and up one of the Favs to Asenby, through Topcliffe onto the A168 briefly and back down to Thirsk and the garden centre near to Sowerby for a spot of Lunch and this time we did manage to get a team piccy with the help of a charming member of the loverly staff there. Good grub, possibly a bit pricier than Cedric would tolerate, but it did for us ;-)
A good day we all agreed and do you know there was nary a drop of rain the whole time!!
Thanks to Chris H who steered us at the back as you might say.
Here are the routes, mostly.
Tootle pip
Pete
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