I must have been a bit stinky last night ! As I put my cycling clothes out by the washing machine my sisters 2 dogs thought they were great and had a good roll about on them....I didn't smell anything and obviously sis and hubby were too polite to comment.
Anyway back to today. It was to be a fairly long ride from Barnard Castle to Great Ayton, I got dropped off back at Bowes Museum - yesterday's pick up point about 10.00.
Chainsaw Carvings at Bowes Museum
No route finding problems today even though a couple of signs had been vandalised after Croft on Tees the route was obvious even for me.
Bridge at Croft on Tees
Stopped for coffee and cake at the Croft Hotel just before the bridge to build up my energy levels.
The route up to Kildale was rolling countryside, relatively flat with short steep pulls of no more than 100m.
Got to Hutton Rudby at 1500 and had a half hour break. A lovely North Yorks village not mentioned in tourist guides.
As it was such a nice day ( the forecast for tomorrow is heavy rain ) and still quite early to finish I decided to continue on past Gt Ayton for another hour or so. I had forgotten how steep the roads are once you get onto the North York Moors, the pull up from Kildale to Commondale was a killer, difficult to push the bike up never mind cycling up. I think my proposed detour back across the middle of the moors is a non starter.... far too many steep climbs including Rosedale Chimney bank which at 1 in 2.5 is one of the steepest roads in the country. I think I'll go around !!! I finally ended up at Castleton and found B&B at the Downe Arms. I used to come here on a Friday evening with my mate Ian many years ago when we used to camp for weekends at his uncles farm in Westerdale, summer or winter, it made no difference. I remember it being a forced march from Castleton railway station to the farm at Westerdale, getting the tent up as quickly as possible and galloping up to the farmhouse to get a lift back to the Downe Arms with George Booth the farmer. It used to be a typical village farmers pub where the farmers used to meet on a Friday evening for a regular domino session and to "chew the fat" ...the farmers version of the WI " Bitch and Stitch". It's been done up at some point in the last 35 years (......hell I feel old). It still has a lot of character though.
I've cycled 88km today, and according to my GPS/heart rate monitor I've burnt 2400 calories so I think I deserve this.
Statistics :
Distance today - 87.98 km - (54.6 miles)
Total Distance - 277.5 km - (172.4 miles)
Height climbed - 707m
Total climbed - 3835m
Average speed - 17.3 km/hr
Maximum Speed - 48.6 km/hr
My longest distance so far on the trip. This makes tomorrow a shorter day which will be good if the weather is very wet as forecast, destination tomorrow is Whitby.
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