RedBike said:
Pulling that trailer over Catlow Fell to Gisburn forest caused me to come down with a dose of tourettes syndrome. Every time I thought I was at the top I came over the brow of the hill / tunred the bend to see the road went on for another mile or two up hill.
I'm not too sure that sort of ride can be classed as hilly. Perhaps mountainous is the polite way of putting it, although I can think of plenty of other 'terms'.
I've only ridden that road once before, with a much fitter mate. He got way ahead of me on the ascent and waited a while at the top before setting off down the other side when I was still about 100 yards from the summit. When I got up there the views were fantastic, especially east towards the limestone pavement above Settle. Apparently, my mate had thought so too...
When I looked down the hill, I saw that he was having a rest at the side of the road. Well, actually he was sat on the edge of his road, with his head between his knees. His bike was resting against a dry stone wall. What was he playing at? I shot down the hill towards him and saw him stagger to his feet, then start wandering about in circles. There was a big strange-looking red mark on his bald head. No, he wasn't wearing a helmet!
I got a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach and raced down to him. As I got closer, I saw that he was bleeding from a head wound and the front wheel of his bike was severely buckled!
It turned out that when he'd looked over towards Settle, he was so transfixed by the stunning views of the Dales that he'd forgotten to look where he was going. He'd ridden off the road into a ditch and had catapulted himself over the handlebars and head-butted a wall!
He was really lucky not to have seriously injured himself. He'd actually got a very large bump swelling up on top of his head, but the blood was coming from the bridge of his nose where his sunglasses had been smashed into his face by the impact.
We were about 20 miles from his car but fortunately he was able to straighten his wheel enough to make it just about rideable. I washed the blood out of his eyes and we managed to limp back to the car park at Whalley just before it got dark.
The trauma kind of obliterated the details of that ride from my memory. I remember that it was very scenic, but that's all. I'm looking forward to riding there again on the 26th. Hopefully you can make it too! I'm going to do most of my sight-seeing when I'm stationary though.
