First, apologies for submitting this so late, problems with my phone not talking to my computer plus much going on this week.
Thanks for the ride
@ColinJ , and another thank you to
@kiwi-Sal for putting us up, or should that be putting up with us. The 15 mile ride to the start from yours was a nice warm up and gave us time to visit The Fell bike shop in Whalley where dr_pink's new TT bike is being readied. It was good to see some familiar faces from past rides, the downside being we could not all ride together.
I tried to make life as difficult as I could for myself by stopping at the roadside to get some pics of following groups, some on The Trough to capture some gurning on the steep bit, then pushing hard to catch back up with the front group again. I'm not sure how many photos I can upload on a thread these days but here goes, if necessary I will do another post to get them all in.
After only a few miles
Looking back down The Trough
Rob, who we had ridden with a few weeks earlier on Cambridge CC's 75 mile reliability ride, small world!
@oldfatfool followed by
@kiwi-Sal
Little and large
We came across this little guy out with his dad, he only looked about 7, this was going uphill into the wind, I reckon he did well to keep going weighing so little, the wind must have been a killer. They breed 'em tough in these parts.
GPS had done it's usual trick and tried to pull the wool over our eyes
We got back to Whalley at just after 3.30 with 78.23 miles done, if the GPS had worked we would have done 3 miles less and got back 12 mins earlier. After once more drooling over more bikes in The Fell we got some map directions for the ride back to Kiwi-Sal's, this time taking a more direct route which began with a 2.5 mile climb! It continued to be the hilliest route you could wish for - or not.
Back at Sal's after a quick shower, cup of tea and a flapjack, [@SteveH , I never did get through that water bottle] we drove back to
Rutland.
The next day it was out as usual for 40 miles in the hills. Bonkers or what
.