Nearly two weeks since my last ride - shameful I know.
Anyhow, a metric century was planned for today, but one of the other riders I was heading out with had another commitment crop up meaning he'd be pushed for time, so we cut it short to an imperial half.
Would you believe we started up Coal Road?
Then Skeltons Lane and the long descent into Thorner, before tackling Church Hill to climb back out of the village and on past Bramham Park, through Wothersome Dip when the descent is always fun and the climb back out less so.
Down towards Bramham, crossing the A1(M) bridge and dropping into the village, where for some silly reason I'd decided to route the climb out up the Col de Town Hill, then tackled the Windmill downhill heading for Clifford. Dow the hill in the village, taking the last turning for Boston Spa, where a short wiggle on main Street saw us turn onto Bridge Street and drop down the the bridge over the River Wharfe and climb back up the other side into Thorpe Arch.
Right onto Long Causeway and up past the prison to Walton, then through the countryside using part of the York-Leeds-York Sportive route to Wighill, Healaugh and Askham Richard, before another right saw us drop down to Bilborough and up the bridge over the A64 dropping down to Colton.
This continues to drop steadily down hill to Appleton Roebuck then on to Acaster Malbis where we found the road blocked by a boat being moved from storage to the marina
We might have gone on the path here to get past....
Up the incredibly narrow access onto the Solar Cycle Way (NCN 65?) to use the bridge over the Ouse and down the other side into Naburn and on through Stillingfleet setting a blistering pace (for me
) before turning for Cawood.
Over the swing bridge and right at the lights heading for sustenance at Mrs B's Lakeside Café, where we stopped for bacon butties and coffee
Refreshed and back on the bikes, it was on through Ryther and onto Moor Lane, then Brackenhill Lane around Leeds East Airport and into Church Fenton.
The long straight to Barkston Ash follows, then a right left wiggle onto Headwell Lane and the rise and fall into Saxton, before the ascent of Coldhill Lane and dropping down onto Copley Lane and the run to Lotherton Gates.
From there it's nearly all downhill to Aberford, before the lumpiness of Cattle lane brings you to the climb through Barwick, into Scholes and the drop down Leeds Road, before hitting local roads for the last mile.
52.45 miles (84.41km) in
3h 55m at an average of
13.4 mph with
1,820ft climbed.
Quite happy with that - it's a fairly flat route, but had enough ups to keep us honest and it made a nice change to get out in a group as my rides are normally solo. It's another ride logged for the half century challenge and my longest ride of the year to date, which is good even if it does show that I need to step things up a bit.
And to end, the map:
). 43 smiles and despite the damp 4cast not a drop of rain interrupted our fun.
was finally on . Out the door at 0730 for a few extra miles before the start to hit today's target of 100 km for Marches challenge ride. Bit chilly first thing layered up with a gillet .Anstey ,Ratby ,Kirby Muxloe ,Congerstone ,Market Bosworth a bit early so a couple of loops around the town. Got to Meeting point early to find 
