Woke up this morning to the hammering of rain on the window. Looked out to see monsoon like rain and a river (almost) running down the street.
By the time I was ready to go for a paper the rain had stopped, and by the time I got back home the sun was out.
"Why don't you go out for a ride?" said Mrs ND - like I needed asking twice...
I decided to take the hybrid - given the earlier rain i didn't fancy getting the road bike grotted up, so back into my baggy shorts after yesterdays adventures in Lycra...
Off road and up Wood Lane to Scholes, on road down to the Coronation Tree and then off road again on Bog Lane and Barnbow Lane - passed a fellow cyclist looking at a map at the bottom of the hill (all OK, just deciding which way to go), and up to Manston Lane, where I turned left onto Nanny Goat Lane for a change, where a horse rider who wished me a good ride as she passed. This bridleway heads through the countryside towards Garforth, passing under the M1. Out the other side, past the stables and riding school onto the blacktop down to Barwick Road - bouncing over most of the barely visible speed bumps...good job I hadn't locked the front fork out at this point.
Left again and back over the M1 bridge before crossing Cock Beck and climbing back up to Parlington Lane (NCN R66), where I turned right onto the bridleway and headed to Aberford through the woods. Passed a fair few walkers and dog walkers here, plus a lad on a MTB heading in the opposite direction very slowly, then caught up with a couple of slow moving horse riders who saw me but took an absolute age faffing about before letting me pass
- I just hung back until they'd sorted Dobbin and Hercules out. On through the woods and the 'haunted' tunnel before the run onto Aberford where I stopped for 5 mins and a drink. Two guys on exotic looking machinery and wearing FPK came down the hill from the Lotherton Hall direction - and said hello as they whizzed by.
I returned the way I'd come through the woods, I passed the horse riders from earlier without any fuss this time and then out towards Long Lane. Straight across and down Ellis Lane and the bridleway across the golf course - just off the golf course I passed the lad from earlier with the MTB who was pushing it at this point. When he heard me approaching he jumped back on and started riding again, but waved me through. Left onto Barnbow Lane (again) and this time I went left then right at the top and took the Leeds Country Way up the field and across the railway bridge - I think this might technically be a footpath, but I've seen bikes use it regularly and there are vehicle tracks all the way through the field, which I stuck to, so no harm done. Then back out onto NCN R66 where it crosses the M1 on a bridge and then the run down to Thorpe Park. More horse riders here (4 of them!), so I went onto the road to give them a wide berth (R66 is also a bridleway here), then across the hard standing and up onto Barrowby Lane then Austhorpe Lane for the downhill blast to the bridge over the railway. Down Manston Lane to Pendas Fields, then through there and up to home.
Needless to say after the overnight rain there were a
lot of puddles, but despite being covered in mud I had great fun.
15.95 miles (I know, not paying attention again!) 1h 31m at an average of 10.5mph, plus one PB.
Then once home, time to clean and lube the very muddy bike while Mrs ND was busy baking for a charity bake off at her work tomorrow - we are becoming quite domesticated in our middling years.
I may have sampled some of this baking while fettling the bike - purely for quality control purposes, obviously
The great shame of this is that Leeds Council have plans to build over huge swathes of this route, with a dual carriageway and associated development either side of it, meaning this great green space and productive farmland right on the edge of the city will be lost forever. Don't think for a minute that I'm some kind of NIMBY, but there are a lot of places in the local area that appear more suitable for development first...
) and a Sky ride. Beautiful.
