Summer might be here. Or is that just wishful thinking?
Ride 1 – Folly Top in the sunshine
Bright sunshine hitting the Dales was the perfect opportunity to stop driving the desk for a couple of hours and get out riding the bike. It wasn’t all pleasure though, I had the painfully tough task of testing and reviewing Fabric’s cageless water bottles. I set off and leaving the village, caught up with a rider who was out for a midweek spin “while my wife is out shopping.†We talked about routes and problem spots in the area for six or seven miles bimbling our way up to one of the higher villages in the area where, his allotted time nearly up, we parted.
I made my way up toward the watershed with Teesdale. It’s a steady climb through the hilltop village of Woodland to Folly Top and I enjoyed every turn of the pedals. The sharp blue sky and warm breeze felt deserved after so many dank winter miles. Shorts and short sleeves. Summer mits. I’m definitely a fair weather cyclist at heart. Isn’t everyone?
The roads that join on Folly Bank at Egglestone are a real intersection of highways. A rural intersection. Of countryside highways, granted. But a major intersection nonetheless. Choices are Barnard Castle and Bowes, Middleton-in-Teesdale and Alston, Brough and Kirkby Stephen, Stanhope, Bishop Auckland (the way I’d just come) and Staindrop and Darlington. I’d had in mind to have coffee at the cafe in Egglestone Hall Gardens. The cafe there is a favourite with local cyclists and one I’d never visited, but an unusual easterly wind had helped me up the bank a good deal faster than I was expecting, so I turned towards Staindrop.
There’s a long descent from Folly Top to Staindrop and in the glorious sunshine it was no less enjoyable for being into a headwind. In the entire seven or eight miles, I was passed by three vehicles. One of those a tractor. I was getting used to the cageless waterbottles, like you do with clipless pedals when you first get them, I was practicing taking and remounting the bottles as I was pedaling along. Then I hit a bump and one went flying – a rookie error in putting it back on the clips – so had to stop and get it from the roadside.
Coffee and flapjack at The Laurels Cafe in Staindrop – I can heartily recommend it – gave me a quick boost before heading home around Ingleton and Bishop Auckland.
Ride stats – 38.4 miles; 1676 ft; 02h 24m 54s
Ride 2 – The Laurels again
Quick Sunday morning spin to make up my miles for the week. Out round the Bishop bypass and over to Ingleton. Down to Staindrop for coffee and cake at the Laurels. Twice in one week? Who’s counting!! Straight back along the A688 past a resplendent Raby Castle and its herds of grazing fallow deer to West Auckland and up Etherley Bank on the A68 before taking the back route home.
GPS stopped recording outside Raby, so I added the 10 miles home, but no extra climbing hence the odd figures.
Ride stats: 26.7 miles; 622 ft; 01h 04m 32s
Week’s total: 65.1 miles; 2,298 ft; 03h 29m 26s