home to coast to coast to home

 Breakfast was as amusing as all our other experiences at the hotel. We left with hardly a word spoken from any hotel staff - quite an achievement really. I was apprehensive about today's ride. It was a bit longer, 2, 700  feet of climbing and the weather (sorry to harp on about it) looked horrendous. Still, we were determined to not only do this, but do it positively, however challenging.... The sky was grey with clouds being whisked across it by a brisk wind which I actually quite enjoyed as it cleared my head. The only really big blessing today was the wind. In fact the wind has been our friend almost all the way which, when you consider that we are either travelling west or east, is a remarkable blessing! And so it was that we were whisked to Malton along with the clouds and anything else that wasn't nailed down. Malton was a bit early for a coffee stop at just eight miles but that was the only option for coffee for the first forty miles and standards must be maintained. W...

 We slept well. We woke up to sunshine. Breakfast was laid on for us in the kitchen of this comfortable, well appointed house. We left in good spirits and spent the first few miles dropping down to the river Wensley. Admittedly, the rain did try it on but precipitation was half hearted and we convinced ourselves that it wasn't raining really. We planned to stop for the all-important coffee at the Snape arboretum but arrived impressively quickly and assumed that it wouldn't be open before 10am. We were very happy to be wrong. Things went very smoothly. There was a strong westerly wind and we are travelling due east. Happy days. The only thing to stop the morning being very easy indeed was the road closure. Usually we are delighted by road closures as we invariably get waved on by cheerful road workers. Not this time. What really tried my patience was the palpable delight written across the face of the worker who barred our way. He just laughed and said it would do us good and an...

 Today was hard. Well 'ard. We didn't awake to the sound of rain which gave us the tiniest amount of false hope. We had the hotel breakfast as we did on our previous stay at this hotel but this time, we arrived for it at the positively nonchalant time of 8:30. Today was going to be a shorter ride. Just as well. We joined the main road to Sedburgh with thoughts that we might opt for the minor road running parallel but we seemed to join a train of horse drawn gypsey caravans with their chintsy curtains and tarpaulins stretched over hoops as they have probably been for 1, 000  years. Every now and again, we would 'take one out' which gave us some satisfaction. We arrived at Sedburgh as the rain really started so made a hasty retreat to the 'Gun and Dog' cafe knowing that the next leg of our journey included the biggest climb of the trip. It was to a fairly modest height of about 1, 100  feet but with heavy rain it felt like quite enough of a challenge. When we were...

 Last night, we slept. A lot. It rained a lot too and as we munched through the thoughtfully left muesli and yoghurts, we could hear the rain drumming on the windows. Was it really to be another start in capes? Well, yes. After a few miles, the rain abated and we divested ourselves of all capagerie which felt good. We then attacked the hills that awaited us with gusto. Every now and again, Kate is accustomed to hearing me shout, "Feet!" We then both unclip from our cleats and raise our knees as high as possible. We don't do this for fun (usually), we do it to ford water which covers the span of the road. It means we avoid wet feet. Up to today, this has been successful on  100 % of occasions. I don't know how many times I shouted feet today but there is one occasion today which we will never forget. We rounded a corner to see a torrent of water racing across the road. It was easy to see at a glance that there were no alternative ways across. I shouted feet with perhap...

Anyway       Those of you who have read previous blogs will know that we use capes.  But only in times of dire emergency. This morning, we started our ride to coast to coast in a state of dire emergency. On our Lands End to John O Groats we only put capes on once and that was almost more of a 'photo shoot' opportunity than anything else. On our ride through France we used capes twice. The last time we started a ride in capes was 40 years ago. Then, we were young and foolish and didn't know what we were doing. Now, we are older but, it seems, none the wiser. When we arrived at Otley, we cycled through the market and asked an unsuspecting member of the public to take a photo of us as caped crusaders. Having snapped obligingly, he looked at us and asked, "Do you enjoy this?" Being rather lost for a reply, we beat a hasty retreat to Costa where we alarmed the good people of Otley by dripping, fully caped into their busy coffee shop. We fully expected to be...

 Hello Blog Readers, This is to give you fair warning that I will writing daily blogs again soon, as Kate and I hope to tandem our way from home to the west coast, then the east coast, then home again. Sort of coast to coast twice... The first blog entry will be on the evening of Sunday 26th May. Thank you for reading - should you choose to do so! Stephen