Ride 063.

Date:   6th December 2005            Distance: 15.75 miles

In some kind of Karmic realignment, God paid us back for defying the weather forecast on TTB062 and sent his rain demons to dog us for the day. It's not often a ride of such brevity could be so cold, wet and generally miserable. The route was pretty much a reversal of last year's Xmas dinner ride but made significantly slower by the cloying mud over Whorlton Moor. When we weren't being deluged from above, we were riding through puddles the size of small tarns; colder than an Eskimo's fishing hole and so numerous we gave up trying to avoid them.

It wasn't all bad, I was in charge of entertainment today, falling off more than the odd time for the amusement of my companions. Descending from Stoney Wickes to Scugdale Hall was excellent and a change from pushing up the track as we normally do. Oz's chain suck problems held us back a little, at one point his chain rings had to come off to free a badly jammed chain - all caused by mud jamming up his jockey wheels. Brake pads were being ground down so fast we reckoned it must have been costing about 20p for every pull of the brake lever.

Lordstones couldn't come fast enough and it wasn't long before we were dripping muddy water all over the floor and suffering hot aches as blood returned to our frozen extremities. Once we were on the outside of coffee and cake, things didn't seem so bad, the grinding  mud and the bitter wind already fading from memory as we planned another ride for later in the week.

 Height Profile: (click to enlarge)

Back To Rides page