Today’s route was suggested by Pugwash taking the Knights out to Huggate then Market Weighton for a cafe stop before returning home. “How far are going?” wailed Chris “I want to do around 50 miles”. An arbitrary distance had not sprung to mind, so to avoid him throwing his “toys out of the pram” I carefully created a route matching his criteria. Unfortunately when allocating the groups I somehow managed to leave his name off the list. Oops! No offence intended.
We gathered at Market Cross at our normal time of 0930. “Are we all here now?” asked Pugwash. “We’re still missing Michael” came the reply. Just at that moment a sheepish🐑 looking Michael appeared heading the wrong way 🚫 down the one-way system. “I thought I’d meet you in North Bar” was his feeble excuse.
It was a cold start but with the sun shining it promised to be a great day for cycling as we set off towards Cherry Burton and Etton and up to Holme-on-the-Wolds. The “lead” group clearly had other things on their mind as they then deviated from the “script” by taking the usual (slightly shorter) road to Middleton-on-the-Wolds instead of heading over to Bracken Lane and looping round North of Lund.
At Huggate we could feel the full force of the wind as we neared the top. The climbing continued for a little longer as we made our way along the Warter road before eventually hitting the downslope into the village. It was only a brief respite as the next climb up Bailey Lane soon followed. As we were huffing and puffing our way to the top, visions of a “tour pro” came to mind as Steve G on his new e-bike went sailing by, hardly breathing and with a cheery grin “Hello boys” he cried out trying not to sound too smug. Kudos to Chris however, as he claimed the best time of the day even beating the e-bike by 1 sec.
At Market Weighton we stopped at the Gelato Lounge for a welcome break and chance to take on some sustenance. The “lead” group were just finishing their refreshments when we arrived. James G and Michael left the group at this point to head home while Neil Z and Chris headed down the Cliffe Road to North Cave with group 2 following shortly after.
Our final “big climb” came at Beverley Road from South Cave (aka “The Clump”). On reaching the top, Chad and Matt peeled off leaving Pugwash, Seadog and Colin to complete the original course. Another great Sunday ride, with a good mixture of hills and flat bits to keep everyone happy. Looks like turbo weather for the next few days, so hopefully we’ll get together again when the temperature picks up once more.