Well my two day, 150 mile weekend tour of West Yorkshire ended Saturday night with me on a neighbours doorstep, covered from head to foot in mud and my bike in bits!
It all started well, although an hour later than planned and our first 40 miles o'er hill and dale was challenging due to strong westerly winds but otherwise fun with fab weather and stunning views.
Things started to go downhill (unfortunately not literally) when we tryed to cross the West Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Now all the publicity for this route assures you that it is suitable for road bikes. Not this road bike! The roads become a bridleway and we crawled through a 2-3 mile mud bath. When we finally reached the other end mud had forced itself in to every part of my bike and my gears were refusing to change.
Refusing to be downhearted we soldiered on cycling through every puddle on route in attempt to clean the bikes. The wind continued to challenge progress and much later than planned we arrived in Marsden.
Now i should have stopped for the day here. I was totally exhausted and ready for a break. But the elevation profile on leaflet for the route implied that after one hard climb out of Marsden it was mainly downhill to Mytholmroyd. "I can do that – 25 miles downhill. No problem". Hmm.
Having climbed out of Marsden we hit the rain. And boy did it rain. We struggled slowly on into a head-on downpour. Finally our route turned North and we left the worst of the wind behind. Totally exhausted i crawled up every hill promising myself that this would be the last one and soon the descent would arrive. It didn't, we climbed hill after hill and the rain kept coming. Eventually our route began to take a down turn and here came the final straw. Our brakes failed! The Sculpture park mud and the incesant rain had worn away the back brakes and made front and back totally ineffective. We began to walk and decide to ignore the route and head for the orange glow in the valley below.
7.30 pm in the dark and the rain we arrived in Sowerby Bridge. Fell in to the nearest takeaway and then caught the next train to our respective homes. Me having left my car and house keys at the beginning of the ride!
Some sobering lessons in my plans to cycle the end to end.
And if you're reading this post because you are considering the West Yorks route. It is stunning. I particularly enjoyed the stretch between Denby Dale and Marsden where the roads were high and the views breath taking (or was that the hills). If you're an on road cyclist think twice about the off road bits. You also need to be well prepared for route finding as the sign posts disappear regularly. We navigated successfully using my new GPS – more about that later.
Technorati tag: West Yorkshire Cycle Route
Posted by twowheels 
Two Wheels Good 
A different perspective
March 1, 2006Cycling home tired and bad tempered last night I was getting very irritated by the students who walk down the middle of road on campus. Later in a cycle lane there were more pedestrians blocking my route. Yet i know that if i was walking the same routes, chatting to a friend or colleague, i would quickly become oblivious to other road users. This got me thinking about how challenging it is to hang on to different perspectives. I am a cyclist, a pedestrian and a driver at different times in my daily life but quickly forget any perspective other than the one i am currently occupying.
If this is so hard, how much harder must it be to remember to pay attention to the perspectives of people who have experiences we have never shared. This both depresses me and makes it easier to forgive people (including myself) who seem so thoughtless.