Fat Lad Rides Again

And on it goes …

Pete led us down the side of the hotel gliding over all the obstacles the trail could offer. Wizzing past the few walkers on this side of the park fence with cheery “hellos”, we soon made our way onto the main road, and onwards past the barking giddiness of the National Canine Defence League shelter. With a short stop for another mechanical involving Dave’s front wheel, Amy opened a sachet of energy gel: “It’s tastes horrible and it’s got the texture of vomit” was the opinion and with those soothing sentiments of rider fuel out of the way, it was time to weave our way in and out of the multitude of dog walkers.

With the terrain becoming more forgiving we were starting to make up the miles and soon passed the set of everyone’s favourite rural intrigue and drama; Emmerdale. Despite never watching it or having any plans to watch it, Amy was suitably impressed and I took a picture of us all hanging around all the same. Perhaps she’s easily pleased…. I couldn’t possibly comment…

Moving on we soon came to a short switch-backed section of singletrack at the top Pete foretold: “Enjoy it, you’re going to pay for it later!” Following everyone else I crashed down another belting descent enjoying every precious second of motion. We fired down a long path into the Harewood estate and after a brief climb we all stopped while I took a picture of Seamus’ family:

Onwards and upwards we climbed past the Harewood workshop area and through a rather nifty automatic gate. With Pete’s words ringing in our ears we started up an awful tarmac climb to exit the estate, granny-ringing it to the top we all stopped for a breather drinking in the view. Grabbing hold (metaphorically speaking of course) of a passer by I asked them as nicely as I could manage between gasping for air to take a picture of us:

We were soon out of the estate and onto the road for our next dirt jaunt. Pedalling steadily along the tarmac a roadie shot past us at warp nine and there was a few glib comments involving the swapping of bikes. Before serious consideration could be taken we were on the path to the farm.
Concealing myself as best as I could from the roaring traffic, I disappeared into the bushes to empty my bladder while some of the others wolfed down energy bars and the like.

Sheepishly making our way through the farmyard, despite Pete’s reassurances that there was a path through, we opened the gates before the descent. After closing the last gate a cow blocked Pete’s path and after telling the “Stupid beast” to shift it soon did. The descent was an insane mixture of gloop, broken ground and cow shit. The ascent was just the same. Lovely.

As the ascent levelled off; the level of gloop, unfortunately, didn’t. As we were spinning through the quagmire Dave’s left crank fell off. Pete realising that he couldn’t hear the constant drone of our moaning wandered back to us. “Some people will do anything for a rest” he added dryly. All mechanicals fixed and with the momentum lost we pushed on to the next ride-able path.

The laughs, chatter and pedalling kept going as we made our way on and passing a golf course with a bar it was all we could do not to stop and get food and a beer. Following the bridleway round I think it could well have been one hill too far for Martin, Amy and I as the only words coming from our mouths would have made navvies blush…

The following descent helped raised the mood a little and by the road edge I shared the only energy from my camelbak with Pete. But that was for food now and all talk was becoming culinary in nature… We followed the road to the trail heading for Eccup Reservoir and soon got there. I can’t speak for the rest but by now my legs had nothing left at all. Struggling, I think the pride element helped me past the groups of people there. Back on the tarmac I got a second wind and my cadence improved dramatically. By now we were all on familiar ground and the end was in sight but still a way to pedal, Pete led all the way back and the subject never left food for long.

Back into the woods and the technical stuff was even more challenging with no energy to call on. Back to the first section we all found the energy to manual off the steps however.

At the narrow bridges that had seen the beginning of our ride we walked our steeds past an older couple and with a mid-west fine American accent the gent said “ that’s a fine name for a bicycle club, Bad Brains… but I’m glad I’m not doing your laundry!”

While the rest of us struggled back to the car Piston Pete stilled had the energy and will to play around the ups and downs.

When Pete joined us at the car park we were all astounded at the time. Setting off at 9am we’d finished at half past two in the afternoon. It had been a real epic for the pootle crew in every sense of the word and from our experiences we’d discovered two rides as consequence.

With very tired legs but very wide smiles it was going to be tough explaining this to anyone who hadn’t been there….

Fat Lad