That was just awesome!
Myself, LG and Deano set out in the light rain to go and do a little loop to make us feel like we had earned our beer.
Little did we know how much we would have to earn that beer!
The back lane from Warlaby to Ainderby Steeple was interesting, a mix of mud and ice, some of the ice having a nice layer of water over the top. Looking like Bambi the first time on the frozen pond was the order of the day, bikes, legs etc seemingly going in all directions, but nobody, thankfully, falling off or over.
The road through Ainderby was clear, but the road down to Thrintoft deteriorated, then cleared. At Thrintoft we looked at the pub (The New Inn) which has been the object of a fair few evening rides, to see it was completely in darkness, hope they haven't gone under and were just having a night off.
Onwards and upwards to Shark Lane. The half-frozen puddle at the mouth of the lane should have warned us. We tried walking a short way up the lane, only to see that it was a sheet of ice as far as the eye could see. One of us, who shall remain nameless, was on a bike WITHOUT winter tyres, so we decided that discretion was most definitely the better part of valour and turned around to follow the 684 back into NTR. I lead LG and Deano through a maze of houses to a short shared use path that cuts out a couple of short horrible bits of road. We arrived at the pub at 19:55. I asked barmaid if they were still doing food, to which the reply was "yes, until 8!". Quick, get our orders in!
Beer was drunk, food consumed (well mostly, CL ordered a mushroom quiche which turned out to be ham and mushroom, not much use for a veggie!) and, at about 21:45 or so our goodbyes were said and we all headed off our seperate ways.
A grand night out it was, my legs really ache today due to the extra effort of keeping upright on ice.
I'd do it all again.
