Friday Night Ride to Tan Hill - Northallerton, July 5th 2013

[SlowCoach]

Well - I'm late to this thread again, as usual... It was a great ride folks. Thanks Dean, and everyone else. I've no photos to put up - I appear to have a greasy thumb print in the middle of every shot I took...

It was good for me to get out on a YACF ride again - it's been a year since I last saw many of you. I'm signing up for next year's Tan Hill run now though. When's the date? I'm assuming that the totally inappropriate Tan Hill weather is being booked again. I've only ever been sunburnt at Tan Hill twice (frostbite is usually the risk up there). Is it a coincidence that both sunburn occasions have coincided with the Tan Hill ride?

[SlowCoach]

This thread just gets better and better!

Wow, is this your bridge (at Whorlton and my favourite bridge in the world)?

My favourite bridge in the world also.

I didn't share the info on the ride, but when we were kids we used to stand on that bridge and wait until a car was coming, then vigorously shake the cables to make the bridge sway alarmingly, and stand aside to watch the expressions of the drivers

Our trick was for 10 of us or so to all stomp across the bridge together in time. You could get quite a ripple flowing along the deck.

[SlowCoach]

Deano reckons its worse than it was in 2011 - I think so too. Now and then I cheated by riding on a grass bit because it really was a bit too rough and skiddy for skinny tyres.

I'd like to try it on 37mm tyres - maybe next year.

The track surface may have been marginally worse, but this time we did have one major advantage - the track was dry and there weren't any puddles. At least you knew how deep and evil any particular pothole was going to be. I did suggest to Phanta that she ought to be memorising the route around the potholes for next time - when the road is awash from side to side, it's useful to know which side you ought to be when to avoid the piranha and the sharks. Somehow, I don't think she believed me. 

[Deano]

No, that would have taken forever!

Actually, I did briefly consider sending Phanta over the Stang instead, but it was just too complicated with different groups and stuff - and the Stang is much, much harder.

Is it even worse than that horrible track?!

That was definitely the least fun bit IMHO, though everyone else seemed not to be bothered. I was paranoid about getting another puncture from all the rocks strewn about, and also worried about holding everyone up. After some words of advice from mrcharly and slowcoach, I did ride most of it (except the really bad bits). Not the worst COR I've done, but the worst on 25mm slicks I think. The descent down past the farm, when it got vaguely tarmac-like again, was fun though!

It's much, much steeper. Do you recall the right turn at Langthwaite signposted Barnard Castle? It's that road.

So you'd have to descend to Langthwaite, climb back up to about the same altitude as Tan Hill (but at >16% gradients, rather than the gentle sweeps of Arkengarthdale), then tackle the switchbacks on the <20% descent through the forest, and either ride along the A66 for a mile or so before coming back to Startforth, or hack along the up-and-down lanes through Scargill and Barningham to Smallways.

Actually, it's fantastic But the extra climbing makes it harder and slower than the gradual descent you get on the route we took.