Date: Saturday 24 May 2008.
Route: Grassington, Conistone, Kettlewell, Hubberholme, Fleet Moss, Hawes, Garsdale Head, The Coal Road, Dent Station, Cowgill, Newby Head, Ribblehead, Horton in Ribblesdale, Stainforth, Halton Gill, Arncliffe, Conistone, Grassington.
Start time: 8.45am
Distance: 70 miles
Climbing: 2,000 metres
Temperature: 10 degrees at start, not much warmer at any time.
Wind: Approx 25mph from the North East.
“How do you fancy riding the northern half of the White Rose Classic route – meeting at Grassington at 8.am?” That was the message from Steve GT, as he and Fraz 167 were planning a Dales ride, and Frazer was keen to sample the delights of Fleet Moss and the Coal Road, never having ridden them before.
I knew more or less what to expect, as it is all familiar territory to me, and I gladly(?) agreed to join in, as I knew I was in need of some more hill training.
The first mistake I made was to believe the weather forecast. A dry day with a maximum temperature of 18 or 19 degrees, it said. They were right about dry, but wrong about the temperature. The display in my car said 8 degrees as I drove through Greenhow, and it had reached a not exactly tropical 10 degrees when I parked up in Grassington. It felt even colder thanks to the keen northeasterly wind that was whistling around my bare kneecaps. Frazer and Steve were sensibly sporting knee-warmers and gilets, but my only concession to the weather was a pair of roubaix arm-warmers. Apart from that, I was dressed for summer.
By the time we set off up the quiet road to Conistone, I was pretty chilled, but I was hoping that the climb of Fleet Moss would warm me up. The wind was quite kind to us as we rode up Wharfedale, being mostly a crosswind. The section after Hubberholme was as beautiful as ever, with the upper reaches of the Wharfe trickling over limestone slabs to keep us company.
You turn away from the river just before Oughtershaw, and then the climb of Fleet Moss gets under way. It’s not an impossible climb by any means, but you certainly know you’ve been climbing by the time you get to the top. The descent towards Hawes is a good place for maximum speed attempts, as it is both steep and straight to start with. It’s not for the faint-hearted, though, as the road is bumpy, and there are sheep loitering by the roadside. On the Etape du Dales two years ago, I got up to 52.4mph on this section, but today I only managed 47.5mph, as the wind was now a headwind.
In Hawes we turned west towards Garsdale, putting the wind behind us again, and we soon reached the Moorcock Inn at Garsdale Head. Just after that we turned off left to climb the Coal Road. This is a tough climb, with a very sharp bit just after Garsdale Station, and then another mile or so of steep climbing until the summit is reached. It struck me that the road surface on the ascent is now much worse than it was two years ago, and this was a factor also on the descent to Dent Station, so it wasn’t really possible to “let rip” at all. After Dent Station the descent is very steep and twisty, so it has to be taken very steadily.
Turning left at the bottom, we began our climb out of Dentdale. The gradient is gentle at first, and the road is scenic, following the river in the valley bottom. However, after not very long you leave the river to pass beneath the railway viaduct, and at this point the gradient kicks up sharply. It then gradually eases off, reaching a plateau where it meets the Hawes to Ingleton road at Newby Head. At this junction we turned right towards Ingleton, and with a 25 mph tailwind the gentle descent to Ribblehead was achieved in record time. Then a left turn down Ribblesdale made the wind a crosswind again, and we made it without incident to the Pen-y-Ghent Café in Horton in Ribblesdale, where we stopped for refreshments.
A pint of tea and a plate of beans on toast went some way towards warming me up, and as we sat in the café, we contemplated the inescapable fact that the next section of the ride from Stainforth to Halton Gill, around the back of Pen-y-Ghent hill, would be into the full force of the wind. It didn’t look as if it was going to be easy, and so it proved. The initial climb out of Stainforth is steep (20%, I think), but the 25mph headwind made it seem much harder. After the first mile or so, the gradient eases off, but it was still like riding through treacle all the way to Halton Gill, as we laboriously pushed on into the wind. The scenery on this section of road is a fine example of the wilder kind of Dales landscape, but I was in no mood to admire it as I clawed my way at my own pace past Pen-y-Ghent and on to Halton Gill. Once there, we re-grouped for the gentle descent down Littondale, through Arncliffe, and then back into Whardedale just north of Kilnsey. We crossed the river at Conistone and retraced the first section of our ride back to the car park in Grassington.
My computer showed that we had ridden the 70 miles at an average road-speed of 14.56 mph. Not exactly quick by some standards, but more or less what I expected, taking the terrain and the wind into account. I hadn’t actually frozen to death, but I would certainly have been more comfortable with some knee covering and a windproof top layer.
