Hurrah! For the fourth weekend in a row I have managed to get out and do some miles in the company of a YACFer. Having arranged to meet Mr Nesbitt at Garforth train station (thus giving him an opportunity to get a few miles in before having to slow down to Crinkly-speed, and to get some of those inconvenient lumpy bits that he likes so much done before he met me) I shocked myself somewhat by getting to the station in York positively early! I went to buy a ticket, and splashed out the extra 10p to get a day return rather than a single just on the off-chance that I'd done something daft like getting the day wrong. I did consider getting a proper return, so that I could donate the return leg to Mr N in case he fancied hopping on a train out to York for a ride at some point in the next few weeks - until I discovered that whilst a single is 11 quid, an open return is apparently £76! I also managed to get a mild telling off from the ticket office chap for taking my bike in with me, since I apparently should have left it outside on the (not actually attached to anything permanent) bike rack. I smiled sweetly, apologised in true sweet little middle-class girl fashion, and got away with a 'please remember next time'.
Checking the clock and realising I had a whole ten minute before my train left from a conveniently close no-lifts-or-stairs-required platform, I went and bought some coffee and a pastry for my breakfast. Off to platform one, where the Northern rail service was waiting with a completely empty bike area. 25 minutes later and we arrived at Garforth, where passengers waiting to get off and on all waited and left me a plenty of space for getting Valencia through the door and the train guard gave me a cheery goodbye as I disembarked. I do like it when these things are straightforward. Mr Nesbitt and the shiny blue Dolan was waiting for me on the platform and we headed off under grey but dry skies, with a bit of Big Road and the odd Scary Big Roundabout (but it was fine, because there wasn't a lot of traffic around) in the direction of Lotherton Hall where we found the comfy sofas in the cafe, had a cup of coffee and Mr Nesbitt showed me the approximate plan for the day on a map - although he did give me the option of not knowing and it all being a magical mystery tour if I preferred.
Suitably caffeinated we headed back out, back towards Aberford and then onwards in the direction of Bramham with just the one Scary Big Roundabout (and I am so much braver about those than I used to be) and making use of a deliciously smooth-surfaced, wide and astonishingly quiet road alongside the A1(M) which included a number of most enjoyable 'wheeeeeee' down the (nice, straight and not even remotely alarmingly steep) hill moments. Somewhere in the vicinity of Bramham we left the road for a cycle track which was both smooth and sensible. It did have, in places, bits of the road marking still visible from when it was a road - generally either a 'SL' or an 'OW'. I have no idea why they felt the need to chop what was a presumably a perfectly useable road in half, dig up half of the width and plant grass on it in order to turn it into a cycle path, mind. There was the odd dog walker along the way but they all kept the hounds under control, and most had a fairly cheerful 'good morning' for us too. We followed the cycle path sign off to the right onto a short but rather more 'interesting' bit of track, surfaced with mud, pebbles and pot holes. A NSTN rating of approximately 'squeal', I reckon - certainly not enough to warrant Grumpy_Ranting or Sweary_Words anyway, although it could possibly have led to both had it been soggier. We soon were back on tarmac, on a lane that seemed to only be used by cyclists, walkers and horses and the group of horses that we saw seemed to be of the steady and calm sort - I'm always a bit twitchy about equine encounters. Back onto quiet roads, possibly via Boston Spa (I'm not entirely sure!) and certainly via the rather lovely bridge at Thorpe Arch, which I'm reasonably confident is one that I met for the first time last week. I believe that it was somewhere around here, although I can't remember exactly where, that I spotted a familiar looking Green Thorn Rohloff-equipped tandem - the same one that Arch, Aidan and I saw last week when we stopped in at the cafe on the trading estate. This turned out to be the first of two tandems spotted along the way and there were a fair old plenty of cyclists out and about over the course of the day ranging from a few industrious looking speedy groups to pootling families with wobbly small people.
We hopped onto the relatively busy Wetherby road for a short stretch before turning off onto yet another gloriously quiet and smooth road, heading towards Cattal - and at a crossroads I had an 'I actually know where I am!' moment, as we joined part of the route that the Cub and I took to Barrow. No stopping for blackberry picking this time though! Past Cattal station, which always makes me smile since it's where we bought the boy's islabike and where the Cub and I once got a very interesting lesson in points and signalling and over the main road onto the hill up to Whixley. Well, it's a hill by my standards anyway.... and is also the location where the Cub finally acknowledged that maybe he needed to try this 'gears' malarkey out. Then off onto unfamiliar lanes again towards Aldwark, where we were cheerfully waved over the very pretty toll bridge. I like bridges, even rattly wooden ones that make your fillings rattle.
By this point I was starting to find that, whilst I was comfortably warm, my toes were distinctly chilly and we formed a plan to keep an eye open for either a cup of tea stop or a convenient bench or similar where we could have a bit of a break and possibly indulge in a little of the coffee-bean-topped coffee cake that may just possibly have been lurking in my pannier. An ideal bench presented itself in Tollerton, and my feet appreciated the chance to take off trainers and get the blood flowing properly again. Suitably en-caked we set off once more, towards my home territory. Through Wiggington and Haxby (where I once did a couple of weeks placement at one of the primary schools), over the bone-rattling level crossing and along the very civilised subway under the ring road, thus neatly avoiding a relatively Scary Big Roundabout and we were into New Earswick, where I had a bit of a trip down memory lane as I used to ride out that way regularly when I lived in York the first time around and babysat for a family there. Mr Nesbitt suggested I led the way back to the CrinklyDen, and I opted for going past Yearsley pool then hopping onto the cycle path which, with only a couple of Silly Sustrans gates (I hadn't considered that they would be particularly awkward for a fixed rider before), delivered us to a couple of streets away from the Den. The Dolan got the prime parking spot in the living room since the majority of the bikes were out being played on somewhere. Coffee, beans on toast and MOAR CAKE was produced and Mr Nesbitt made friends with the Crinkly Cats, who were very impressed to have someone around who made a fuss of them.
The rest of the Crinkly Pride returned from their trip to the cinema, resulting in a spot of bike jenga, before Mr Nesbitt collected his somewhat overdue Christmas Pud and got ready to ride off into the impending dusk back west. To be honest, I was more than a little tempted to join him for the return journey (and I already had a ticket that would get me home from Garforth) but I suspect that another 30-ish miles might have been a bit ambitious and it would have been positively mean to expect Mr N to limit himself to chill-inducing CrinklySpeed once the sun had gone down. According to his magic box of mappery, adjusting to take into account the bit he rode before meeting me at the station, we clocked up around 42 miles from Garforth. The moving average of 13-ish mph will be a bit of an exaggeration, since it will include the doubtless rather swifter miles that he did without me, but 40-odd miles with a couple of stops in somewhere between 4 and 4 and a half hours (forgot to look at the clock!) is positively respectable for me!
