As I may not get a chance tomorrow

So the week continues to be dominated by the weather but I’m determined to make the best of it.

Thursday for example, started quite damp, certainly an indoor day but by mid morning I decided to risk setting off for a decent ride. I threaded my way through south Sheffield to get to Ringinglow, the mizzle never completely giving up. It got worse, as I climbed further towards Stanage I was up into the clouds but once over the top into the Hope valley it did brighten and dry up some.

It was only as I paused for a photo at the Stanage car park that I realised my phone had decided not to record the ride so far, grrr! That sorted I continued towards Dennis Knoll and on to Ladybower village before using the back lane along to Hope.

I had a plan in mind , I turned onto the Edale road and started the ride up to the village that marks the southern end of the Pennine Way walking route. I stopped for a cuppa at the Pennypot cafe, scarfing my sandwiches under the gaze of a hopeful jackdaw.

The return leg had the bulk of the days climbing pencilled in but at least the wind should be helpful on two of them. the first was out of Edale via Mam Nick, a 200+m climb with ramps over 25%, it wasn’t easy but the winds help was appreciated.

Next it was down Winnats Pass to Castleton to start the second climb up to Hucklow. Due to quarrying the road now has a huge loop that it didn’t have when I first used this road which adds a lot of quite steep, over 10% v CV limping and today that was into the stiff wind too. But I made the top and enjoyed the rolling road up to Great Hucklow.

Through Foolow then Eyam before following the now bike only old road to Grindleford for the last big climb of the day. The first ramp is a draggy biit of @ 10% after which it’s mostly a steady even 5 to 8% up to Fox House. Rather than continue directly over the top to drop into Sheffield and add an extra biggish climb to my destination I turned right to cross Totley Moor to reach Owler Bsr and the fast, mostly downhill route back to my accommodation.

The recorded distance was 62 km with almost 1300m of up, a bit of giggery pokery gave me the numbers for the missing bit, 18km and over 400m, I’ll let you do the sums. Yep, a lot of climbing and I wasn’t even trying.

Friday I was making my way up to Leeds to se the kids. The day was quite grey but dry and the wind in a helpful direction so quite pleasant as I took a route avoiding the big towns and most of the traffic. 800m of up and @ 76km distance with a stop at Temple Newsom for my sandwiches.

Today is wet and not looking to improve until the morning, I will have a short walk later.

So there we are, I travel back to Brizzle on Tuesday after a day riding with the GS and a return ride to Sheffield on Monday.

I think the trip has been inspirational, hopefully I’ll be rattling the keyboard when I get back.

That’s it for today, thanks for reading,
Tschussie,
Madeline Anafrid