The sat nav had a change of heart here, and rather than sending me down the A64 after York, where I knew there'd be long queues, it offered a chance to go via the A166 even though that was closed at Stamford Bridge, suggesting I'd save fifteen minutes. I'd diverted along here last year, due to heavy traffic, so had an inkling of what to expect, however when we hit a queue of stationary traffic a little later it didn't look great. Nothing was moving for a long while, but when we did eventually get going again we came to the reason why - three way traffic signals at road works with a very narrow (7 feet!) possibly traffic calming measure. Judging by the number of scrapes along the side plenty of drivers couldn't navigate through carefully enough, no wonder traffic wasn't moving!
Once through we made good time to the Wold Top Brewery where I followed the signs for camping through the brewery and onto the camping field. After being kept awake until the ridiculously early hours by inconsiderate campers last year, I headed straight across to the far side of the field to set the tent up. The first thing I noticed when I got out of the car was how chuffing cold it was! A week ago the forecast was for a sunny day with a clear night, perfect for a good sunset. Now it was likely to rain later in the day, indeed the field was damp and there had been heavy rain in North Yorkshire a couple of days beforehand. I'd been debating over choice of clothing for the ride earlier in the week, but it was between short sleeved and long sleeved tops - I'd discarded the idea of thermal bottoms. I was now beginning to regret that decision, as even with my long sleeved jersey and base layer it felt chilly. Ah well, I'd surely warm up on the ride.
A new feature of the event this year was to set the riders off according to expected average speed. Previously I'd held back to set off amongst the last, but as the first group to go were the 12-14mph group we found ourselves in the very first group to set off (I would have loved to make 14mph for the route). After a selfie we set off, Scott nearly riding into the back of me, and after the usual nice downhill out of the brewery we headed west through Wold Newton towards Foxholes, being passed by cars and some of the faster cyclists who'd set off after us. I wondered how many of them realised it was sixty miles and we had a tailwind start.
At Foxholes we crossed the Scarborough road, and the traffic calmed down after this, although there were still groups of faster cyclists coming through. After one such group had gone past, I heard a shout from behind "I'm just going to wheel suck for a while". It was a lady cyclist, so I shouted "No problem" and made sure I kept a reasonable speed so that we didn't drop her. I had to call Scott to slow down a little a couple of times as well, as I knew what the rest of the day would bring and knew we had to keep some energy in reserve for the latter stages. Soon the lady behind pulled out past us and I noticed she had Little Miss Chatterbox on her jersey, and remembered her from previous years! The route climbs gently from Wold Newton to Duggleby, at which point there is a mile long climb. We passed Little Miss Chatterbox on this and at the top enjoyed a good downhill to North Grimston, after which the road continued generally downhill. We were often passed by the faster riders, many of whom had really noisy freewheels. I'm not sure why they made so much noise, as my Shimano freewheels are quiet and my SRAM one only makes a little clicking. I wondered if it was a "look at my expensive bike" audible badge, as it did seem limited to some upper range bikes. Whatever the reason, it would do my head in if I owned one of them!
After another climb and steep downhill to a road junction we passed Kirkham Abbey, crossing a lovely bridge over the River Derwent and beginning a half mile 10% climb. We passed a couple of cyclists on the narrow road, but got stuck behind a couple spread across the road towards the top, after which we turned left on Riders Lane, crossing the York Scarborough railway line for a second time. At the end of the lane we turned left and began our return to the brewery over Howsham Bridge. This marked the start of a five mile stretch which climbed over 700 feet! The gradient varies, but it is hard at the start and even harder three and a half miles later after Leavening. We passed Ryedale Vineyards just before Leavening, and passed the even more tempting Jolly Farmers pub at Leavening too! Despite the effort required, we were rewarded with some wonderfully panoramic views over the Wolds. Eventually we reached the high point of the ride at Aldro and were treated to a lovely three miles descent to the feed stop at Thixendale. I love this section of the ride, the smooth road flowing between steep sided pastures with sheep grazing (though no Highland cattle this year). Too soon we were in the village and pulling into the village hall, thronging with hungry cyclists.
It was a good Yorkshire spread, with Yorkshire tea, ginger parkin and Seabrooks crisps. After replenishing our energy levels we set off again. The usual post cafe stop chill kicked in when we got going again, although Scott had cleverly packed a gilet and popped this on (he still had bare arms though!). We rode along on a rough, occasionally badly pot holed road towards Fimber, where after a short steep climb we were treated with a nice downhill to cross the Beverley Road at a roundabout and begin the climb up to Sledmere. Although a longish climb at two miles, it is a fairly forgiving gradient throughout, and we soon found ourselves passing Sledmere House and Gardens. At Sledmere we turned left following the Yorkshire Wolds Way cycle route. We saw several signs for this on the ride, and I'm due to ride the Yorkshire Wolds Way Cycle Challenge at the end of June, cycling the full length of the route over two days. The road from Sledmere was a good one, being generally downhill for around four miles to Helperthorpe, picking up the road on which we'd ridden outwards.
We retraced our steps back towards Wold Newton for a couple of miles, feeling the wind that had pushed us on the outward leg and which now was wearyingly in our face. Before Butterwick we turned right, for a mile of climbing up to the B1253 where we turned left for a little more climbing before crossing the Scarborough road and passing East Riding Crematorium. On a good day you can see the North Sea from here, needless to say we didn't see anything. We'd felt a couple of spits in the air, but as yet nothing had come of it. A little further on we turned left towards Octon, and at a bus shelter we stopped for an energy gel, and for me to water the weeds. We remounted, and shortly after the spits started coming with more frequency and so I stopped to don my rain jacket. At Thwing we turned north for a cracking descent to Wold Newton. We technically broke the speed limit along this road, fortunately there were no speed cameras to catch us.
At Wold Newton we started the penultimate climb of the day, a mile up towards Fordon at 4 - 8%. There were a few more cyclists around us here, some of them stopping for a rest before the climb, some of whom we overtook. After the summit we dropped carefully into Fordon and turned right on the road leading to the brewery. Scott said at this point to leave him if he stalled on the final climb of the brewery drive, but I told him he'd be fine. We turned into the drive and immediately headed upwards, crested the worst part of the climb and took the last little incline which felt almost like a flat road after the earlier section. Here I pushed on the pedals and sprinted away from Scott to pass through the finish line first - you have to crush the youngsters spirit don't you! We signed in, got our beer and food tokens, looked at the queue for fish and chips and decided to have the beer first!
After a well deserved pint, we went back to the car, fetched our clothes and got showered, then joined the by now shorter food queue and sat with our fish and chips in the spitting rain. Finishing our tea, we had a few more beers and whisky under the covers as the spitting had turned into a very damp drizzle. We didn't bother checking the sunset times as there was absolutely no chance of seeing any kind of sunset.
All in all a pretty good day, followed up by a full English at Redcliffe Farm, then a trip to the Spirit of Yorkshire distillery before returning home, fondly(!) remembering what a ball ache it was driving from Scarborough to York on the A64!
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