Another dirty weekend away – this time North Yorkshire
Arrived in wet and windy weather to the Bunk House with high excitement for the weekend riding after having so much fun in South Wales a couple of weekends ago
Bunking down with another couple and 2 single girls, for some reason another bloke in our group was instructed to share our room, and he snored!!!! One of the girls not a happy bunny because he kept her awake and she kept telling him off during the night which woke me up……..
Up bright and early and the girls group hit the road for brekkie at the café at 8am. 5 girls and a couple of blokes to lead and tail end the ride. One of the girls had problems before the off with her bike so her hubby tagged along with us, which was just as well as her bike didn’t like the water crossing and kept cutting out
We had rain, sleet, and hale and by god it was cold, by the time we stopped for a break at lunchtime, I had to take my boots off to pour the water collect out.
I thought South Wales had plenty of water to ride through, but North Yorkshire has much more
Lot of road riding between the lanes, after lunch we did Red Lane – sounded good to me
But how wrong can a girl be. It is miles and miles of one long rut. Started off well with the rut be deep but full of rocks, then got muddy but not so deep, then got shallow and very slippy and as I hadn’t fallen off all day my turn had arrived. Being 3rd in line of our group of 8 I showed all those behind me how to fly, off your bike down the bank and head first into the ditch about 8ft below. I landed with a thud onto a rock and took a chunk out of my helmet
Couple of the girls came to the rescue and picked my bike up while I crawled up the bank on my hands and knees still seeing stars……..
It didn’t get any better fell off again, but foot under the bike, so I’m hanging down the bank unable to pick myself up and break free of the bike, again the girls came to my rescue, my 3rd fall not as bad as I managed to drop the bike but ended up sat on top of it
The lass (Yorkshire term) in front got stuck in the rut in front of me and when she finally broke free kick up a huge rock, I tried and tried but couldn’t get over it, so gave up got off the bike, which as the rut was so deep managed to stay upright without the aid of the sidestand, the good girl behind me did the same and between us we picked the rock out of the water filled rut to make is easier for us and those following
After that I did manage to stay on the bike but got stuck time after time coming off the track / rut into the heather and on several occasions needed the help of our trusty blokes to me back on track and going again
It’s the hardest thing I have ever done and when I finally got to the end our leader was waiting with congratulation saying grown men have been in tears (little did he know that I was filling up) later found out that lots of the blokes won’t do that lane and I fully understand why, but we girls all did it to the end, most of us fell off several times and the middle section of us couldn’t be helped by the blokes because they couldn’t get to us.
Of course Tim being in the hard and fast group loves it
After that we had had enough just as well we only had another couple of lanes to do before the long ride back to the bunk house to meet up with the other 2 groups warm up, shower and head next door to the pub for food drink and a debrief
We all slept well last night
Only had one opportunity to take photos (we didn’t stop other than for a drink at lunchtime)
This is the girls group and one of the boys group caught us up before we went on our separate ways again
