Day 10 – To Leeds

The Slaney Hall hotel was fantastic.  Comfy beds, great food, a well stocked bar, and some chairs/sofas in various parts of the hotel that various members of the team found themselves falling asleep in/on.  At breakfast this morning it was a discussion about who found their room the latest and which chair was most comfy.  I was tucked up in bed before 2300 but we are talking about the hard-core who crept in at 0400 and were still at breakfast at 0745.  

We started the day today as we left the day yesterday.  The hill on which we turned right into the hotel, as we were half way up, we now turned right back onto as we left the hotel.  What a way to sting the legs first thing in the morning.  The hills continued for about 30 miles and as we crossed the river Derwent, Leo managed to see 90 kph on his Garmin before the steepness of the rise on the other side dropped it back to about 10kph.  We had a couple of appointments today, but the first unscheduled stop was at an outdoor shop where we met Britains tallest man.  He made Maggy look a bit normal and Nigel looked positively small next to him.   On the way to the first appointment, a mile or so later, we were joined by some of Darlington’s youth cyclists, whom we had come to meet,  and they escorted us to  a cafe/meeting point for youngsters in Darlington where  we met a group of youths who had cycled the end to end (John O Groats to Landsend) and who now were cycling with a group of younger cyclists who were training for an end to end assault next year.  A chance for us to refill bottles and munch a sani or two (Marmite & Parmesan is the new Ham & Cheese – don’t you know?) and we were ready to roll on.

Back on the road and we headed towards Charlton Minions (apologies for the spelling) near Thirsk to visit the most fantastic activity centre.  A lake for canoeing, Archery, wire/rope walking across water, Segway riding and a Zip wire.  Lunch today was bacon rolls  and a small bowl of pasta.  Having sampled most of what the activity centre had to off we reluctantly remounted the bikes and set off on the last miles towards Leeds. 

Clyde, or Adam as he is also known has stayed on the extra day today to ride with us and in fairness to him he has ridden a great deal on the front and on the toughest day so far.  However, for a bit of amusement as we neared Leeds this afternoon we decided to wind him up a bit.  On the front with Maggy, Adam was followed by Greg & Leo and then Nigel , TP and Me.  The speed went up & up and Clyde got faster and faster encouraged by his peers to keep the pace going (remember we were behind him and therefore doing 25% less work than him), as he got near to explosion we all took it in turns to do about 10 seconds on the front and then left him in front again.  He lasted about another 15 seconds before he went backwards through the pack. Adam, if you are reading this, you are a great sport and a fantastic windbreak.

 A short detour to save a couple of miles as we neared Leeds proved to be another succession of hills and back-roads but eventually the purple of the Premier Inn, a welcome sight, appeared on our left. 

We met the guys from O2 who will be riding with us for the next two days and decided on an Italian restaurant for dinner.  Some of these guys can talk the cycling talk, tomorrow we will find out if they can ride it too.

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• August 8, 2010
• BY Ian Williams
• IN