cyclinginthesixthdecade

Well, it has been a good week as I managed 124 miles in total.

The week started out fairly well with a beautiful sun rise on Monday.

I just had to stop as the colours of dawn where just wonderful with pinks and yellows and purples. The photo does not do it justice but I tried. We went down to the river.

As you can see there was a stiffish breeze blowing down river but we were happy to ride into it.   Later in the week, we had some heavy  rain which has left large areas of standing water as it just has no where to go as the water table is now very high after the winter rains. It has been officially the mildest and wettest winter apparently.

Friday was a day when I was able to get two rides in and so I had a total of 63 miles at the end of the day. We knew that Saturday was going to be a free to cycle day and the weather forecast was descent for once. I was hoping to get about 50 miles in.

We headed over to Brafferton to start and visited the lovely Rosie in her Cozy Coffee shepherds hut. We were there a few weeks ago and I was happy to repeat the experience of hot chocolate and home made chocolate cake. I like to support her enterprise as she is a one woman band and it is nice to help. After that we cycled through Coatham Munderville and down into Darlington. We walked a short way through the crowded Saturday shoppers. It was obvious just how much difference a bit of spring sunshine makes.

So we cycled up to Blackwell roundabout and took the road to Hurworth Place. Our  idea had been to continue along to Neasham  and then down to Middleton St George and cross the bridge at Dinsdale but a sign told us it was closed. So looking at the map – lucky I had taken it – we decided to cross the bridge into  Croft and then along the Northallerton Road . It was very busy and there was a bit of spring madness in the air. Drivers zoomed past us without giving much room at all. So we went into Dinsdale village and rejoined the road before then taking a road we have never been on before. Reason? it doesn’t go anywhere apart from looping into Eryholme. Now this tiny village is on the banks of the river Tees and there is a private bridge across it. We have seen it when kayaking under it but never on land .

You can see the potholes behind DH but to be honest this was better than the main road!!

We came across a steep bank.

To be honest I as dreading it but DH went on ahead and I stayed to take a photograph.

You can see DH attacking and getting up the hill. I followed behind and got about two thirds  of the way up before Dh ran back down the hill and gave me a helpful push. I love that man!! I was hoping I wouldn’t have to dismount.

From here we were soon back onto the main road before turning off to Hornby and then into Appleton Wiske. It was definitely lunchtime but a bit blowy so we headed for the old disused bus shelter and made cheese toasties.

There is no seat in here and we didn’t take our Helinox chairs and that was a mistake, so we just had to sit on jackets. A friendly coalman joked he would have to charge us for parking.

From there we rode the few miles to my friends place near Picton and she gave us beautiful home made cakes and a drink. Thank you J. By then we were on 42 miles and it was getting on to 4.00pm and so we made our farewells and headed home through Craythorne and Stokesley and fairly flew down the back into the Boro. That was 61 miles according to my cycle computer so as I say 124 miles for the week was the most I have achieved this year. woohoo!!