NC500 - Ripples in things

Last night was loaded with bad sweaty dreams.  Of riding my bike and finding a man curled up on a street corner shouting at children to call 999 and ask for an ambulance because he was suffering with stress and anxiety.  Then riding with them somewhere remote and losing them in the back of beyond.  And of riding down huge grassy tracked slopes trying to ride my way to nowhere and finding it very hard work only to see both tyres were as flat as pancakes.

Yeah that about sums up the fears of days to come.  No surprise then that I did not sleep last night.  London Alan is polite in saying that he slept OK for I know I have a snore that can be heard across the universe.  Like crashing black holes projecting ripples in space time.  Feeble bedroom doors and walls are no match for it.  One good snore and hiccough at the same time is enough to break a planet in half.  I am the Higgs Bosun (I sail too).  Fuelled by green Kryptonite.  Note to self.  I must stop eating leeky mashed potato for tea.  

We're on the train.  So far so good.  Just about to hit Edinburgh and Buena Vista Social Club are playing their top tunes in my earoles.  Alan has found a quiet corner in which to hide.  We should hit Inverness and the rain about 8pm.

So will we do it?  500 miles.  24,000ft or so of going up.  Of Sun and for sure rain.  More than a few midges perhaps?  Seeking remote cafe’s and places to sleep with no running water.  It’s gonna be a grand / hard / thirsty / testing 2 weeks for sure.  Yes we will do it.  I’m a seasoned LEJOGGER and London Alan is a reincarnated racing snake!

Last week I did my last long prep ride.  200 miles around North Yorkshire picking up the lower portion of the Yorkshire Wolds and the higher bits of the North Yorkshire Moors before returning home on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales.  The ride to Hornsea was the usual pleasant ride east.  At the camp site I discovered a lack of spoons in my panniers and know that stirring a hot pot of rice is damn impossible with yer pinkie (no the other one).  That problem was solved by the site owner with the donation of a spoon.  See see, people are ALWAYS happy to help!

Then the first of the higher hills with the ride along the Yorkshire Wolds via Hummanby to Scarborough where I set the slowest ever time for cycling along the seafront to the Tour OF Yorkshire finish line.  Then it began.  After a night in a bog basic camp site it was a run along the cinder track - the old Scarborough to Whitby railway line and now Sustrans route 1.  How the hell trains got up that incline without cogs for wheels is beyond me.  I checked with Auntie WhoAreWe Google before leaving Whitby as I recall the only route out of Sands End was pretty steep.  Yep 20% to 25% in places.  The road is a narrow sided sucker with fast moving traffic. A no go on a bike then, loaded with everything including the kitchen sink.  

So I took the main A174 road all the way to Scaling Dam.  Again, I have not learn’t.  Major A roads across remote areas are always going to be busy with heavy traffic.  As in 40 tons heavy.  This sucker peaked at just short of 900ft.  I’ve ridden that damn road a hundred times on the motorbike and never ever did it seem so high and so dangerous.  

I left the A174 just past Scaling resevoir.  Thank God for that.  I'm now high up in the North Yorkshire Moors and it’s magically quiet.  Good.  Up ahead the road took a sharp turn to the left.  The crap nav suggested I ride straight on.  Straight on?  There’s nowt there!  I get to the turn and in front of me is a rough rubble strewn and heavily rutted track.  The kind of place only good for 4x4 cars, scrambler motorbikes.. and sheep.  I can't ride that!  The alternatives though were not good.  It was either back to the A174 for the long dangerous ride to Stokesley then back up into the hills, or to follow the road to the left and down it’s mad steep sided valley into the bottom of nothingness with for sure a mad climb all the way back out.  Both routes were big detours and I did not like either option.  Hell, in for a penny, in for a pound.  

I set off.  Dear me.  Go slow.  Real slow.  Ping! Pow! Crunch! - it's the noise of rocks and rubble ricocheting off hard pushed rubber.  I imagine how the crap nav planner was again giggling in his control booth as he watched this fat fool attempt to ride the rocky route via the crap nav hidden camera.   I negotiate several big wide waterlogged dips by tripoding the bike, me on the dry stuff, the bike knees deep in the murk.  Steep ups and downs.  Hardcore track repairs with stones the size of fists strewn everywhere.  For the first time the pain was in my shoulders trying to steer a straight course as the bike jinked left and right through fresh air.  I've got a wobble on looking for all I know like a rippling jellyfish waltzing with a jack hammer.  I’m then herding sheep on the trail cos even for them the sides of the track were too steep to climb.  

Then I see movement on the ridge line.  As though watching an Iraqi Scud missile launcher (a number 42 bus to Middlesborough actually) projecting its silhouette in the distance against the hard bright sky.  Yes, its a ROAD!  I’ve made it!  I land back on firm tarmac, think twice about bending down to kiss it and I’m away in the direction of the the camp site.  

It looks like there’s a big drop into the valley ahead with what looks like smoke from a moor fire rolling across the distant hillside.  Feck.  It’s a 25% gradient down into the valley.  That means probably 25% back out again.  Feck.  I drop down the hillside on red hot brakes and into the village of Commondale and hit the 'smoke'.  'Gaaahhh!!'.  It's a swarm of greenfly literally thick enough to cut through with a knife.  They get everywhere!  I cannot see for a million tiny wings fluttering in my eyes.  I cross the fledgling river Esk and hit the climb out.  Chuffing like a badly worn steam train somehow I get to the top of the bank!  Yay!  Let’s see you do that Howard! Even in a car or on an ebike it’d be hard going …

The rest of the ride is a short wobble to the campsite in Kildale (appropriately named) again atop a rubble strewn farm track.  It’s a beautiful evening.  The sun is dipping into the western hills.  By now I’m on tea number 2.  Something of a Batchelor's pasta dish that’s only good for long range tour cyclists, single men and other folk who buy 'own range' canned foods from Lidl or Aldi.  Fine dining it is not.  

I chickened out of the ride back to York via Helmsley.  I had fuelled up for it with a big fat breakfast in Stokesley but the lads in the cycle shop took pity on this fat man and recalled to me just how bad some of the climbs were on the busy B1257.  It's also known as the Helmsley TT due to the number of fast motorbikes and post crash donor body parts strewn at the side of the road so I'm gonna avoid it.  I tell the crap nav to get me to Thirsk but at every opportunity it tries to take me back into the hills.  So I guess it.  The compass says I’m heading south east.  Good.  That's close enough.  Still the crap nav sends me down any number of farm tracks and other lanes marked as the 'coast to coast' route which are crawling with para types wearing 4x4 boots and carrying more stuff in their DPM backpacks than I’ve got on the bike.  

It’s been 62 miles today to get home.  The legs are rather sore but I’m surprised just how much strength they had in them with the last 10 miles being covered faster than the first.  

That’s it.  The practice rides are banked.  The proper North West 500 riding starts tomorrow.  Starting with Inverness to Fort-Augustus following General Wade’s Military Route.

It’s time to put my Hob Nailed tyres and corset on…

Ciao for now...