Today's Bike Ride

[Graham Breeze]

As I passed Wheelbase in Ilkley I noticed they are finally having the previously rammed double entrance-doors and associated windows replaced after what feels like six months of making their rich customers use the shabby side entrance.

Perhaps they've sold a few Pinarello Dogmas at last to pay for it all?

After that diversion only twenty four miles (2000 feet) but that did include Norwood Edge (one of Simon Warren's rides) from Lindley Wood reservoir. The shock at the top of meeting the full force gale ripping across the moor suggested that even throwing one arm up in triumph might lead to a Froome-type calamity so I merely smiled at some walkers.

As I day dreamed back into Ilkley a lady with an extremely large bottom and a rear carrier went whizzing past me - so obviously I had to give chase. Admittedly she looked about 40 years younger than me but even so I had to chase. Fortunately my dignity was saved by a fortuitous red light before which we had a little chat. She was only on a custom made titanium frame so no wonder...!

Anyway on green I let her lead off out of respect

[Llani Boy]

Anyway on green I let her lead off out of respect

To her, or the titanium frame?

[felltrumpet]

Trespassing on Llani Boy’s patch today.
Derby to Buxton to meet my parents for breakfast with the family coming in the car.
Very pleasant ride via Brassington, Elton, Middleton and then the A515! Where i bumped into a couple of Silver DofE groups from my school with colleagues manning road crossings.
I shared Graham’s disgust of Bianchi bikes having Shimano on in the window of the bike shop (even though I’m a Shimano Man). Somethings are meant to be just so.
Saw 10 Ferraris outside the new posh Crescent Hotel and a pic of my bike in front of a couple.
Nice breakfast too!

[Graham Breeze]

.
I shared Graham’s disgust of Bianchi bikes having Shimano on in the window of the bike shop (even though I’m a Shimano Man). Somethings are meant to be just so.
Saw 10 Ferraris outside the new posh Crescent Hotel and a pic of my bike in front of a couple.
Nice breakfast too!

I think counting Ferraris in hotel car parks should be disallowed. I saw just one today after I had zoomed up the Cow & Calf climb out of Ilkley. Its reg. plate was V12 and then presumably the owner's initials. How vulgar! Since we were traversing speed bumps in a 20 mph zone he wasn't going any faster than I was because the car at the head of the queue was only doing around 10 mph. So naturally he kept revving his engine.

Anyway only 24 miles (2000 feet) on an errand to Keighley but I did check that the two disused column guided gas holders at Thwaites are still there. They date from 1914 and 1931 (not many people know that) but will be dismantled by 2025. I rather like redundant gas holders.

On my travels I occasionally see a recumbent bike but only briefly because the guy is fast, which
I attribute to his low wind resistance. Today I saw a different recumbent which overtook me at the bottom of a 17% decline. It was the kind that are as low as you can go so had the obligatory fluttering flag with a seat surrounded by yellow stripes to increase visibility.

Yellow? Did he think he was in a Lamborghini?

It reminded me of a large fat wasp.

[felltrumpet]

I think counting Ferraris in hotel car parks should be disallowed.

I did see a few out on the road too. And a McLaren F1.
My son would disagree with you about the hotel car park counting though, he was bemused to see a black one though - ‘I thought they only sold them in red?’

[Llani Boy]

Trespassing on Llani Boy’s patch today.
Derby to Buxton to meet my parents for breakfast with the family coming in the car.
Very pleasant ride via Brassington, Elton, Middleton and then the A515! Where i bumped into a couple of Silver DofE groups from my school with colleagues manning road crossings.

You are most welcome anytime.
I hope you managed to negotiate the road surface between Elton and Middleton, especially at Gratton, without mishap. And yes the A515!!!

[felltrumpet]

You are most welcome anytime.
I hope you managed to negotiate the road surface between Elton and Middleton, especially at Gratton, without mishap. And yes the A515!!!

I’m surprised I’ve never been along there before; I worked as a peripatetic teacher for 10 years and went to most tiny village schools via back lanes etc…lovely little forgotten area.
Yes, I was nervous about chipping the lovely Orange of my Holdsworth with the road surface.

[Marco]

Yes, I was nervous about chipping the lovely Orange of my Holdsworth with the road surface.

The Holdsworth Pro team was probably best British professional cycle team in the 1969-78 period, and their bikes were orange

I shared Graham’s disgust of Bianchi bikes having Shimano on in the window of the bike shop (even though I’m a Shimano Man). Somethings are meant to be just so.

The team was called Holdsworth-Campagnolo because of the two main sponsors, and the bikes were kitted out with the full Italian ensemble of Campagnolo, Regina and Fiamme

[Graham Breeze]

I did see a few out on the road too. And a McLaren F1.
My son would disagree with you about the hotel car park counting though, he was bemused to see a black one though - ‘I thought they only sold them in red?’

Tell him black ones are sold to modest, humble people with an inferiority complex.

Or when it's the second Ferrari so they can be easily told apart on the drive.

[Graham Breeze]

Thirty eight miles (3100 feet) to Watersheddles reservoir high on the moor above Colne. Although known to those who know the Bronte Way it is generally quiet relative to, say, Ponden Reservoir - a couple of miles away and which has good parking on its banks - and I rather like it.

On the way out I took the high road through Oakworth past the Grouse Inn and on the return the lower route past the Old Silent. Some years ago the Old Silent was chosen to be "the best pub in Britain", or some such nonsense, by The Sunday Times after which it was heaving with customers for months. When the rent review came round the brewery increased it so much that the landlord and team decamped and moved higher up the hill to take over at The Grouse. I for one never went back to the Old Silent but instead chose to support the team that had made the Old Silent so famous - in their new location.

However the pubs do share one even greater claim to fame. Their car parks have both been the start point for "Bedlamites" night races, although that may have escaped the attention of one of the trashier sunday rags.

I then returned home via Haworth rather than Oakworth and was surprised to see that Haworth is "twinned" with Machu Pichu in Peru. I must admit when I was in Machu Pichu I never thought that...but my imagination clearly did not recognise all the things the two towns have in common. A handy DVD spells out that these include both are reliant on tourism, are served by railway lines, have alpacas on display, think nice thoughts about each other... and well that's about it really.

Returning to Ilkley from the west often involves travelling though Silsden which is experiencing a staggering number of large new-build housing sites from major builders: dozens of acres and many hundreds of houses. So "No More Houses" signs are again appearing. Today I cycled past the site of the long closed Horn Cragg quarry, just outside Silsden, which can only be reached on a narrow farm track of a road which is gated at both ends. The signs opposing reopening threaten 20,000 tons of stone removal a year for 25 years and having cycled along the quiet quarry access lane I can see why residents might not be well disposed to welcome HGVs trundling past their front doors.

Still, the "local stone" would be handy for the hundreds of new homes being built in Silsden down at the bottom of the hill.