The Club’s annual trip to the Yorkshire Dales is a highlight for many club members and rightly so. It’s a wonderful place to ride a bike with fabulous scenery, challenging hills and decent road surfaces. The Dales Bike Centre (DBC) in Grinton provides a warm Yorkshire welcome, ably supported by the Bridge Inn a short stroll down the road where we re-fuel and re-hydrate each evening. What’s not to like?
This year’s cohort totalled 7 Dales “regulars” plus Richard, making his first visit. Levels of preparation and fitness varied. At one end of the spectrum, Adam had only ventured out on his bike 5 times this year prior to the trip and Tom was still working off his sea legs after wintering in New Zealand. At the other end of the spectrum, Justin was stunning us all with regular epic feats in preparation for his Pan Celtic Race later in the year. The rest of us were somewhere in between. The weather forecast was for rain, but that wasn’t about to stop us. As Alfred Wainwright said, “There’s no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing”, so we’d all packed rain gear.
Friday’s leg loosener involved the customary pilgrimage up to the Tan Hill Inn, Britain’s highest pub. You may recall the Inn being on the news in Jan 2025 when the clientele were snowed in for five days – not a bad place to be stranded for a few days! The Tan Hill ascent is one of the gentler climbs in the Dales, but it’s not without challenges: namely a couple of double-digit sections to get the legs pumping. Having all reached the Inn intact, pints were quickly drained in eager anticipation of the epic descent back into the Grinton valley, where speeds are only limited by bravado and the antics of meandering sheep! There was only one squeaky bum moment on the descent, with Simon and Stephen trying to negotiate a fast S-bend, with some gravel and an oncoming van thrown in to add to the excitement. Fortunately, both had packed spare bibshorts. Nearing the bottom of the descent, there is an option to climb the mighty Stang, with only Justin taking the challenge. Simon said he was going to but “missed the turning”. Don’t worry Simon, there’ll be another chance to climb it tomorrow.
Saturday morning turned out just as forecast – wet, wet, wet – so the consensus was to do a shorter route than planned which packed in several classic climbs: Tan Hill (the other way round from Friday’s ride), Buttertubs Pass and Fleet Moss with Grinton Moor thrown in as a finale, over 6,000 ft of ascent all told. Having thrown down the gauntlet with this challenging route, Adam declared that his fitness wasn’t up to such an arduous route and that he was going walking instead – thanks mate! A few miles into the ride and Simon, on the front, came to the Stang turning but surprised us all by riding straight past – keeping his powder dry for later, perhaps? By the time we got to the Tan Hill Inn (no pint today), the rain was pretty steady and so everyone donned their rain gear. It stayed wet until we reached Hawes where a bikers’ café provided a welcome respite from the elements. Leaving Hawes, Buttertubs Pass and Fleet Moss were tackled in fairly quick succession, both with ramps over 20% to focus the mind. Any fuel left in the tank after that was soon drained over Grinton Moor, a long grind of a climb.
Sunday’s ride is normally a relatively gentle affair prior to the long drive home. Adam, our route master extraordinaire, suggested a 30-mile loop to Leyburn which met everyone’s approval, bar Justin who declared that he was going to ride home – a mere 227 miles!!! Needless to say, Justin took a little longer to get home than the rest of us, but what a great way to finish the weekend.
Whichever mode of transport was taken to get home, everyone agreed that it had been a cracking weekend and looked forward to doing it again next year. The DBC now offers some additional accomodation options with 4 luxury glamping pods added last year. Hopefully, these will entice a few more members to participate next year – it really is a great weekend.
(addition from Tina – we already have a number of the ‘femmes’ that are looking to sign up next year, i’m sure we’ll take full advantage of those glamping pods)
