Tim's Touring Two-Day #2
This year the now annual Tim's Touring Two Day took place over the weekend of 21st to 23rd of October in North Yorkshire based at Ellingstring Youth Hostel midway between Masham and Leyburn.
Arrangements were made for the select group of twelve to meet up either in the Youth Hostel early evening or at the Kings Head at Masham for evening meal at eight pm. on the Friday. We eventually all met up in the Royal Oak after discovering that most places in Masham had stopped serving food for the winter already. The seasons must change early in this remote area.
After we had wined and dined we discussed possible routes for the 'morrow and Jeremy foolishly commented that we definitely wanted to avoid White Horse Hill which runs up the south side of Sutton Bank. This was like a red rag to a bull to our leader, Tim, and maps were hastily consulted to plan a direct route to the hill. With a final drink in the Kings Head it was back to the hostel for a good nights sleep in preparation for our exertions.
Ellingstring Youth Hostel was chosen "blind" from the YHA book primarily for it's location and the handbook describes it as scale 1 (the cheapest) and a "Small cottage in isolated village just outside the Yorkshire Dales National Park" and they didn't lie. It is isolated and it is small. Downstairs there are three main rooms (kitchen with entrance direct off the road, common room and dining room/drying room) and a toilet/washroom while upstairs there are three bedrooms and another toilet/washroom. You may have noticed I haven't mentioned a bathroom or shower. I haven't 'cos there isn't. Greg and Alison bagged the smallest bedroom which had the luxury of its own sink but unfortunately this wasn't plumbed in! That left the other ten of us between the remaining rooms. Six in one and four in the other.
After a good nights sleep (?) and a hearty breakfast (??) we assembled ourselves outside the hostel to a misty and moisty Saturday morning. We splashed our way through the puddles that had gathered overnight down the four miles to Masham and then through dryer lanes through West Tanfield and Wath to Topcliffe. Along the way we had to cross over the A1(T) which seemed to be a motorway in all but name and took a good ten minutes for us all to jump through gaps in the zooming traffic to safely reach the other side.
While we regrouped on the far side Matthew gave us a dazzling display of the power of the dynamo on his new touring bike by riding up and down the lane like a demented cyclotouriste. (for the technically minded it is 6 volts .3 milliamps fed through a rectifying transducer to produce 12 watts pmp at 45 rpm and 2,400 candle power) Matthew is now able to go out training on the blackest night still wearing his darkest "Oakleys" and burns the retinas off any poor motorist who doesn't dip his headlights in time. Just after Topcliffe the first mechanical mishap of the day happened when Greg's rear deraillier passed away. A quick repair by shortening his chain gave Greg a single gear instead of his eighteen as we approached the days major climb.
White Horse Hill to put it mildly is a swine and in ones and twos we ground our way up its two miles to finally meet in the mist at the top just past the signs warning us to be careful of low flying aircraft. Dinner was taken at the visitor centre at the top of Sutton Bank and then we waved goodbye to Greg and Alison as the headed down the hill towards Thirsk in search of a bike shop and a new rear gear. The rest of us took the minor road along the top of the ridge, at first through quite thick mist but then as the mist lifted the rain fell.
We dropped down to Hawnby and then climbed back over the ridge to Osmotherley were as we lost height the rain stopped. We were now heading for home, taking the "A" roads through Northallerton to Bedale and then "B" roads on to Masham and back to the Youth Hostel but the days excitement was not yet over. About two miles short of Bedale at Leeming Bar an old railway line crosses the A684 at only a very slight angle. The ten of us were travelling along in a neat compact group when we met up with the level crossing - result a not so neat compact group on the ground. Neil at the front nearly lost his back wheel on the slippery track but managed to regain control but Matthew M. behind him was not so lucky. His bike slipped away from him and he brought me down. Nev rode into my back and did a perfect swallow dive over me, closely followed by his bike and somewhere in the melee Jeremy joined in the fun and heavily hit the deck. Nev's bike hitting my back was a case of the irresistible force meeting the immovable object and resulted in his head angle being increased to something like 80 degrees. While he was in too shocked a state to complain Tim and I rectified this by using the railway track to increase his fork rake so his front wheel cleared the down tube. After a brief stop to lick our wounds and reassemble Nev's bike the four of us (Tim, Stuart, Nev and myself) caught up with the rest of the group just past Bedale and we arrived back at the hostel as it went dark.
After we had all cleaned ourselves up and Matthew had polished his new bike it was off down to Masham for our evening meal and refreshments. Back at the hostel while most of us relaxed in front of the fire Greg and Tim operated on his rear gear and managed to by-pass the broken spring in the lower pivot with the aid of a bungee cord tied to his back mudguard. Thus his gears worked, after a fashion, ready for the Sunday. It was gone 11pm. when we were thinking of going to bed when we noticed that nobody had seen Mike and Neil since Masham and we realised they had got left behind in the pub without transport to get back to the hostel. By the time I drove down they has got fed up waiting to be rescued and had walked about two miles back up the lane in the pitch dark.
After an extra hour in bed, thanks to the clocks going back, Sunday dawned slightly better weather but quite windy. A shorter ride was planned for today and so after tidying the hostel we drove down to Masham and parked up in the square before starting off up the valley to Leighton Reservoir. A long steep climb from the reservoir brought us to the steep descent to Lofthouse in Nidderdale and then down the dale to Pateley Bridge for lunch.
Lunch was an amusing affair when we almost took over quite a genteel cafe (table-cloths and napkins etc.). Matthew enlivened proceedings when he squeezed the brown sauce and the lid came off covering his meal in half the bottle of sauce. While showing the waitress how the accident had happened Jeremy also squeezed too hard and the other half smothered his meal. Off went the waitress for two replacements muttering something about cyclists! After lunch it was off up the "B" road heading towards Ripon but Greg, Alison, Matthew M. and myself turned onto the lanes at Risplith for a short cut back to the cars at Masham while the rest made a big loop taking in Ripon and Bedale to return to Masham from the north east. Despite the basic accommodation, the weather and the mishaps everybody enjoyed a good weekend and plans for next year were already being discussed on the Saturday night.