Northern England: York - Selby - Ripon - Wensleydale - Hawes - Skipton - Leeds - Goole

Étapes

Wednesday 14th July

Hard Corps' first expedition on foreign shores did not start in the highly-disciplined way that Hardcorps is renown for! Veteran Hardcorps Lucas arrived on time, just 10 minutes after Softcore "one late night too many" Peter had stumbled out of bed. Before we knew it, the ambitious 9:30 departure time had become 12:30 and we duly arrived in Broomfleet (home of Westcountry Recumbents) at 5pm. By the time we had tried out the GTT and trailer, it was 6pm and though we considered setting off regardless, sanity in the form of Rob and Carol intervened, generously offering us dinner and a place for the night, which we gratefully accepted.

Thursday 15th July

A better start. Determined to make up for our delayed start, we managed to leave Broomfleet at 06:30 and we were at last on our way: me on the front, eyes on the road and hands keeping us on the left side of the road; Lucas on the back, eyes and hands on his phone, mp3 player, the easily accessible cereal bars and ever so occasionally (or is that accidentally? Just joking..) on the map. The first goal was to reach a village near Selby to meet Lucas' mother's friend for breakfast but due to our rain-slowed progress, we settled for Selby itself instead. After being treated to breakfast at the local Safeway, we said our farewells to Lucas' mother's friend before helping ourselves to another serving of breakfast and hitting the store to stock up with food for the trip ahead.

With the rain easing off slightly, we set off again. Cold and wet, this was definitely one of the least enjoyable parts of the tour. It also became clear that hauling a 35 kg long vehicle with 30 kg of luggage was going to be a slow but steady affair. It also didn't help that the chain kept falling off all the time. Consequently, though we had originally aimed to stay at ...., we finally came to rest at ....

Friday 16th July

The dominant theme of this day was rain. It had been raining on and off (on during the day, off, thus far, during the evening and night) since our departure the previous day and by now the inadequacies of my rain protection - a rowing splash jacket - were obvious. Hardcorp Lucas was typically well-prepared with his Decathlon/Duct Tape creation and so I resolved to re-equip myself in York, where we were planning to acquire a speedometer anyway.

York is a beautiful city, even in the rain. Unfortunately this very rain prevented us seeing more of the sights than those we saw in our erratic criss-crosses of the city in search of the elusive Tourist Information and cycle shop. Of course, only once we had found the cycle shop and I had splashed out a small fortune on a 'Touring' Gore-Tex jacket did the rain clouds take their cue and disperse. Grrrr...

The relatively clear skies and dry weather greatly improved visibility and we soon reached nearby Ripon. Until we had had repeated gearing and chain problems but in was in Ripon that our technical problems really started. Upon entering the town and sweating, grimacing and grinding our way up the relatively modest slope to the cathedral, it helpfully pointed out by a local that we had a puncture. Lucas took charge of the puncture while I sought out the local bike and camping shops at the nearby Tourist Information. With the puncture fixed, we proceeded to stock up with a whole list of necessary supplies (food, fuel, inner tubes, mobile phone charger (!)).

Fully loaded up for the wilds beyond, we headed for Wensleydale. Or so we thought. Just a few km outside Ripon, we heard the depressing sound of squeaking rubber again and had to pull in again to fix our second puncture. This we duly did, forthrightly continuing on our way, until we were halted a few hundred metres down the road by puncture number 3. Perhaps the most frustrating part of these punctures was that that they had no obvious or consistent cause. Our only reasonable explanation was that the rear wheel (the offending wheel in all cases) doubtless suffered from having most of the weight on it. However, just how and why this caused these mysterious punctures never became clear.

With the wind now a little out of our sails and with few hours of daylight remaining, we decided to head for the nearest campsite. Of course, in the spirit of the day, this was not entirely straightforward. After a few wrong turns, we finally made it to a campsite, only to be told that it was full and that they didn't dare take any more campers because the authorities were watching via spy satellites (?!). All we could do was to cross to the other side of Ripon again and cycle 8 km to the other nearby campsite at North Stainley, finally arriving at 21:00.

Saturday 17th July

We woke to the familiar sound of rain which continued until late morning. Nevertheless, this day was the start of better things. After dashing back to Ripon for a spare tyre, torch and batteries, we headed for Masham, Wensleydale and more rewarding views. Furthermore, thanks to a piece of navigating insight from Lucas, we were able to take a car-free (but not sheep-free!) route to Hawes.

After pottering around on the ridges of the valley, it was eventually time to descend. High speed descents are certainly not new to me, but the extra weight (225 kg total), steeper gradients, reduced visibility that the lower position of the trike meant, and dodging the random groups of hill walkers that would suddenly appear round the winding roads were all new experiences. The squealing and fading disc brakes were of little comfort, but Lucas tried his best, regularly and excitedly asking "Speed?" .

Searching Hawes for a campsite was a similar experience to that of Ripon. The first campsite had a "no more campers" sign much to my loudly-voiced disgust, another campsite on our 17 year old map failed to appear and every bed & breakfasts and hotel had "no vacancies". In darkness and exhausted, we struggled back to the first campsite and with some Gallic charm Lucas secured a place for the night much to my relief.

Sunday 18th July.

In many ways the most enjoyable day despite the way it started. After thanking our kind hosts and procrastinating in Hawes under the excuse of buying food and supplies, we headed west along Wensleydale. Progress was slow - next to the typical 12-14% climbs, we encountered a 25% climb that we had to face armed only with the middle cog and a few hearty grunts. The next challenge was a little more enduring and familiar: just 4 km outside Hawes the dreaded sound of scraping rubber saw us pull into the side of the road for puncture number 4.

Grizzled, action man Lucas sprang into action but after finally managing to fit our new tyre, we discovered that our pump wasn't working. As we were trying to persuade it otherwise, a couple of girls on bikes stopped nearby to check their map and I asked if they might have a pump. They did, and my role immediately became clear - Lucas would struggle with the trike while I would admire the beautiful countryside and entertain the girls. Still, all good things must come to an end and after some showy efforts with the pump, it became clear their pump wasn't of a high enough pressure for our tyre. The girls kindly offered us a better pump if we could make it to Bentham further up Wensleydale and then left on their way.

Focussing on reaching Bentham, we crawled 500m down the road to a farm. Did the farmer have a pump? "No. But I've got a compressor."!!! Like this, and with our tyre up to its proper pressure, we floated down the valley.

After this, everything appeared effortless and immensely enjoyable - the soft, rippling expanse of countryside seemed to slope downwards, giving us plenty of easy cruises downhill and opportunity to take in the stunning views. Unlike the grind earlier, now everything flew by, reaching Horton-Ribblesdale and Settle (but sadly not Bentham L) in good time, coming to rest in Gargrave.

Monday 19th July (90 km, max speed 65 km/h)

We were woken to the if not tuneful, then definitely rhythmic sound of building work. With a rendez-vous with a friend to keep in Skipton, we gathered our stuff and, delayed by another flat tyre, finally set off at around 13:30. Once in Skipton, we stayed for a couple of hours before setting off once more. My friends had suggested an easterly route - Illkley and beyond. Lucas played ball until Illkley after which he unveiled his grand plan - a 'short cut' through Guiseley and Leeds. Thus it was then when we had our next puncture, we were not surrounded by rolling hills, gushing streams and grazing sheep, but the rundown industrial wasteland of Kirkstall Road (Leeds)! Finally we were able to make our escape, passing through Pontefract before settling in a drizzle-hit Darrington for the night.

Tuesday 20th July (60 km, max speed 40 km/h)

Back to flatter countryside and better weather, we left Darrington around 11:30. With decent weather, a favourable following wind and a strong resolve to make it back to Broomfleet in reasonable time, we made good progress, cycling solidly to reach Goole (13 km from Broomfleet) around 15:00. After helping ourselves to some Magnum ice-creams, dithering around in Goole in search for a replacement map and in the process getting lost, we arrived in Broomfleet 2 hours later than scheduled.

Then took train from Brough at 20:15, changed at Doncaster, arriving in London 40 minutes later than scheduled (this time at least, not our fault!) and home 40 minutes after that.