The Hills of Yorkshire - Again!

Now that we've ridden the tandem for a few hundred miles, it was time to take it back to JD Cycles in Ilkley for a tuneup and check - make sure all is working properly and discover if any of those noises were significant! Since Ilkley is in Yorkshire and a 'mere' 40 miles away, we decided to make an overnight trip of it and ride over and back.

Beautiful sunny day leaving Blackburn, so nice that we decided to ride 'over the top' and drop down into Whalley. Then we skirted around the foot of Pendle, going through Whiswell, Pendleton and Downham, Rimington - some of the prettiest villages in the area.

There was quite a bit of uphill going on, and somehow we had a 'net uphill' all day! It was a good ride in what I suspect is Yorkshire's most beautiful time of year - all the gardens are in full bloom. Many of the stone houses are covered in climbing roses.

Very nice B&B in Ilkley and after an exploration of the town (a mini Harrogate perhaps), we went to Bar T'at named after the song Ilkley Moor Bhat 'at (translation: on Ilkley Moor without a hat) and had the place to ourselves, along with more than we could eat. On of the things we're finding is that many restaurants and tearooms are closed early in the week so finding a place to eat can be tricky, but this was very good!

Full English breakfast to fuel us for the day and over at the bike shop for our 9:00 appointment. We had a long list of things to be done and the final bits of kit needed for the big trip. Didn't find
most of the kit, but we did get a good tune up and some advice on braking and cornering. And after a very Italian coffee at a shop around the corner, we headed off for Austwick.

This was going to be our short day, about 20 miles - which was good because the day before's 40ish had been quite rigorous. Unfortunately the cookie we used as a map measuring device did not provide the necessary accuracy and our 20 mile day turned out to be 40! Ack! And guess what? Net uphill again!

We even came over that monster hill into Settle, from the opposite direction!

There were two 'I can't pedal anymore' stops, but we aren't totally pathetic. We are going further, faster and in higher gears so that's some consolation - I think!

Austwick is nestled in a valley (some downhill, yipee!), flower-covered stone houses many of which were built in the 1600 and 1700's. We stated at the Gamecock Pub, owned by a French chef and oo la la, the country French cuisine was wonderful! After a charcuterie platter with the best pork terrine we'd ever had, I had the cassolet and Steve had lapin. No dessert, we were too stuffed!

On the way back from Austwick to Pleasington, we went over a big hill - a very big hill! It took us two hours to get up it and 5 minutes to get down! Key learning for us - if there are no bicycles on the road, there must be a reason why!