Back
Previous Day
Next Day
Day 9 Bradford – Barnard Castle
Weather – Reasonable
Dr Pepper – Good but one German example sighted
Hills – Enormous
Campsite – Recommended: Heatherick Grange. Directions - Take the B6278 North out of Barnard Castle, there is a campsite sign pointing down the second right road, after which it is well signposted.
Whoever said Cornwall was the hardest cycling of the route was lying. Bigtime. This day through Yorkshire was by far the toughest of the whole trip for us although it did provide us with some incredible downhills which I would love to do again and again. With our thin tyres and heavy bikes and load on several occasions we comprehensively outpaced some of our motorised friends including two buses, a horsebox and a Renault Megane.
We started today by visiting the Co-op in Wilsden, which amazingly was open at 7.30 on bank holiday Monday. After breakfast we took the main road towards Skipton instead of the smaller route through Haworth, the home of the Bronte family, because of the little black “big hill” arrows we avoided by doing so. For a few miles it was flat but not much fun as we combated heavy traffic pretty much for the first time. At one big roundabout we were cycling in line with Martin at the front and me at the back, just a coincidence since we had been taking turns at the front because of the advantage you get from being behind (and having the wind cut for you). There was a small exit left and the main road that we wanted went right, no problem but there were three lanes approaching the roundabout. As with previous junctions the biggest problem is usually finding a gap big enough to pull out into in order to get in lane, but in this case there was a gap and Martin headed for the right hand lane, to turn right.
Too late Lister and I realised there were two lanes to turn right while Martin, with little roundabout experience, went right out and with traffic bearing down on us we had to follow. We went onto the roundabout no problem but exiting was an experience I do not want to repeat. Martin cut across into the nearside lane of the exit road and Lister followed but a Learner driver (in the correct lane) then cut me off and sat behind them. I was forced into the offside lane and the bloke behind then had to slam on his brakes to miss me having assumed I was going to move across with the others. To make matters worse as I slowed to pull in behind the learner he (the learner) decided to overtake the others, and to my amazement the cars behind followed, trapping me offside. Unbelievably a red Astra, who was behind the man behind me, also decided this was a clever thing to do rather than just let me pull in and undertook us, following in the stream of three or four cars through until finally I could pull in letting everyone else away.
Except perhaps our near-miss with the bus on one of the first days this was by far the scariest moment I had and it showed how inconsiderate people can be. As we went round the roundabout all three of us were trying to get into the other lane but car after car undertook us instead, interested only seemingly in getting where they were going a couple of seconds quicker. The learner can be excused for not realising what I was doing but the cars that followed him past, especially the Astra, were inconsiderate to say the least given that I was signalling the whole time and it was obvious what I was trying to do.
After advising Martin not to take the whole right-hand-lane-to-turn-right thing too literally in all cases, we continued towards Skipton until we spotted a cyclist trying to fix a puncture at the roadside. Stopping to ask if he needed any tools he didn’t but showed us that his spare inner tube didn’t fit the tyre and with a huge split in the old tube there was no repairing it. I offered one of our spare tubes which was slightly thicker than the others and got it out but as he thanked us we told him to hang on as we had no idea whether it had punctures itself. Unfortunately it did so having apologised he said he would walk to the train station and we produced the map, showing him that Skipton wasn’t too far.
At the side of the road we considered repairing the tube to give to him but we all quietly agreed against this, knowing that he was only out for the day, the train station was not far, and we would lose a lot of time. I can’t speak for the others but I definitely felt guilty after leaving him, but having said that time was tight and we wouldn’t have covered the distance we needed had we stopped.
According to the map we crossed the North Yorkshire border but there was once again no sign to show for it. However, passing through Skipton and out northwards on a small B-road, we passed this sign to Richmondshire at some point. Unfortunately I have no idea either how far along the road (between Skipton and Kettlewell) the sign was or what it meant, although we did think it might be a government name for N.Yorkshire. The only reason behind this was that I have read that the people of Yorkshire don’t like being divided into North, East, and West so possibly tear down the signs. Having said that that is probably rubbish because I’m pretty sure the Richmondshire sign wasn’t on the Yorkshire border. If anyone would like to enlighten us on this we would like to know!
For most of the morning there was no need to stop for the map and we made good progress on the road up to Kettlewell, passing a lot of walkers and other cyclists going the other way. We were also overtaken by a few groups of cyclists, all of which we said good morning to with mixed response. One particular group of lycra-snobs was so large I said good morning to the front, with no answer, then again to the back, and received probably the most miserable ‘good morning’ I have ever heard in my life. Either they were just being extremely miserable or they just thought they were far too important to converse with us.
Throughout the whole trip we only overtook two such ‘professional’ cyclists, or at least those dressed in pink, and one was a member of a group who seemed to have fallen behind. Since they had ignored us when they went past, on a downhill stretch we weren’t going to slow for him and with the weight behind us overtook without passing comment. He was visibly not impressed and immediately cycled off really fast down the hill to overtake us again and rejoin his miserable mates. Throughout this we were enjoying ourselves, well on the downhills anyway, and it was entertaining to see these people looking so cheesed off and we wondered just what they were getting out of the experience.
At Kettlewell, a beautiful place in the centre of the North Yorkshire Dales, there were walkers galore, just as there had been cyclists everywhere at Bakewell. The place was packed as it was bank holiday Monday and there were several coach parties about too. Unfortuantely the film ran out here so we have no pictures of there. Still we had lunch and pushed on, easy at first as we followed a stream but the hard work for the rest of the day as we climbed one huge mountain after another. After climbing each hill for what seemed like hours, there was a two-minute downhill which was great fun except that we had no good brakes. On one in particular massive downhill we followed some traffic down but Martin and I nearly crashed into the back of a coach which had slowed down for a corner which we weren’t going to bother to. At the bottom of the hill we found Lister had pulled a similar stunt on a cautious Renault Megane driver and considered overtaking him. For a worrying 200m at least I know I had my brakes on as hard as they would go and still almost had to pull out to overtake just to not go into the back of it.
Throughout the day there were several such incidents and once again I just wish we knew how fast we were going in some places. Not having any brakes does have its disadvantages however and towards the end of the day Martin crashed into a wall at the bottom of a hill after finding no way to get round the sharp corner. Lister and I were both in front but we heard the noise and came back to find Martin with mud all over him next to the bike which had hit the wall pretty hard. Fortunately he was fine and, just as luckily, the only thing he had bent was the steering, which with a lot of force we bent back into line and promised to tighten it up later (which thinking about it we never did, but it was pretty stiff)
Before that we passed Ayscarth, where after climbing past two 1 in 6 signs we saw this sign for 25% (1 in 4), which was a short downhill, but the other side was just a steep. At the bottom were some spectacular waterfalls which seemed to be drawing in the crowds, but after a quick toilet stop we pressed on and joined the dreaded white roads over the hills cross-country to Barnard Castle.
This section was the most difficult of the trip over the various Dales it was one hill after another. Sometime after passing Castle Bolton we took this picture (below) looking back, having not only climbed up the hill in the foreground but also been over the even larger one in the background. There was little traffic on the unmarked road but of the cars that were using the road we started to notice an abundance of huge shiny 4x4’s many of which seemed to think that not only they could do what they liked but also that they actually owned the road, and had some sort of right to be there that mere cyclists like us did not. A particular offender in this category was the BMW X5. I’m sorry but if you own one of these you have far too much money and we don’t like you. We saw a variety of X5 drivers, some men, some women and even a person who appeared to be about 14 in a baseball cap complete with rubbish music disturbing the otherwise peaceful environment.
Common amongst these owners was a selfish attitude of road hogging that was so noticeable that before long when we spotted one coming up we ran ourselves off the road to save it the bother. Honestly, they frequently gave us no space even though there were no other cars and consistently pulled in right in front of us such that we had to brake on more than one occasion, proving that these people have no idea where the back of their huge chunk of ozone-destroying metal is. My opinions are strong on this and it seems to me that you should have a good reason (like being a farmer) to own one of these or even a Land Rover or Range Rover (whatever the difference is). A quick search on www.whatcar.co.uk shows that the Range Rover does 21mpg whilst the BMW does just 20mpg. Based on the fact that my parent’s Skoda Octavia, which is a big powerful estate with probably more usable load space than the X5, does 60mpg I think this is unacceptable and there should be legislation to restrict the sale of such damaging vehicles to people who need them. Of the X5s we saw I don’t recall one with a spec of dust on it, let alone mud, so clearly these maniacs don’t need the only advantage that this machine presents.
Eventually we crossed the Co. Durham border by which time it had started raining, making cycling and in some cases walking up hills even less enjoyable. There were a couple of National park cars abandoned here, one of which had gun cartridges on the passenger seat. We did spot smoke from a fire not too far off but thought that a forest fire in the rain and at this time of year was a bit far fetched, and we never heard anything about it, although later we did see another couple of fires in the distance.
Before long we arrived at Barnard Castle and took this picture of what I assume is the castle itself. It was getting late and we had decided upon a night in a field because we had no campsite arranged and it was getting easier to find a suitable place to camp. In fact for a full distance today we should have got between Barnard Castle and Stanhope, but looking at the map now they are further apart than we thought and in fact we didn’t get to Stanhope until nearly lunchtime the next day, which contributed to us not making the distance that day. In any case we set about finding somewhere to eat and also some public toilets, which were in plentiful supply but unfortunately all shut. After having dinner in a reasonable fish and chips place at one end of the high street we walked back down it to the toilets later only to find the high street had become the centre of teenage activity and we saw various kids wander around and spit on the pavement, like you do I suppose if you’ve been brought up badly and have no brain. Just as we commented on how similar to Basildon it was in this respect a police car pulled up to complete the job, obviously knowing that it was a trouble spot.
Moving north far enough to find a field in which to camp Lister spotted a campsite sign 1 mile away and we thought we’d try for it. It was about 8.30 and just dark so we didn’t have much hope for them letting us in, but the gates were open and although we set off the security alarm and was told but an electronic person to “vacate the area immediately”. Eventually we found a man who didn’t seem to speak a word of English but found us a site and charged us just £8 for the night, not passing comment on how late it was.
Having decided that people were definitely getting more mad the further north we went, we settled in and got some washing and drying done at the excellent facilities. In the morning we took this rather annoying picture which looks idyllic with the flowers we hadn’t even noticed the night before in the dark and sun that I swear wasn’t actually there at all. Unfortunately I don’t have the address of the campsite but if you are in the area it is easy to find and is highly recommended by us. I have given brief directions above.