John Whiteley reflects on a Summer day’s cycling
Cycling is wonderful – every day is different and every ride brings a new memory. Sometimes we ride together and sometimes we ride alone. I often ride alone, and sometimes I hardly speak to anyone – except to say “double egg and chips please”- but sometimes I have encounters that make the day memorable. This year in mid-June, I had a day of memorable encounters.
The first was a sign of the times. I stopped to feed at Gargrave Railway Station, to find a heavily rucksacked cockney awaiting his train. He’d been backpacking in the Dales, staying in B&Bs, but had to cut this short by a few days, because his daily budget of £50 was proving inadequate – it’d been costing him over £75 a day in total. Last year a similar holiday had cost just over £45 a day!
Next stop - Jackson’s Tea Room at Cracoe. Really good. Scrambled eggs and beans on granary toast - and tea in ‘Colin and Marie’ proportions, for those who remember Gargrave in the good old days. All for £4.25p – not bad these days. As I paid, a scraggy, feather-challenged Rhode Island Red came into the doorway. The waitress exclaimed “Oh, Doris !”; she forgot about my bill, produced slices of granary bread, and went outside, followed by the hen. It seems that Doris is a rescue hen – found stressed and scuttling about the centre of Skipton, and brought to the farm. The waitress’s dearest wish was for Doris to regain her feathers. Doris seemed extremely relaxed about her obvious celebrity status; well, she would be wouldn’t she, enjoying priority over taking money.
At Kettlewell, also stopping for water was an extremely fit looking 30-something on an expensive looking titanium bike. He’d ridden up from Ilkley, and was now turning back. I expected him to be impressed with my proposed mileage for the day. However, he’d just “nipped up” in his lunchtime. He was in training for a “Sportif” on the continent the following week – I think he said 1100Km. So it was me that was impressed !!!!!
Lunch at Hawes – jacket, cheese and beans with a wondrous side salad, for £7.05p, (including not a lot of tea) - a lovely meal, but a marker on the direction that prices are taking. The serving wench was confused when I asked for “jacket with cheese and beans”. It turned out that she was Lithuanian – a pleasant, helpful girl, but apparently picturing something messy in Harris Tweed. The chalkboard outside the café said “Jackets”, but the table menus listed “Bakes Potatoes”, which didn’t help. Her sense of humour was up to it however, and we became friends. A couple on the next table engaged me in conversation – they were from Cambridge and every year the chap does a 50 mile charity ride - by far his longest ride; he related saddle soreness woes following such an “extreme” ride, and he asked for advice. To cut a long story short, he had no idea of saddle position, his saddle had been a wide, soft gel one, and his answer to the soreness the previous year was to buy a wider and softer saddle – say no more !!!!
On leaving Hawes I found, reclining on the grassy bank at the bottom of the road from Gayle, about a dozen cyclists and bikes, all of various shapes and sizes, and variously clad from skin-tight lycra to civvies adapted for cycling. This was a party from a workplace, doing a sponsored ride from Falkirk to Lichfield in stages, today’s section being Penrith to Gargrave. They sought local route knowledge. According to their leader, the party were of “varying abilities” – which meant that some weren’t cyclists at all and their leader, with only an AA road map to guide him, had plans to take them over Langcliffe to Malham. It was good to chat with them and help them with the local knowledge – the leader’s popularity with some of his flock would have been under serious threat if he did take them over Langcliffe!!!
I took refined tea and scones at the “Curlew Crafts” café in Ingleton, including the best lemon curd that the world has ever known, and then I was homeward bound. I by-passed Settle going via Lawkland, Rathmell and Wigglesworth, through Hellifield and the lanes through Otterburn and Bell Busk. Riding through Bell Busk and running out of water, I resolved that I would ask the first person out in their garden for some. You know where the lane from Bell Busk to Coniston Cold runs alongside a stream, with a couple of palatial residences on the other side of the stream, and which have their own private bridges? Well, in the garden of one of these, a chap was laid out on a lounger soaking up the last of the evening sun. I shouted across the stream, and was told to come across the bridge, and he’d be delighted. As I crossed the bridge, the – very attractive – lady of the house rose up from her resting place on a veranda and asked if I was sure it was water that I wanted, and would I like some tea, or coffee? Having discovered that my destination was Halifax she then suggested that what I needed was something to eat – it wouldn’t be any trouble. The genuine kindness warmed the heart, but water was all I needed. The lady went off kitchen-wards, reappearing with a giant glass of home-made lemonade; she explained that the kitchen tap took a while to run cold, and at least I could have some lemonade whilst I was waiting – and a sit down on a garden chair that she brought out specially for me. The three of us chatted until I was in danger of needing lights – and this was mid-summer!!! What a lovely couple – I could have talked longer in different circumstances. Whether the friendliness and mellow atmosphere were down to sincere philanthropy on their part, or to magnetic personality on mine I wasn’t sure – perhaps the collection of empty wine bottles on the lawn had something to do with it. Whatever, it was one of those encounters that boosts faith in human nature.
Main road now from Coniston Cold. I came off the road to the canal bridge behind the Craven Forge, to switch water bottles, eat some bonk rations and water a hawthorn. I was just about to re-mount, when a young lad – about 17/18 years old – appeared down the towpath from Skipton. He was shattered – he’d ridden out from Shipley, without his tea and without any money. He had ridden hard out to Skipton and run out of water. A benevolent bargee had filled his water bottle, but without food, by the time he got to where I was he’d well and truly bonked – he was white as a sheet, shivering and sweating. He asked if I’d a biscuit to spare. I actually had half an M&S Cherry Genoa cake with me – my emergency bonk rations – and he needed it more than I did – I was OK without it anyway. He wolfed it down like a vacuum cleaner. I stayed with him for a few minutes to make sure that he was OK, and he told me that he was in training for a trip with a couple of his mates during the holidays, when they planned to ride from Leeds to Liverpool on the canal towpath. I told him that he’d bonked and that he should take suitable precautions. The conversation became complicated at this point, and by the time I’d explained to him the true, decent, civilised meaning of “bonk” (remember his age and generation) it was quite dark and I did need my lights.
It’s interesting how things turn out and work together, isn’t it? Without that friendship and time spent at Bell Busk, what would have become of the young lad? All these interesting interludes meant that it was nearly 23.00hrs when I arrived home. Three pints of tea and bed.