drystonepaul":3v4t4co2 said:
Was it too wet for photos? I'd love to see how wet it was.
Yes, but I did get the camera phone out briefly just past the stair case section.
Whilst driving along the B6479 the rain poured as I passed many walkers in full waterproofs, who I assume were doing the 3 peaks walk (I did not envy them). I parked up at Ribblehead next to a bunch of cavers and began to take in just how grim it all looked from my nice warm car. Richard arrived and told me that Paul wasn't going to be joining us. With just the two of us we had a quick brew and mounted up. Richard on his Orange Five 2006, and me on my 1990 Dyna-Tech 2070 (with Flexstem).
We headed towards the viaduct and followed the path under which led us along an easy track away from the railway and towards Winter Scales Farm, the track then moved back toward the railway and through a gate leading to an archway taking the track under the railway. We sheltered for a few minutes here stupidly thinking that the rain would ease off, the realisation that this wasn't going to happen sank in so we continued on The track was now the main trail used by walkers heading up to the summit of Whernside, we road part of this discussing the conductive properties of our bikes whilst counting the gaps between the lightening and thunder, this became pretty congested with walkers even in this weather. Luckily most of this route was now a rocky stair case like path which would be almost un-ride able even in the best of conditions, so we had a good excuse for a walk.
Here he comes
Giant One Richard
Grim out there, Whernside from the bridleway
Dyna-Tech
Just at the point where the walkers left the bridleway it began to become ride able again (just).This track was now the Craven Way on the map and lead us to Whernside Manor. From here we had a quick Jockey wheel tighten on the Orange Five and then headed along the minor road towards Cowgill. This was a point of no return where we looked a watches checked out the gloom in the sky and the low cloud and made the decision to follow the road towards Dent Head Viaduct, this included a splendid road climb at the top of which we took the bridleway (Black Rake Road) as the rain had decided to ease off. This dropped us out onto the B6255 where we followed the metal road back to the car, which wasn’t without event, as we saw a motorcyclist miss a bend and embed his bike into a grass bank (no-one was injured)
My Dyna-Tech by the car, finally the rain had stopped