The Yorkshire Dales day 1

 The Yorkshire Dales Day 1

After not being able to go on a cycling adventure for nearly two years then all of a sudden two have come along at once. I had barely unpacked from the trip round the King Alfred's way before having to repack, and repair, my bike to take on the Yorkshire dales extended route. It should be a lot more straight forward than King Alfred's as it is all on road and shorter. I have added some optional circular routes in case we finish early but I'm expecting to be the only taker.

I learnt from the last trip that it is easy to lose a cycling guest making cafe rating impossible so to hedge against that possibility I have packed two cycling guests this time. Big George and Andrew(how is notoriously hard to please).

After the cafe rating debacle on King Alfreds then I plan to do better here. I will once again be using science  to compare cafes in an area famed for walking with the normal cycling cafes I use. I'm sure the results will be fascinating and hopefully win me the Nobel prize.

Big George had again kindly volunteered to drive as it transpired he was the only one with a bike rack. So early this morning we made the journey to Skipton where we will be starting the Yorkshire dale route from tomorrow. However today we warmed up with a loop in Bronte country.

After unloading the bikes and a quick lunch in Skipton we were off.

We had all misjudged the weather and forgotten it’s colder up North so put on all our available layers as it was freezing. 

However this didn’t prove to be a problem as my Garmin said there were 9 climbs on our 40 mile loop and we were soon on the first.

It was 3.5 miles long and felt shockingly hard compared to Norfolk so we soon warmed up as we all took it at our own pace. However I’m pleased to report there was no getting off and pushing today.

After many lovely views, spoiled only by the grey sky’s and several more climbs we made in to Haworth.

For any culture vultures they will know this is where the Bronte sisters lived. They lived in the early 1800’s and wrote poems and novels. Probably the most famous is Charlotte who wrote the lyrics for Kate Bush’s debut hit, Wuthering heights.

Not surprisingly it was a very quaint village packed with lots of cafes and tea shops. We chose cafe verde as all the others would have meant a cycle up and down a big hill and you can only have so much fun.

The staff were very pleasant, it was a nice setting and the cake selection was very effective. But then disaster as the committed the two biggest mistakes cafes can make. First the “hot chocolate” was Cadbury and with no shame they actually advertised the fact on the menu. As Cadbury’s drinking chocolate does not count as proper hot chocolate I had tea.

Then when the cakes arrived they had only gone and served on its serviette. And we all know what I think of that.

In truth the drinks and cakes were pretty average so with these other factors then it was 1-0 to my normal cycling cafes.

Refreshed we were off again and enjoyed more hills and views. 

We arrived back in Skipton only to discover it was twinned with Machu Pichu in Peru. This is because they are famous for coffee while Skipton is famous for Yorkshire tea. We were lucky enough to find a Yorkshire tea plantation today.

It was certainly a tougher day than expected and we got back fairly late. Fortunately today was most metres climbed per mile cycled so hopefully now we are warmed up for tomorrows ride it will be less strenuous as we enter the Yorkshire Dales for real.

Today’s Route

Day 1 route

Stats

Route	Miles	Average Mph	Time on Bike	Metres climbed
Skipton loop	42	11.8	3:38	1470
Skipton to Dent
Dent to Reith
Reith to Skipton
Totals

Cafe Ratings

Cafe	Hot Choc Quality	Guest Hot Drink Quality	Cake Selection	Cake Taste Quality	Atmosphere and Ambiance	Total
Cafe Verde	5	6.5	7.1	6.9	8.1	6.72
Old Barn Tearoom
Ingleton
Orton Scar Cafe
Kettleware deli