Catching Some Sun

Last weekend was unfortunately called off, so a fallow weekend with no training, so this bank holiday weekend we decided to set off out into the midday sun, well almost. It was more mid-afternoon, with another challenging route planned,  heading again in search of the Transpennine Trail, a reconnaissance mission if you will. Due to a late start there was to be no leisurely amble to a rural public house unfortunately, a much more testing pace was set (by our standards). We aimed to pick up the trail around Elloughton and investigate some of the particulars around Broomfleet; and were surprised to find a very sizeable hill running through Riplingham towards Elloughton, it just didn't seem to stop and was quite a bit scary considering how fast we were descending with the breaks on.

View Loop via Broomfleet, N Ferriby etc. in a larger map

It was certainly the first really good day we have had and so the sun lotion was applied liberally pre-ride; a light wind blew the whole way round but nothing like that which we have experienced in recent weeks. It almost felt like summer, just about right, something in the region of 16 degrees.

Still there were some decent ascents to challenge us this time at North Ferriby up towards Swanland and also on our way to Welton before that; we may have to try this route backwards some time as I feel that it will be much more challenging the other way round, finishing with hills is exactly what we need to prepare for as our second leg of the challenge will be rising to 400+ metres in the Pennines.

Separately, we have managed to organise the accommodation for the trip this weekend, some very helpful people are providing spaces for us on camp sites along the way; this proved to be very challenging in terms of identifying potential sites as there doesn't seem to be many along the trail and this was surprising.

So we are only 8 weeks away from the start line, it is starting to get a bit exciting as everything falls into place both in terms of planning and support; at the last check we were above 26% of our target with online donations and I am reliably informed that cash donations will take us over the 30% mark. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks we will be able to persuade local businesses to support us and lift that much closer to the target.

A