Ride from Boot & Shoe to Ireby... and Wray, Sunday 13th October

I was a bit late (had to help a cyclist who needed a pump…) and found Anne and her dog Vera waiting with Neil in the rain. The forecast was not good. We chatted for another few minutes and then said, since we were there, we’d set off for Wray for a coffee (although Anne and Vera had somewhere else to go…). And then Ian turned up so there were three of us. And by the time we were approaching Wray the rain had stopped. The other two were persuaded that we should carry on to Ireby Green and come back to Wray for lunch. So off we went again, using Agnes Ing Lane and Trinket Lane to avoid the village and get us onto Russells Lane and then to Lower Bentham. We took the hilly road out to make our way to Burton and Ireby Green. Of course it was raining again and getting worse as we approached our coffee stop. There we found Sandra, who having waited some time, reassured me that I wouldn’t be chastised because at least I’d led the ride to the scheduled coffee stop. Warmed and dried we returned to the rain to set off for Wray. Trying to make a ride of it, we took the Bentham Low Road and then the Bentham Road to get to High Bentham. And as I turned towards the station and across the River Wenning, Neil reminded me that it was a steep hill up to Mewith Lane. Thickrash Brow its called and that well describes my expression as we went up it. But from the crossroads to Wray, Mewith Lane is without steep uphill bits (Neil called it ‘undulating’) and even the persistent rain didn’t put us off from wizzing along. It was still raining when we left Bridge House Farm and mixed it with the artics on the A683. We went various ways home - my Garmin (which had caused me much frustration by not knowing where it was much of the time) recorded 42.2 miles from home and back. Short for a summer ride but we’d managed to get 2497 feet of up and down… and survived the rain. It wasn’t all bad.

Tim Dant