Tealby ready at eight

And so, on 24^th August, the time had come for our final training weekend.  The aim, a 240 mile round trip over two days, from Stokesley/Carlton to Tealby (in Lincolnshire) and back.  We got away at about 8am after I had taken an age faffing around with my bike, but once we were rolling we made excellent time.  The mandatory tea-cake break was taken in Thirsk, before facing the somewhat demoralising 18 mile stretch of the route along the A19.  We knew we had to turn off at a church and despite numerous imaginary spires appearing to Fred as we trundled along, the real thing seemed to take an age to come into view.  After finally turning off that stretch of road and its endless droning traffic we were back on quiet country byways, in the sunshine, and so it remained for the rest of the journey.  Lunch was taken in Pocklington and at that stage we reckoned that we were a little ahead of time.  We knew we had a few miles to the Humber Bridge and then a long slow climb onto the Lincolnshire Wolds but that was not too daunting a prospect.  We had forgotten about the Yorkshire Wolds.  A forgivable lapse of geographical memory, but quite an addition to our afternoon’s climbing.  The rolling hills leading up to the Humber Bridge provided some beautiful views, but meant that our tanks were fairly low by the time we crossed the Humber.  The climb back onto the Lincolnshire version of the Wolds was as slow and grinding as expected, but finally we were on the 3 mile (according to FredFred – its actually about a mile) downhill descent into Tealby.  We had made it in just under 11 hours, which given that we also had a total ascent of over 4000 feet was good going.

That evening we were staying with Fred’s dad and the rest of the family Parkes and after a quick shower and some indecision as to where we would eat, we headed out to the Lincolnshire party capital that is Market Rasen. One excellent curry later, and resisting the temptation to large it in one of the Rasen’s finer nightspots, it was back to our log cabin at the Parkes’ and bed.  Huge thanks to Fred, Helen and Lucinda for their evening of hosting and putting up with us, despite our general lethargy and tiredness-induced lack of banter.  

On Sunday it was a question of doing the whole thing again, in reverse.  The weather was hotter and at times we wilted somewhat.   But ultimately we powered home, with Fred sprinting up the intimidating Faceby bank to round off the journey.  The day brought nothing new in terms of the route, but we did enjoy being socially shunned by a gent in a shop-mobility scooter, who deliberated scooted around us so as not to speak to us, and we also encountered a group of South Yorkshire ladies who would have been a cartoonist’s dream.  If only talking in a raspy voice was an Olympic sport…

We had managed 240 miles in two days (with a fair bit of climbing), but 47 days of cycling in a row was going to be a very, very different prospect.