On 30th December I took the rare move of diverting away from my usual stomping ground and riding a bike with another person other than my incredibly patient husband. I only know one person as patient as TSK and that is Mr Hopkins.
We chose a route which would be sufficiently scenic yet achievable given the snowy frozen conditions, taken from my 1993 guide book of West Yorkshire.
Starting from Ogden reservoir we quickly mounted our bikes as 30psi gave us better grip than boots, trainers or cycling shoes on the icy car park.
The tops of the moors were suitably resplendent in their winter coat and the wind turbines stood pleasantly still. Wheel ruts and snowy rocks abounded for our entertainment and I amused Glyn with a quality flop into the snow from stood still.
We acquired a couple of clampit bikers intent on making us responsible for their routefinding until they realised they didn't trust a woman to read a garmin and they were unable to read Glyn' s paper map when he did deign to get it out for them (no innuendo).
They asked others as we descended down the hillside with reasonably wild abandon, except for the ice patches.
Soon our friends were back, following us across the reservoir overflow but a little more cautious about crossing streams. We tried once more to make them head slightly South of West, to no avail. They relieved us of their company at the first hill climb, persuading themselves that North was South but hopefully not getting run over at the next zebra crossing.
We slithered a little and took REST breaks whilst cars slid past from time to time. After admiration for the view of the reservoir our friends did not think existed at the top of that climb, wee turned back down to Ogden on a beautiful wide open rocky trail. It was time for pub lunch.
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