Most years I try to take a break for my Birthday or at least a day off. When its just before Christmas its nice to mark the day for yourself and not spend it shopping for other peoples' Christmas presents.
Usually I fail to have the day off either work or Christmas shopping.
This year, with my birthday on a Friday, Landslide and R I P decided (inadvertently) to throw me a Christmas ride. We did lateral flow tests and planned to meet at Grindleford at 1:30.
I planned to ride out but mostly got distracted by birthday stuff and packing. Of course I rolled out the door with 2 hours to get me there and decided to mostly take the roads except for crossing the moor. It was my fastest riding of the weekend.
I know I was rushing but it was reasonably warm leaving the city. I was down to wearing 2 baselayers and thin gloves and carrying a bag full of coats.
In a fit of last-minute decision making I routed via Houndkirk then instead of descending to Grindleford direct, I headed towards Longshaw to blag some lunch on the way. The timing was so tight I got sick of fumbling the lock on their crap bike stand and raced off in a huff.
Reality sunk in. There was a wistful temperature inversion with the bottom of the valley filled with fog and our meeting place was in the cold, cold valley below.
I put on my coat and big gloves and took a deep breath and set off down the wrong descent.
• • •
I got half way down before realising my error leaving me to huff across the valley between Froggatt & back up the hill, through Grindleford village then up the other hill to the station.
I was 15 minutes early so locked up, ordered myself a burger and settled down to wait. 10 minutes into their ride I persuaded the boys to take a sit down and a hot drink with me. Reg had driven over & Landslide discovered his train didn't exist and had an equally harrowing sprint over the hill.
We followed various tracks, trails and lanes over to Eyam where Reg was ticking off historic water troughs and stopping intermittently at the tea rooms. He was disappointed to return at 3:45 to find them closed for his third visit that day.
Along the way we picked up misty scenes.
I rode a combination of new and familiar trails, though honestly it was hard to tell as the fog got thicker and I was perfectly happy just following wheels.
At 4pm Landslide called pub and we locked up our bikes to the petunias at the Barrell inn for 3 well earned pints (well, one each). We restricted ourselves to one because it was time for this:
Where Reg and I had a middle-aged moment with technology leaving Landslide to get to the end of the trail, get bored and come back looking for us.
We shunned another loop before dinner, riding up to the pub where we'd (other people, not me) booked ourselves a table to make sure we weren't disappointed. TSK met us there on his road bike as he had stuff to attend to on Saturday and was heading home after dinner.
Two courses, more beer and banter ensued. A chat with the landlady and more beer. Yes, delaying tactics were at work. TSK headed home and it was 10 when we left the pub for our designated sleep spot - brought on by the arrival of the brass band who elected to close the sliding door on the bar to keep the heat in (and out of the stinky bikepackers snug on the other side of the otherwise draughty corridor). We considered closing our own curtain, dragging the bikes in and setting up camp under the tables.
Our actual camp site was cosy and convivial. We found shelter from the thick fog that was condensing so heavily, all trees were raining. The much joked-about full moon made an appearance in the middle of the night, brightening up the scene outside our shelter so going for a pee was easy with nature's sink providing a grassy handwashing facility.
For once I slept reasonably soundly except for about midnight when a gentle sneeze came from outside our camp as both my fellows slept soundly around me. Deer or ghost? We will never know.
With a low chance of being disturbed, we had a luxury lie in till 7am, brewed up from our beds and sneaked away without detection.
Time to connect with the Monsal trail which we did using something marked on my map as a "traffic free cycle route" but on the ground as a footpath. Never mind, no-one was out - or out of bed, for that matter.
There was one squeaky moment crossing a narrow bridge over the flowing river and scrambling up the other side but thankfully we're all sufficiently hardy to make it and I'm now strong enough to actually pick this bike up loaded.
It was so pleasant for me to finally be on the Monsal trail in daylight after a short winter season of getting there after sunset.
More lanes took us down, eventually to Calver past a group of highland cows enjoying their breakfast sleepily. I relate.
 |
| not actually eating, just resting her head. |
Reg sneaked off through Calver past the cafe leaving me and Landslide wondering where the hell he was going. I was overjoyed to find he wasn't taking us to the rubbish coffee shop but the much better one I didn't know existed because it's on a main road.
Two course breakfast and a bottomless coffee WIN.
Around the corner we dropped Reg off at the road back to his car and Landslide and I set off up the bloodybighill to Calver Gap where we managed to avoid more coffee and ride back along the foggy crag which was all relatively quiet and serene and only gained in gravitas and solitude what it lost in scenery.
The walkers were jolly and appeared suddenly from the fog. In Longshaw we reverted for lunch but realised we'd already over-eaten and instead took the opportunity to wash hands, drink tea, warm toes and snooze on the table for a bit longer before braving the ride home. We were tired out.
Landslide went the quick way home - as did I - but we live in different places so we went different ways.
Of course, as soon as I reached the top of Houndkirk my body announced it was hungry and couldn't go further without a snack but that was OK because I'd been carrying a bag of crisps and cake since Friday lunchtime so I ate my limited lunch and pointed my way home again through the crystals.
After Wyming Brook my interest was momentarily peaked by a bit more offroad riding but not enough to hike up Fox Hagg so I freewheeled down the A57 to Rails Road then rode up the nice easy Byway to drop into the allotments.
The pigs were up for some scritching so I shared my sharon fruit leftovers from last night's picnic and we were all happy.
At home I fell into the bath, made a large puddle on the bathroom floor which I mopped up with towels left heaped in the laundry basket on the toilet then fell into bed and went to sleep until TSK came home from town and I apologised like a snivelling drunk who'd been out all night on their birthday and made a mess. Oh.
No comments:
Post a Comment