Shakedown Day 4- Kirkby Lonsdale to Threshfield

Need coffee, lots of coffee!




Very happy with his cup of tea!



Stayed at the Springfield Lodge B&B in Kirkby Lonsdale.  Nice place, quiet, all the necessary accoutrements and an easy walk to the village.

Heading off in the morning

Look at that profile!
First challenge of the day?  How to make the (Tassimo) coffee machine work!  Great B&B breakfast, of which we had half and, again, packed up the other half for a second breakfast later.  
Checking out the list of Yorkshire pubs

Off down the windy lanes, mostly very small, through Hornby, Wray, and then up onto the moors and down into the dales.  Had a little fall as we were coming up a hill when we couldn’t change down fast enough, no real damage to us or the bike though




Gorgeous views
Looking back at another steep one

Made a mistake at Clapham, veering off the Coast to Coast route for the ‘short’ route to Settle.  How can a route next to a railway have so many hills?!

Windy rest stop

Up on top of another hill
The other challenge, the 25-30mph headwind - all day long - thanks Storm Betty!  We averaged 9mph for the day.  So many of the wonderful descents ended rapidly due to a full in the face headwind stalling us to a complete stop at the bottom before we did our usual coast half way up the hill!  The wind made the whole day an ongoing slog.  I’m pretty patient about hills, but pedalling up with the wind pushing you back down is a bit of a character builder!

We had a tea stop in Wray and a soup stop in Giggleswick, along with various sausage, bacon and orange stops atop various hills.  And then another long slog to and after Hetton, area of hills before and after!!

Blackberries everywhere
Then 3-4 miles to Threshfield and we were SO happy to get to The Old Hall Inn where they put the tandem in their garage, had a hot shower, some restorative drinks and decent food - we were thrilled at the end of a very long and difficult day!
Almost over the Hetton hill and just a few miles from Threshfield

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