31st March 2016 - Winster

It had been a cracking day, blue sky's and all, could feel it was going to cool down so what to wear...Charlie, George, Jamie M, Andrew and CT turned out, there was mention of a ferry trip but some folk carry no money! so we went with the local loop a sort of figure of eight. So down the road to the ford, no one fancied trying it, so over the little bridge and up the first warm up hill...Andrew and George have single ring set-ups, but George has a large rear cog and Andrews isn't (he should get one of those new 11 speed Hope 10-44 cassettes:) On the way up the lane we got passed by a 1 series BMW going down and we all wondered what it would do at the ford, but it did not appear to come back so must have been OK.  Head right at the top and tee off to the bridleway track, past the tarn, slight detour and back to the fast descent, enjoy:). 

Spot the biker

Easier to see Andrew on this one;)

Still going...

Blue sky, nice

How many bikers...just count the shadows

Then through the gates and back to the road, here we paused and decided to amend the figure of eight, so we did the first off-road section, then right at the lane, down past the pub, along the road and left to head up the bridleway and past the cows, some were a little frisky, so keep talking to them. At the top gate we stopped for flapjack with added treacle Thanks to Charlie they were ace:) Then down through the gates and up the lane, which was damaged by the recent heavy rains and was apparently 'closed to traffic' on wards and back onto the bridleway which had some repairs and bricks to fill in some large holes, but rideable and so we went up and over the hill, back to the road and left to go back via the pub but using another side lane. Then back down the road and right this time for the technical challenge, down the field, over the stream and up, pretty good conditions, but still dabbed, down to the road and right back to the cars, just under 10 miles and a really nice night.
Next ride High Cross, Hawkshead Hill for Grizedale

Tasty!

Group discussion, probably about gear ratios and who's got the biggest !

A closed gate (to keep the cows out)

Still a blue sky

The final pond (timed exposure 15 sec f/3.3 iso 80) there were some ducks