Sandwiches eaten, tea drunk and loo visits taken, we continued on our way. We took the A165 then the B1242 along the coast to Hornsea and pootled by the beach for a bit and ate an obligatory seaside ice cream despite the fact it was freezing. The plan had been to continue inland across country roads to Beverley but we somehow got lost in the suburbs of Hull which was less than ideal. After a good 45 minutes faffing we managed to find our way out and decided to take a different route; the A63 and B1230 to Goole then the A161 to Retford and then onto Worksop where we joined the A57 and headed home. By this time it was dark and raining quite heavily and I’d gotten very cold and was thoroughly miserable. We finally arrived back in Sheffield cold, wet, tired and hungry, but luckily my boyfriend being the jolly nice chap he is had cooked us a full roast! After dinner and a beer we headed down into Sheffield to see Sabaton who were brilliant. All in all an excellent but tiring day! We slept soundly that night.
I learnt quite a lot from the day’s ride, in particular how easy it is to get very tired and cold very quickly on a long ride. Although I’d taken an extra fleece to put on I still wasn’t warm enough, and with an already tight jacket, the additional layer made moving my arms a bit trickier. A thin thermal long-sleeved shirt is definitely required! My hands also got extremely cold, but I think rather than invest in some heated gloves (as I don’t do all that much riding in the winter months) I might get a thin thermal pair of gloves to wear underneath. I also learnt that I need to route-plan much better. Quite a lot of Saturday was spent on main A roads which were busy as well as being fairly uninspiring to ride on. I’ve realised now that route planning for a bike is a totally different kettle of fish than planning for a car journey, which is essentially getting from A to B without little thought as to how busy the roads might be and, more importantly, how interesting they are to ride on. This is something I’m going to bear in mind much more when planning routes in the future.
Sunday saw a more relaxed day’s biking, essentially pootling around in the Peaks. We ended up in Matlock which if you’re a biker is THE place to be on a Sunday, as it pretty much gets taken over. We parked up and wondered around the town admiring the rows and rows of bikes lined up along the main street. One particularly eye-catching bike was this custom Suzuki 1800cc which was absolutely incredible!!! The chap who owned it was kind enough to let me have a sit on it, and even with my gorilla arms the handlebars were just out of reach! Absolutely stunning, although I wouldn’t fancy being the one who has to polish it!
