3 - 2 - 1 - bike off!

This blog covers the three day run up to our big event 2012 04 13 Friday The plan today was to get to Harrogate to join Chrissie for a party. To be able to get in some serious training was a bonus. For the best results decided to do the trip on the mountain bike. Route: Read to Harrogate Distance: 45.9miles Height gain: 3500ft Time: 4:47hrs Av.speed: 10mph Weather: fine, sunny spells and minor flurries Wind: negligible Route features: same as last time: Wheatley Lane, Barrowford, Colne, Lothersdale, Cononley, Kildwick, Silsden Moors to Ilkley, Denton, Askwith, Otley, Farnley, Lindley, Beckwithshaw, Harrogate. The day was again better than the forecast suggested. Although cool there were many sunny spells and it was essentially dry. As I set off I was really looking forward to it and was very confident as I’ve already done this route on bike and scooter so actual map reading wasn’t necessary. One of the challenges today was to map the route using the Strava phone app which uses GPS to track the journey in three dimensions. Sue Hollin reminded me about this useful feature on Twitter. I also wanted to test Tweeting frequently and sending photos and I knew this meant the phone battery consumption would be flattened. To keep the phone going I took the Pebble battery Alan bought me. It would be its first major test. I also strapped my memory-map gizmo on the bike for the first time to follow the OS map all through the journey. Altogether today would be a veritable technology test let alone another trial for my old bod! The journey went very well. According to the stats I was on the road over 6 hours but that included about 72 minutes of breaks. Almost every time I stopped I ate; little and often this time was the recipe and I knew I’d feel better for it. In truth I tweeted 12 times (so that is an average of 6 minutes per stop) and accompanied each tweet with one photo and by and large they went first time but I think I need to time stamp each tweet in future in case they appear in the wrong order. Only something else to remember! Of the photos the one of the Aire Valley was the most picturesque and seasonal. Steady away and the ride was fairly uneventful. Glad to get to Chrissie’s around 17:30 and had to shower immediately to be out and down town to the restaurant. We walked there and back and had a lovely evening. 2012 04 14 Saturday After breakfast I loaded my bike in the car and off we went to Colne for Titanic commemorations. Our afternoon trip was to be a bag of chips and a look at Wallace Hartley’s memorial and we would return in the evening. Wallace was born and bred in Colne and became the bandmaster on the ill-fated Titanic and reputedly was still playing his violin and leading the small band as the liner went down. It was sunny and quite beautiful as we read the history board. A stroll up Albert Road for Chrissie to see the Hippodrome and Colne centre led to the discovery of the Titanic Museum in the upper room of Old Grammar School beside the church. It was 15:20 when we arrived and the entry was free at that point because the museum was to close early. At 15:45 the staff attended the laying of commemorative wreaths at Wallace’s Memorial outside the former Carnegie Library, now a Baptist Church. We enjoyed our brief visit. It was enough for us to get a flavour. We then decided on the spur of the moment to go into Wetherspoons “The Wallace Hartley” for a drink instead of wasting time going home only to return for the films we were booked into. The joy of the pub today in particular was the bunting signal flags, although I’m not sure what they were saying. Also the beers were excellent. They included several from the Titanic Brewery in Stoke, not least the Captain Smith and my dark malt ale which was amusingly named Black Ice! The Grand National was on the tv and there was a lot of excitement but I can only tell you that a horse won and a girl came third on a fish, a Seabass. Should I have been paying more attention rather than tweeting about the beers to my newfound beer aficionados on Twitter! I don’t think so. A middle aged couple came in and we ended up in banter conversation with them and a very pleasant time was had. In the end the clock was marching against us and, needing something to eat we descended the hill to Carlos for a pizza and a pasta before the films. We had a look at the wreaths while we were down there. Quite touching. Chrissie was very impressed with The Hippodrome, rightly so as it’s well restored and a neat, small scale period theatre/cinema opened in 1914. She’d brought her cushion along and was comfortable for the performances. There two films. The main film was the 1958 British Classic “A Night To Remember” with Kenneth More. We both enjoyed it and felt it was better than the modern version. In black and white it had an authenticity and wasn’t over-played like the Hollywood films. The following biopic made locally told the story of Wallace Hartley and was almost a typical B film to accompany the A film like it was when we were young. We enjoyed that too plus the company of the very elderly charming Barlick couple behind us who recalled being in that same cinema in the 1960’s. Curiously, the funeral of Wallace was huge, akin to a state funeral with over 40,000 in attendance. Clearly he was seen as something of a hero. The whole day was a splendid way to remember the Titanic and gave the story a real human element seeing it with knowledge of at least one of those on board. We thoroughly enjoyed our day out in Colne and Chrissie vowed we will return, particularly to the Hippodrome. I can’t wait for the Blues festival personally. Back home we needed a fire before watching dvd’s supplied by Shirley of The Real Emmerdale filmed in 2006. It was a fascinating trio of programmes telling the story of the cruck barn constructed that year by the Ainsworths to form an extension to The Craven Arms in Appletreewick. It is specially built of traditional materials and using vernacular techniques. The Craven is very close to my heart as this is where Tom and Cora had their wedding reception in 1940 connecting us to the place for over 70 years. Other stories on the series were of Roy Nelson and Joan Leverton both being friends of Gill’s and mine in the 60’s. And finally . . . 2012 04 15 Sunday The sun was out again and the day ahead was taken up with minimising my packing for the bike ride starting tomorrow. All the tasks needed to get ready took me up to the wire but I got most of it done by midnight. Amazingly, when I picked up my hotmail.fr emails I found that over £100 had been donated yesterday to my JustGiving. Marian’s mentioning the blog to her friends on Facebook had quite an effect. Thank you to everyone that has donated. Managed to load my Friday ride onto the Strava website and was very pleased with the outcome bearing in mind I was on my mountain bike and carrying a rucsac for the party. Bed now in the hope of getting a few hours sleep ready for tomorrow’s ride to Formby.