The day was bright but cold so we all layered up to keep warm. The ride started well with a nice road section from helmsley towards harome. once we got of road however the stage was set for much of the days riding. MUD!!    After only a few miles of uphill muddy riding the layers were coming off in a bid to keep cool!

Richard Simms was doing a great job as navigator and 8 miles in he got us to our first bit of downhill. this to was muddy and almost as hard as the uphill sections. A stop at the bottom of the hill to fix the only puncture of the day. it was a welcome 10 minute rest , onwards and upwards again this time on tarmac for several miles. a short road section of down hill lead us to our next off road section. more up and even more mud. this bit was so bad that even Tom had to get off and push!! Once we reached the top and over took some walkers (only just)! we made ouronly map reading error and added an extra 3 miles of muddy forest track.  Soon we were back oncourse and after a quick banana break we again hit the mud., a couple of miles later we managed to get to the forest road we needed to take, only to find it was been used as a stage for a rally.  Thinking it was maybe best not to get in the way of these fast cars we took a detour up a very steep track. Tom cleaned it but it had the rest of us pushing. after summiting the hill we found ourselfs now in snow and ice and no longer in mud.

Richard who knows the area well then took on a 3 mile stretch of moorland track, which with its snowy coat made it extremely hard going.  Finally after reaching some tarmac we all agreed to take the road back to Helmsley, one to avoid bumping into the rally cars again and two our legs couldn’t take much more. The final blast down to helmsley was the highlight of the day. It was a tough one and perhaps better if in the drier weather.

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