DAY 6 - Threshfield to Holmfirth - 71 miles

Firstly, apologies to all who logged on to read our day 6 installment on the blog only to find it missing. With a later start yesterday, the big hills to contend with, and a later than usual arrival in Holmfirth, by the time I sat down to look at the blog it was 10pm - an hour later than my body seems to want to shut down while on this ride. In the end I had to concede defeat and turn the lights out at half past 11, so here's the entry for day 6:

We finally awoke to stare day 6 in the face - the big one. Here's how it stacked up:
7 categorised climbs of 19 miles in total: 2 x cat 5 / 1 x cat 4 / 3 x cat 3 / 1 cat 2

GULP. I think it's fair to say that neither of us was particularly enthralled by the idea of today's ride, having tasted cat 4 and cat 3 climbs recently and found them hard work. But we had to face it, so we went through our usual routine and headed down for breakfast.

Breakfast was a little later this morning, as the breakfast service didn't start until 8:30, so we decided to do a couple of checks on the bikes, inflate tyres and adjust saddles in an attempt to alleviate knee and bottom pain.

So with bikes back on the rack we headed in for breakfast to find out whether we were in store for a 'Balloch beater'. I had the full cooked breakfast (as I now consider my duty), while Lee went for poached eggs on toast - he was first in the saddle today and finds it easier to pedal without the weight of a full English to carry with him.

I can officially reveal that today's breakfast at the Old Hall Inn was indeed the best we've had so far, but only by a nose, and I think it was the salted butter waiting for me under a tiny cloche at a perfectly spreadable consistency that clinched it. The Old Hall Inn would make a great base from which to explore the Yorkshire Dales National Park and, being close to my wife's and my favourite dale (Coverdale) I think there's a good chance I'll be seeing this place again in the future. I think they have real claim to having the best food in the dale, as their sign outside states.

After breakfast I went to settle the bill while Lee headed out into uncertain-looking weather. While paying the balance for our room the lady behind the bar (who I'm guessing is the landlady) gave me a very generous £20 for our cause!! Who'd believe it?! Talking with Lee only the other night we were expecting the stranger donations to dry up the further south we went but so far, there has been no evidence of it. THANK YOU Old Hall Inn!

Once I'd filled the Moggy up with fuel in the petrol station in the village I set off to find Lee. However, there had been no sign of him before I hit Skipton. My phone rang shortly afterwards: Lee was somewhat lost in Skipton centre. The route can be a little tricky to follow on the Garmin GPS sometimes, as we're using OS landranger maps on it, which have pink roads; the route we need to follow is also marked in pink so it's very easy to over-shoot the route and if it's busy with traffic you can't always hear the beeps the unit makes to tell you to take a turn.

Once we'd finally caught up, by a slightly different route than planned, we headed south again, trying to thread ourselves between Bradford and Manchester. We swapped over after Lee had soldiered his way through his 21-mile leg with his still swollen and painful knee. I hopped on the saddle part way up the first categorised climb, a cat 4, and made my way into Calderdale.

When chatting with Q (my cycling guru) last night about saddle soreness and gear usage strategy, he suggested going for lower gears earlier in the climbs rather than trying to save a couple in reserve for when it gets steeper (which is what I had been doing). So I opted for this new strategy and hit the granny gear from the off, with my eyes fixed 3 metres in front so as not to become disheartened by what lay in front of me. I pedalled on, it was a comfortable climb for legs and lungs, but the saddle was starting to fight back.


42 miles in we swapped again, which was a great relief after a five-mile climb out of Hebden Bridge (cat3). Lee had made a pitstop in Hebden Bridge to grab lunch for us in the form of paninis, so when we changed over I was able to enjoy a hot sandwich and soft seat before heading off in the car to find Lee - who, after my half-hour break, had almost crossed the M62 and was halfway up his own 4.5 mile cat 3 climb. I waited at the top of hill where it started to rain again, though this morning's speed-sapping winds had now died down thankfully.


From here we dropped down into a busy little area between Halifax and Oldham - not so busy with cars but with roads, and while easy to navigate on the bike with the GPS for guidance, following in the car wasn't so easy. At this point therefore we had to pick a destination and follow the TomTom's route in the car, so we parted company. This meant that once Lee had hit his mileage for the day I was nowhere to be found! I attempted to retrace my steps to where I had last seen him, only to end up back where I started, having a bit of a 'twighlight zone' moment.


While speaking together on the phone to work out where on earth either of us was, the heavens opened - for both of us. We couldn't be far away from each other, but decided to head to the next village along the route, Greenfields, which should be easier to locate as it was now on both our routes. When a very wet Lee arrived he told me he had found the best view he'd ever seen, complete with train crossing a viaduct and cricket match. The video he took on his phone did look nice, but at this point I wasn't about to go back to find it, as it was still raining and I had a cat 2 climb to do before we dropped into Holmfirth.


Fuelled by a panini and an energy gel I once again hit granny gear and pedalled my way up. I think it was a little steeper than the climbs earlier in the day, but short enough to be a happy compromise, I spent the whole climb waiting to turn a corner and stare another 16% section in the face, but it never came, and to my delight I rounded a bend onto the summit.


After another half mile's cycling I found myself bouncing around in an usual manner. The road immediately in front of me looked fine, so glanced down at my rear wheel to determine the source of the strange sensation and found a rapidly deflating tyre. I set about changing the inner tube - fortunately it was only drizzling at this point and 5-10 minutes later I was on my way again, with a very long and enjoyable descent into Holmfirth.


Our pub/bed for the night was a couple of miles the other side of the town, on Jackson Bridge, and after a short but ridiculously steep climb out of the town I found the Moggy sat opposite the pub. What a sight - we'd done it! This was cause for celebration as we'd both been feeling anxious about today.


Lee had already got the bags into the room so all we had to do was walk the bikes around the back to the storage area and head off for showers. The landlord, Dave, told us at this point that we'd made the local paper! (Thanks again to Helen for working hard behind the scenes to contact all of these people in an effort to aid our fundraising.) So our plan was to shower, have a quick pint, look the paper, and head into town to find a suitable spot to sprinkle some of Dad's ashes.


Holmfirth is the only place we'd planned to sprinkle Dad's ashes that he'd not visited before, but as a huge fan of 'Last of the Summer Wine' we know he would have loved to visit. In the bar we were soon asked by one of the locals about our efforts, prompted again by our CMA T-shirts. It transpired that the pub we were in was used in the filming of the TV series and the man we were now speaking to, Ron, had been the landlord during filming!


After a fun chat with him we thought he'd be a great person to recommend a nice spot for the ashes, which he did: a hill just across the road which afforded us an amazing view of the village. He assured us that the hill itself had been used extensively in the filming of the TV series, and once we arrived near the top we saw why: a picture postcard view! Once we'd taken in the view we sprinkled some of Dad's ashes, knowing that he'd be very happy indeed with this spot.


We headed back to the pub for another pint of Plaedies, which was a lovely hoppy summery ale (with plenty of body considering it's 3.8% abv). While enjoying our beer we looked at some pictures that Ron had been to fetch for us from his cottage across the road of his time with the cast during filming. He signed a couple of pictures for us and gave us £5 for our cause - stranger donations now up to £80.


We then sat down to dinner. I had an excellent slow cooked piece of lamb 'Henry' and Lee had pork with black pudding. Very good quality food, excellent ale and comfortable rooms makes the White Horse at Jackson Bridge another one that's worth coming back to: a proper locals' pub, full of friendly people. We also had £4 from a lady sat a couple of tables away who'd overheard us talking and then another £4 from a younger chap who popped in after a game of cricket. Stranger donations now £88. Brilliant!


NEXT STOP: Tutbury near Burton, 70 miles.