LSD

Although there have been several hallucinations on today's ride I'm not referring to the acid trip, but the long slow distance that we've been working hard at. It was a long slog from Hexham to Ripon over the Penines with a head wind and even more rain early on. 

The roads out of Hexham were tough with some long drags, again on our new best friend the A68. We put our heads down and pedalled hard as we knew it was the o my way to make any headway. The wind was making things very tough and was reducing our pace dramatically which was both energy sapping and psychologically detrimental to our progress. 

We managed to near Darlington before letting Garmin take over and guide us down the 'B' roads towards our destination. 

By 50 miles our legs were feeling heavy and we were in desperate need of a rest so we found the nearest pub just outside of Richmond and got some food. It was like stepping back in time and felt like we were in the Aidensfield Arms on the set of Heartbeat, but the staff and locals were hospitable as always and provided some good food to refuel our weary muscles. 

We got ourselves up and on our way, however the wolfpack was not as aggressive as before and was sounding more like the three blind mice as we squeaked with each revolution, mainly as a result of our chains resembling some gold bling Mr T would be proud of! 

As we made our way through North Yorkshire across more hills Harrogate seemed to get no closer and we were all feeling tired. Eventually we arrived at our B&B for the evening; Duke's Place just outside of Harrogate where we've landed on our feet once gain and have got a quaint little cottage for the 3 of us. In addition, Martin has joined us and the wolfpack had grown by 1 for the next day and a half! We will be strong tomorrow, let's just hope Martin has a route planned and can drag us to Northwich with relative ease.