Wigginton Autumn Brevet

23/10/16

This ride started near York, which had the simultaneous benefits of being able to get to by train on Sunday morning and not being ridiculously hilly.  A nice if chilly morning, and the city smelled of chocolate.  An easy ride from York station along Haxby Road to Wigginton Recreation Hall.  Lots of riders; I hung around outside checking out the bikes until the building shower became more like rain.  It had stopped by the time we started, and for the rest of the day we had a few more showers but always short and never enough to justify waterproofs.  As a bonus rainbows were visible at several points.

North Yorkshire

The event was ‘organised for North Yorkshire CTC by VC167’ whose members were conspicuous in their blue and yellow jerseys, as well as their large (to me) groups riding together.  Not being a club member I am not comfortable with group riding but unfortunately those who are tend to assume that everyone else is, and will happily surround the individual rider expecting you to understand their calls, and occasionally they will empty their noses when in close proximity.  Also I find that while such groups ride faster than me they also stop frequently, resulting in a tortoise/hare situation.  One person, dawdling at once such pause while I came by, exclaimed “a tourer!” as if I had shown up to a 100 km road ride on a downhill mountain bike.  I did enjoy riding up the hill on the straight (presumably Roman) road near Castle Howard using my triple, while others walked.

Enough grumbling.  I got talking to a guy on a Surly with what I think were On-One Mungo bars; he said they were always mocked by his club.  He was doing an ECE from Durham; much respect.

The first control was at Malton Morrisons where I felt surprisingly good and bought a pear and some cashew nuts.  Then west, north and west again to the second control at Ampleforth College.  I hadn’t looked this up so had no idea that there was an Abbey and Catholic boarding school here.  It was very peaceful, the sort of place you would normally take time over visiting, so it seemed a bit incongruent to have a bunch of sweaty cyclists descending and eating everything in sight.  The cafe, where stickers for brevet cards were obtained, was not only busy but had that smell of institutional catering that gives me the pure dry boak.  So I settled for an ice cream from the shop.

Ampleforth Abbey Ampleforth Abbey

The next section was my favourite, heading just into the North York Moors National Park and through Wass, a section I recognised from an ODL youth hostel weekend.  Past Byland Abbey, and the route gives a view of the White Horse near Kilburn.  Too far away to be worth stopping for a photo, but I tried using the GoPro whilst rising to capture some fellow riders up ahead.

Riding in North Yorkshire

With about 10 km to go I had a bit of a bonk and ate my emergency naked bar, which did the trick.  I suspect I wouldn’t have needed it if I hadn’t had the ice cream sugar-injection at the last control.  The last stretch was a fast ride along a B road into Wigginton.  All day I had been passing and being passed by a guy on a Moulton (since revealed as ‘Dave’ on yacf) and a woman on something nice-but-unidentifiable which was orange with white sections and very audax-looking, and we arrived at pretty much the same time.  I was also happy to catch Surly-guy in the last km and finish together – although he quickly headed off (presumably a pootle back to Durham) whereas I sat around with tea and cake before slowly rolling back to York.

Wigginton route

102 km, 6:06 hrs