A Tale Of Two

I slept much better than the night before so I woke up feeling like my shortish ride this morning would be achievable if a little slow on tired legs.

On Monday, I'd been on the turbo and started a new course, just for fun, on cycle racing.  I'm never in a million years going to race.

Or so I thought.

I enjoyed a meander up this road for a circuit of Whernside on wheels.  My legs were starting to warm up at this blip point and I just had the little steep section in the distance to get over before a steep descent into Dent.  

That's where the tale began.  

As the road flattened out, from the corner of my eye, I saw a dog hurtling towards the side of my bike.  Rich asked whether it was just coming to say hello. No.  It was baring its teeth and barking aggressively while doing darting manoeuvres a bit too close to my ankles.

Luckily, I had my winter boots on but I wasn't hanging around!  I dropped into speedster mode and hurtled along as fast as I could.  That's not actually so fast and the dog kept up with me for what felt like ages.  Time to sprint!  Thankfully, I started to pull away and then suddenly saw it slow down and hopefully give up.  At which point, I started laughing uncontrollably.  I continued like that for a while before I dared stop and text Rich to say that I'd just out-pedalled a Jack Russell.  

I continued on my way through the cobbles of Dent before heading on towards Cowgill.  It was then that I heard the panting.  Another dog came out of a farm gate and was hot on my heels.  Sprint number two!  I think this one might have been old (rather than me being super-fast) as it gave up pretty quickly when I told it where to go.

Cowgill was a picture in autumn colours and moss covered bridges over the beck and I was surprised to find two young lads walking in smart outfits wheeling a suitcase.  I'm guessing they were heading up to the railway station but it was quite a way to go!

I'd taken ages to get to the 18 mile mark but I had it in my head that that was the end of the ride because the next ten were downhill all the way back to Ingleton.  That was a corking descent - shallow enough to need to keep pedalling and therefore stay warm but steep enough that it wasn't really too much effort to keep a good pace going.

No bacon butty van this time but I made myself a coffee and biscuits and headed home.  

I heard a vague buzz while I was driving but assumed it was from outside because there was nothing more for another half an hour.  And then it woke up as the van got warmer in the sunshine.  A great beast flew in front of me while I was driving.  A bee, by the size of things.  I couldn't see it so decided it must have found a place to rest in the back of the van and I could let it out when I got home.

I indicated left and glanced in the left mirror only to spot the hugest of wasps waltzing up the window.  Now that wouldn't do at all.  Staying in control with a few expletives, I kept my cool until I could find a parking spot and let it out.  

On my way again, after another five minutes, something catches my eye on the sun visor.  A wasp!  Unbelievable. This took a little more control because it was right next to my head.  It wasn't the same size as the other but that didn't really matter when a dying autumn wasp is almost on your eyebrow.  I sang a few loud bad words and turned off in Addingham to find a quiet road.  Opened the window and off it flew.

Since getting home, Rich said he would have been more impressed if at least one of the dogs had been a whippet.