Good dry but cold weather saw 7 Thorpers roll out from Mirifeld this morning.  Jack, Martyn, Craig, Richard,Paul,Dave Sugden, and  ‘Big’ Al wareham set off towards Dewsbury, where we were joined en route by the late Brad, which made 8

We went on the  Golden Mile and then climbed up to Birkenshaw and Tong before  hitting Bradford centre,   Dave S peeled off at Shipley and we took Manningham Road through Keighley and over the Cringles. to Addingham.

Wanting to keep on roads where there wouldn’t be much ice we took the main road to otley, it was fairly quiet and mostly wide so the group took the chance to practice through and off riding, and after a shaky start we managed to roll along at about 17/18 mph. 

We made allowances for our European contingent as Jack’s excuse for blasting the group was that he couldn’t ride at 18 mph as his speedo was in metric!  We soon set him  right at 34 kph and all was well, until about 2 miles out of Otley when things picked up.

 Usual good service in the cafe, and craig showed he had learned from last week, by NOT having the full english.,

 We were joined in the cafe by Bernie and Dave Marriott, which was a pleasant surprise 

Back home via Menston and  Hollins hill, canal road and Manchester road, someone must have upset Rich Creaser as he shot off at Shipley never to be seen again, not that we complained as we could roll home at a measured pace

 Scores on the doors ( and like jack I only do metric for cycling) 99.98 kms from home ( wish I’d done that extra few metres!) , 25.9 kph avg  and top speed of 59.  sadly it doesn’t record avg cadence and my HR needs new batteries. 

No doubt the route will be posted soon courtesy of our GPS groupies