The Mary Townley Loop. And stuff.

So this lady Mary Townley was a horse riding type who decided it was a good thing to create the Pennine Bridleway. What a top idea me girl. The first part to open was subsequently named after her and is a 47 mile circular off road extravaganza running through West Yorkshire (Hebden Bridge area) and over into Lancashire (down through Rossendale and Waterfoot). So, you get to look down onto Calderdale, Burnley, Rawtenstall, Manchester, Halifax and a hell of a lot of stunning open moorland while riding on excellent tracks.
Of course it's perfect for mountain biking and it is a marvellous day out if you have the legs to go up and down a great deal on yer bike for 8 hours or so.

The forecast for yesterday was grim it had to be said but we went for it anyhow and amazingly it stayed dry pretty much all round - I think we had a 20 minute spell of rain, but not a real soaking. No wind, and the cloud cover kept the temperature down to pleasantly cool. Perfect really.

The Blue Klein days may well be numbered: I think my bike is past it's best as I had more technicals: two stops for a broken chain this time, leaving me in the end, after chucking two sets of broken links away, with it too short to get into big ring. At least it got me round though. I could just buy a new chain of course but then the route talk was of which bike I should be buying next... A Scott Scale 30 (yes, a hardtail - none of this poncy rear suspension for me) is looking good it has to be said and I think I'll need to get it before the Coast to Coast week long off road extravaganza next month. Hehe - "Need to". In as much as I WANT a new bike now - the seed of a shiny new machine has been firmly planted. I can't afford one of course but, what the hell, life's too short.

Hey - I have two serious bike tours coming up in the next six weeks. How cool is that? The Scotland road one with Rich kicks off from Torridon a week on Friday, and the CtoC effort starts from St Bees Head in Cumbria on June 11th. This is the day after England's first World Cup game and we'll all be up there watching that the previous afternoon, so will no doubt start as we mean to go on - with hangovers.

Training is still going well for the Tri (end of July). The running is ticking over at about 20 mile a week and the swimming is Ok, but now needs kicking up a gear or two so I can do the necessary 1500m in really good order. I've now joined the Leeds Bradford Triathlon club and will be able to make use of their swim coaching (Friday nights) and also do some open water training which will be interesting - wet suit and all.

This looks interesting: www.wensleydaletriathlon.co.uk
Why is it that Yorkshire events have to be harder and further than those everywhere else?