York looked lovely, on the hottest, most beautiful day of the year. The Millennium Bridge (picture) was busy with the city’s everyday cyclists shuttling across the Ouse to Rowntree Park. If they were hoping to play table tennis at the park’s free-access table they were to be disappointed, because we were using it.
I rode the now very familiar route from my house to my mum’s. I’ve done this dozens of times since I moved to York three years ago. By dint of shortcuts, lanes and snickets, I can do the shortest, most car-free, nicest route on autopilot now. In stark contrast to the uproariously hilly Dales, this part of Yorkshire is snooker-table flat (picture). You could almost be in the Netherlands, only with fewer windmills and more breweries.
There’s little in the way of postcard-shots in this quiet rural back route: few villages, none especially photogenic. In fact, the settlement with the highest population is probably this one, a sort of Butlin’s for pigs. There was a lot of contented grunting and snuffling here, much of it from me.
I did the 37 miles to Ferriby, the village I grew up in, in three joyous hours. Those who have enjoyed mum’s legendary generosity will understand that the spent calories were swiftly replenished several times over.
Miles today 37
Total miles 638