Stage 7, AONBs All Around

Slept not so well as expected in the soft luxury of the B&B, but a good breakfast was provided and I was off by around 0900.

Today was planned as an easier day, but I had to add the 10km of climbing I hadn’t done yesterday, so it wasn’t quite as easy as intended. Nevertheless, it was a generally enjoyable day, and taken at a more relaxed pace with quite a few coffee stops.

The first few km up out of Settle were pretty hard work.

Here’s me, having a coffee in Clapham, which looked an interesting little village. This cafe was very old fashioned, but the coffee was good and the almond cookies amazing. I’m eating one now.

There were some caves there, and a picturesque waterfall…

From there it was pleasant riding until Ingleton, at which point I decided my bike desperately needed some lube for the chain. There was a bike shop not far off route so I set off to find it. Wasn’t a great part of the day, enough said, I got the lube and the bike stopped making bad noises.

From there an immensely long climb towards Deepdale… This was full of steeps and longs… These photos looking back…

The descent was crazy, and with amazing views… I have some of it on the GoPro… Will share after I’m back in civilisation.

Eventually I got to Sedburgh for a very late lunch, I’m calling it dinner too now.

The last few km to the very cool Howgills Hideaway (next time I will Glamp here) were a lot hillier than expected, but safely here and all setup.

All in all a nice day, quite social, lots of other bike tourers and plenty of random chats with folks.

Tomorrow may be a tough day, so I’m of to sleep as soon as I can.

Check out my ride on Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/1819076078/shareable_images/map_based?hl=en-US&v=1536086201&utm_source=org.wordpress.android&utm_medium=referral