The ride last week, the missus dropped me off and I rode through a bit of the Bowland Forest national park, which strangely has practically no trees in it .
The road skims around one the mountain bike trail centre and then climbs up to a high point that gives a panoramic view of a featureless farmland landscape, but has a majestic size that is unusual in England.
In the distance you can see the mountains of the Yorkshire Dales National park.
I met up with her to climb Ingelborough, which is only 2300ft, but starts at not much above sea level and still looks quite impressive.
The path is actually very steep and straight away I was digging deep even using full power, being able to see the top at all times is psycholigically defeating for me and Im such an impatient person that even my fast pace wasnt enough and I quickly decided I wasnt going to make it.
The bike conked out, mainly because I was pushing it too hard, Im not sure if some overheat protection in the controller kicked in, but it was completely dead and the weather started to take a turn, clouds darkening and rain squalls moving in.
As you can see it got pretty nasty looking very quickly and there were two huge lightning strikes only just over a small hill from where I was.
The missus was nearly at the top and there wasnt much point in waiting any longer, so I rode down, met a proper old Yorkshireman biker who showed me a different way down.
The sky then turned black and an Indian monsoon level of rain came down, I rang the wife and she actually sounded a bit concerned, but there were plenty of people on the trail and it was still warm, so I left her to it and scoffed my butties in the van, when the rain stopped I walked up to meet her and drowned rat didnt describe it.
All in a good day, dramatic but warm weather, great views and the bike had fixed itself by the time I got home.
