I got 07:06 for the 140 which makes it reasonably achievable for me.

Anyone else in?

9.06 middle distance, sh!tting myself a bit

08:06 for me on the long one

Middle 9.38

9:50 middle but starting with mate who got 9:54
Weather doesn’t look great.

A constant 6 to 10 degrees, rain and a middling breeze. Well in could be worse I suppose.

Do I bring snow tyres for the tops do you think?

Hmmm 8.26 on the long one, might have over estimated my ability to go fast.

7.02 for the 140km route. Nice and early so might actually make it round. Weather forecast not great!

07:22 for 140 hope the weather forecast is wrong, but looking forward should be a good day.

Good luck to you doing the full one.

I wouldnt fancy doing that distance and then going up the Cow & Calf, and then Otley Chevin (which is far steeper and longer than the Cow & Calf)

I missed out – bit relieved now I think, I wouldn’t have managed an early start and a big ride.

Doing my own mini ride on Sat – 50 miles from Grassington, down the Dales, up the Cow and Calf to Otley then back up the other side of the Wharf. Looks like a few steep bits, only usually do 20-25 mile fast rides on the road bike, hopefully won’t have to ring for the team car to pick me up 🙂

I assume by down the Dales you mean Grassington – Bolton Abbey – ilkley? If so there is a reasonable amount of climbing on that section. To avoid the worst bit (out of Burnsall) B6160 Grassington to Burnsall. Cross river in Burnsall and take back road to Bolton Abbey, then cross the foot bridge near the cavendish pavillion before the Abbey itself, and take the main road towards Ilkley.

Once you have ridden up the Cow & Calf IMO there is no point in following the ‘official’ route. The roads up there are narrow and very busy (not good for bikes) and the route just makes you climb narrow busy roads, just to loose all the height again to climb Otley Chevin.

Get back to Grassington the north side of the Wharfe on nice quiet cycling roads… with 1 or 2 very steep sharp climbs.

The Otley climb is hard and steep continuous gradient, good to say you have done it, but no nice roads/scenery when you get up there…

I reckon if you do the full ride it will be 4-5,000 ft climbing ?

7.10, long one for me. going between bricking it and thinking it’ll be a nice day out

Mmmh nice day and that forecast…

Middle at 9.38 as the first leg of my fundraising for the children’s hospital charity which includes London to Paris in July.

Shameless request for sponsorship/ donations http://www.justgiving.com/farley-grist. Or text TCHC55£2(or any) to 70070

What truly awful weather for you all today 😯

Due off in about an hour and not looking forward to leaving the house to do so! It’s only 5 minutes away so I’ll leave it as lte as possible. I’ve also worked out a couple of short cuts if it doesn’t improve in the first hour or so.

Got round. 7hrs51 for the 142km, so not fast but a finish is a finish.

The long wet one in 6:33hrs, hope all the riders on the deck early on the ride are safe and well .

The sun came out just as we got to the Cow & Calf for the run to the finish

Great route would love to do it again in better weather

We were yelling at folk in Peckett Well and thoroughly enjoyed it- you were more exciting than the actual race!

Apparently of 2921 entries for the long one only 1500 or so finished.

Though how many were “failed to starts” I don’t know.

I suspect that the stats look even worse once you take into account the people who entered the long route and decided to switch to medium at Cullingworth – my OH was one of them.

Certainly when I went through Addingham at 1:23 on the medium route (2 minutes inside the cut off) there were plenty of people behind me. I’d overtaken plenty on the hill over from Silsden, not to mention the people who were already behind me at that stage.

I’d been delayed a bit by a puncture (did everyone who punctured get a motorbike stopping to supervise them fixing it or is it just because I’m a girl? 😉 ) and having to walk past the crashes after Goose Eye but knew I was slowing and decided to deploy local knowledge to cut out the Cow and Calf and rejoin the route at Pool – although I wanted to do the Cow and Calf for the atmosphere I also wanted to get to the finish and do the run in without being diverted/swept up and I knew that the two weren’t compatible given the state of my legs! The distance was roughly the same, but my route was a hell of a lot flatter.

Anyone up for this year’s Scarborough (presumably) one?

tempted ….it better not rain !

Well there’s rain and there last May’s 630 am start which was more like setting up the turbo trainer in the shower and turning the water on full and cold

I think I’ll do it again. I know it’s tempting fate but I don’t think the weather can be worse than the morning last year…
RM.

Is there an entry linky or date info for this? Thanks.

link – beware registering your interest may actually register my interest

Unless I’m searching incorrectly, don’t think anyone posted a link to the entry page which is now online: here.
Not really sure how I feel about the £62 guaranteed or £52 balloted entry fee.
Also not sure about how the A64 will cope with the traffic on the day, I can imagine getting in/out will be a bit of nightmare.
I think I’ll sleep on it…
RM.