Una bella giornata!

Skyreholme-Halton Gill-Horton-in-Ribblesdale-Halton Gill-Skyreholme 59 miles.

Click here for a map of the route.

An early start today, to ride to Horton-in-Ribblesdale for an Italian lesson. We've been going for years, and at sixty miles for the round-trip it's now a good training ride for LEJOG, around the distance we are aiming to ride each day. With a few cheery waves from neighbours seeing their kids onto the school bus (okay, so not that early really), we were off. We followed the same route as our weekend ride ten days ago, up the valley towards Kettlewell, but turning off to Litton. This time we made the corner up over the cattlegrid in the right gear, and the sheep were clearly impressed.

It's a nice run up Littondale, you feel you're making good progress even though it's a gentle climb all the while. There's a village every couple of miles to mark the way, but it's almost impossible to keep your eyes off that hill rising ominously up out of Halton Gill. It's not fantastically steep, but it's one of those hills that fools you into thinking you're nearly there, then reveals another summit, and another, and another, until you finally get to the top at nearly 1500ft. The views are incredible, though, and as you get higher and further along the valley, Pen-y-ghent appears. It's said to resemble a big sleeping lion, and if the cloud layer is not too low that's a good description. It's part of the Yorkshire Three Peaks walk, so there are pretty much always people up there.

At the Malham turn-off this time we continued on towards Stainforth, gliding down at a good speed, then braving the quarry lorries on the main road towards Horton-in-Ribblesdale. They were all pretty good, giving us a wide berth, but the slipstream behind them can be a little wild. In Horton-in-Ribblesdale we passed the cafe where Three Peak-ers have breakfast and register their walk, and then it was on to our Italian teacher's house, and three hours of conversation, exercises and tenses, and a delicious lunch to set us on our way.

We were much faster on the way home, and really enjoyed the section from Halton Gill to where the road joins the Kettlewell route. It's imperceptibly downhill, very flattering. We stopped at the Queen's Arms in Litton, thinking to have a coffee and get out of the saddle for a bit, and although it was ages after they'd actually closed and he was on his way out, the new landlord kindly made us a pot of coffee. The rest of the ride passed in a blur - all familiar roads, but it was encouraging that we got home in great time and feeling strong. We'd done sixty miles and two climbs of over a thousand feet, probably equivalent to a harder day on LEJOG. The training must be starting to pay off.