Leading to Leeds

I rose early and went downstairs to the foyer area leaving the good Mr. Durrant to snooze on. Time enough to write the blog for the day.    Keeping up to date with all the adventures of the tour. At 08.00 returned to our room to give wake up call and pack ready for the road.  Breakfast was probably the best part of the service.    Wide choice and well presented.    Richard,out of sorts a little,  had plenty to do on the admin side to ensure matters on the concert front were still moving forward before we hit the peddles.    Prospects for the day were for a long rather hilly ride through largely built up areas.   I took it upon myself to mention to the manager of the hotel before we left that the entrance  was such a mess with cigarette ends and empty drink cups and rubbish. It made a very poor first impression for guests.   It happens in so many places, people smoking outside a building and then leaving without consideration for others. I suggested it should be the  first job of the day for any manager to check the front of house!   I am not sure how well my advice went down.  And with that we set off to Leeds to rendezvous with my family; Joseph, Louise and Thomas.   It would be good to meet up with familiar faces.  We are staying with them for two nights.  A time to catch up with all their news!  An invitation to have our bikes checked over for the next stage of the ride. Plenty to do before we got there though.  We had a few hills to get over on the the first section of the ride.  One or two real challenges.  Now I am not one to get on my high horse but the most annoying thing we came across in this region was the poor condition of the cycle lanes.  Not only are the surfaces uneven and breaking up which renders them almost unusable but the vegetation from the hedgerows has been allowed to grow over the paths making a real hazard.  Richard nearly had his face ripped to shreds by an overhanging hawthorn.    It is false economy to leave the paths in this condition. It forces cyclists to use the main carriageway and inevitably causes more accidents.   End of lecture.   The route is familiar to me as I followed it last year when on the sponsored ride I undertook on LEJOG, again for the Big C charity in Norwich.   It was the section of the route where I was joined by my two brothers David and Kieran.  We passed through at mid morning, Rotherham, my birthplace.    Again no fanfare marked the occasion.   The return of a long lost son of the town!   We stopped for a coffee and a cake in the square.   Onwards north.   Good news came in about ticket sales in Pickering,with over 100 sold, and Pip Piper, Tour de France filmmaker, had got back to Richard. The artiste was now feeling creative and suggested we divert to Barnsley and try out a little busking in the centre, perhaps near the Civic Theatre.    On arrival  it was clear that Barnsley was not ready for a street performance by Durrant.   I was not sure we would get out alive or with the guitar in one piece.  Maybe Richard would be wearing it.   We took in it turns to guard the bikes and purchase our lunch from M & S but not before a tour of the back streets to find a suitable cafe.  There was some street theatre in the main precinct;  a French trio doing poor slapstick dance and a couple of ladies in French costume on stilts.   Bizarre.   Time to make a dash for Leeds before the maestro came up with any more good ideas.   Quickly on to the A61 and we enjoyed a relatively fast ride into Wakefield and then Leeds. No mishaps with the bikes and just a pit stop to pick up water on the edge of Leeds.   We shared a Fry's Peppermint Cream too. Across the city and out to the northern suburbs where Joe and Louise live.    Great welcome and a cup of tea. Time for a shower before going out for dinner at Salvo's,  a delightful Italian restaurant which has featured on a Gordon Ramsey programme and I am not talking Hell's Kitchen here.   A most enjoyable evening and then back home to bed, all in. Total mileage now:727