04/09/2020
-Middleageadventures
Well day 1 of 7 of the UK Trans Euro Trail, TET, complete. We did 55 miles on the TET from Wharncliffe Side to Leeshaw Reservoir & 36.6 getting to & from it. We have to thank the linesman for an amazing trail & lovely mix of small roads & lanes with just a few B roads when necessary to link things up. The byways themselves were lovely some of which had become fairly technical due to the wet conditions. The first one we came to on Bank lane proved to be just so, looked pretty innocuous two gullies with a nice broad strip of flat ground in the centre.. easy... not 1 meter in & the back wheel slipped in to the right hand gully & me & Lottie were over before we’d even begun. The hand guards & soft luggage saved Lottie from any damage & I landed on a soft bank so no harm done. And for a bonus I picked her out of the gully myself, getting better at picking her up, (practice). Some of the other lanes where quiet rocky down hills with some largish drop offs. Needless to say Lottie just did what she is good at & just effortlessly took me safely over it all. Except that was when I interfered, usually by not applying brakes when appropriate, resulting in her trapping me against a wall on a treacherously wet cobbled down hill lane & her chucking me off after mounting a banking at the bottom of a steep rocky decline with very steep drop offs. Note to self... the brakes work better when applied. We eventually made it to Shipley for a well earned rest.
