Equipped with my new maps, I left my luggage at the hotel and set off with a vague idea of getting to York. I didn’t – as is obvious from the title – but I never let failure get in the way of pleasure.
It was the usual Sustrans cross-section of city strata: River Aire, noisy main roads, low-rent housing estates (in this case proper back-to-backs), then a rec ground for all leading – via an Amazon fulfilment centre – to a golf course for the few . . . and then came the lovely 17th-century Temple Newsam. A crossing of the M1 then the usual big agricultural landscape that I zig-zagged across on the quietest roads I could find as far as Selby. That, I thought, was ample excitement for one day.
A lovely ride, with a lovely abbey at the end of it. It was great to be bowling along again under my own steam.
Aides memoires part 3 