First Mountain bike ride in England

I finally got to ride my new bike. I have to say there is nothing better than going out for a ride on a sunny day. Yes I said sunny. This past Saturday Arthur and I ventured out for our first mountain bike ride, and we would not have asked for better weather… it was sunny with a crisp feeling in the air. I wore biking shorts and a long sleeve top… I was actually hot on the ride. The ride was incredible, and though it was just shy of a 15 k it was the perfect distance for my first mountain bike ride in over a year. It started off in a cute village called Austwick in the Yorkshire Dales . We started on a country road for our first accent, but quickly moved on to a muddy path… at this point my bike was properly broken in after the first 15 min… mud and all… We road down a path, which wasn’t to technical but defiantly harder than a dirt road, I made it down with just a few stops. At the bottom of the first hill, and just before starting on a Bridle way Arthur stopped to show me some nettles, so I would avoid them. We walked our bike through one spot to avoid getting stung by the nettle. Just as we started ridding we went through a huge section where it was unavoidable but to run into a few. I on the other hand fell into the nettles… which made my legs sting and tingle for the rest of the day. Lets just say it was not my finest moment. We then road up a very steep grassy hill to the top of the next hill… on the way down it was amazing… it was like a grassy roller coaster. I loved it. Then we had just a few small rolling hills on the rest of the way back. Arthur was in front of me the whole way… but was very good at waiting for me before he got to far ahead. After our ride we stopped in Settle for a bite to eat. I was really craving a sandwich… we both order the sandwich of the day it was on a whole grain roll with mozzarella, pepperoni and spicy tomato relish. Yummy. We also then stopped by a cute coffee shop for cappuccino. If I haven’t mentioned it before I love the coffee and tea shops in England. This one had the old time candy jar from which you could order different types of candy. I would have loved to post some pictures from the ride and the coffee shop, but I forgot my camera. I’m going biking again on Sunday,… so I will post pictures and blog about the next ride.

Danielle xx