17% hill that went on for about a mile & half on GYBR!!!

Tino4444

Hi all,

Did anyone do the GYBR this weekend?

I have not done the event now for about 8 years and certainly did not remember coming up against the mile and a half long 17% hill!!!

I managed to get about half way up and then it beat me, but ill be back next year to battle it once again.

Have they chnaged the route to include this section of hills cos I certainly dont remember it.

To all of you who managed to climb this hill.......RESPECT!!

Tino.

John C.

I think you mean Setterington Bank, just after Malton and then that lovely decent down to West Lutton.

This was my day.

200 miles last year. No, not again, that was just to prove I could do it. But it was going to be 150 +. That's Thirsk down to Wetherby-Fily and home again. The usual pre ride questions were what's the weather going to be like and the forcast varied from lots of rain to showers and cloud, oh and on Wednesday one forcast said sunshine. Well I'd been caught out before on this ride and nearly froze to death, so I ended up on the heavier bike with mudgaurds and full waterproofs in my large rack bag.
I left home just before 06.00 and had a leisurely ride down to Wetherby aware of two painfull thighs I've had for the last few weeks, the sourse could be one of 3 things, Richmond Sportive when I first got the pains, spinning on the rollers up to nearly 50 mph with standard gearing or racing at Croft. A fairly uneventfull ride down but I quite like bike riding early morning, everything is fresh.
Arriving at the start I signed in and then signed in Tony and Steve who were also riding there and back with me, it suddenley became apparent that the organisers were letting riders out 1/2 and hour early so I just put Tony and Steves numbers in my bag along with all our meal tickets and got down to the start, I used my good old mobile phone to locate Tony and say get a move on wer're off in 5 minutes. I'd already said I was taking this ride steady because of my legs, well either no one heard or they thought I was joking as Steve set pace at about 18mph and looked in no hurry to slow down, lots of catching up on family and what and where saw us riding up to Easingwold when Tony said 'are we in front?' . Well we wern't but we had stopped catching riders and were on our own, The first stop for us was Stillington where we met up with several familiar faces from years gone by and a quick pee stop ended up quite a bit longer, but that has to be one of the joys of these rides, the next stage took us up and over to Terrington and my legs were still fine although I did use granny and spin up Terrington bank, I was nearly overtaken by a snail but I hung on and it stopped to munch on a leaf.
The lunch stop at Terrington is exellent, it's just too early for our return trip and too far to miss out and try and catch on the return, so we stopped recieved our alloted mountain of food consumed what we could and stored the rest for later, we were just about to go when we saw two lads Mike and Niel who we rode with last year so it was now 5 riders that headed for the hills, but not before stripping off a layer or two. Rain ? cloud ? may be I'm on the wrong bike with the wrong clothing . With Mike and Niel the pace wasn't going to drop although we went nice and steadily through Malton and up Setterington bank where I was waited for ( thanks lads ) my excuse was I'd helped a rider who's chain had come off, I gave her boyfriend some stick later for leaving her. Then down to the drinks stop at West Lutton, for those who like down hill then this is a gem, mile after mile of fast downhill and we weren't cruising either. After West Lutton Tony took the leed so I hoped we'd ease up a bit, wrong, Tony put the hammer down and we were doing 22-24 mph on the flat, after a while I took over and maintained his pace, this could only mean one thing, No I wasn't fitter than i thought , we must have a strong tail wind. Filey came quickly and we had a quick drink before the return began. During this time I played with the bike computor and realised I'd just done 100 miles in under 6 hours. Its a goal Ive had for a while but 5:55 was quite unexpected.
5 refreshed riders started there return trip and please remind me in future Never Ever beleive a word Steve Oats says, 'the wind will be on our backs on the way home' Tony and I nearly died riding back to West Lutton, it was straight into a 15-20 mph wind.By the time we were at Malton it had eased and we stopped at a supermarket for a bite to eat then back to it, Tony left about a minute early as he wanted to just take his time. It was Terrington by the time we caught him ! I don't know what was in his pork pie but I wish I'd had one. Then we had a mechanicl breakdown, the magnet on my front wheel came loose, the only fault we had in the whole ride. Stillington came and went Tony and I totally drained and agreed, next year lets just do it one way on his tandem. steve said 200 looks tempting.
160 miles in all , why ? well I just had to do it and once you've done one GYBR you just have to do another.

John

cumbriamike

Great to hear about your exploits again John. I haven't been able to do the GYBR these last two years since moving to Cumbria and really miss it.

Maybe next year I could join you and your friends as my in-laws live in York and we could link it in with a visit.

fnb1

17% for 1.5 miles would be an altitude gain of 408m or 1326ft, are you sure it was 17% for 1.5miles?

Tino4444

fnb1 wrote:

17% for 1.5 miles would be an altitude gain of 408m or 1326ft, are you sure it was 17% for 1.5miles?

Hi,

I could be wrong about the distance (I normally am). The sign at the start of the hill stated that it was 17% and it certainly felt like it went on for about 1.5 miles. Maybe someone knows the exact distance of this hill?

Cheers,

Tino.

schweiz

I don't know the hill but if the sign says 17% that is the maximum gradient at one point on the hill not the average.

John C.

Who gives a monkeys about exact stats on a ride like this, it's a family ride aimed at 5-95 year olds and on that sort of ride it's a killer for most of the riders.