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It was another sunny day as we headed north once more to the picturesque but tourist bound village of Goathland, just because the TV series Heartbeat is filmed there it has become gridlocked with the cars of tourists. Must be an awful place to live. Bert bought a 1:50000 map here because there were lots of roads missing off our 1:250000 map. It seems that these may have been left of the old map because of the high incidence of 1:4 hills so the new map was a good buy. The shortcut from Beckhole to Grosmont was particularly impressive with severe gradients and fords across fast flowing rivers.

Soon after this we reached the object of this year's tour, the steepest hill in Britain and the only genuine 1:3. But a disaster in the planning meant that we approached it from the top! Calum couldn't stand it, six months of anticipation and then messed up at the last minute, it was too much. When we reached the bottom he turned straight round and went back up. We climbed the High Street in Glaisdale and stopped opposite the general store and an excellent butcher for lunch. We continued up Esk Dale all afternoon, every bit of road is steep so you're either grinding up in low gears at 3mph or enjoying a short whizz at 30mph, this makes for great cycling. After Kildale the terrain levels out quite a bit and we picked up speed but then turned off at Swainby for another terrific climb over the ridge and down the other side to Osmotherly. The hostel shop had beer for sale so we stayed in that night too exhausted for the one mile walk to the pub.

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Now Alan had decided that he wanted to cycle home tomorrow and Blackpool seemed a long way away so we got an early start and shot over to the airfield at Leeming. Here we rested a while and watched the RAF Tornadoes taking off and returning, very impressive. We then whizzed off down to Ripon down the Vale of York, the flatness of the terrain meant that we had completed 30m already so we treated ourselves to an early lunch at 'The Warehouse'. The weather was getting pretty warm as the afternoon wore on and by the time we reached Pateley Bridge for the shopping it was a real scorcher. We did the shopping here, potatoes, plenty of fresh veg etc. and so as we set off in the baking sun with all the extra food tucked in our bags the conditions were perfect to enjoy the return trip over Greenhow Hill. Whichever way you tackle it this is a brilliant climb, three 1:6 sections take you quickly (or slowly) back up to 1200ft, it's a classic! By the time we got back to Grassington it was 17:30, still quite a way to go but Alan had got the hang of this cycling by now and we had to chase him all the way over to Earby. Sixty Eight miles, scorching sun, Greenhow Hill, cosy hostel and a great pub at night all in one day, it doesn't get much better than that.

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Alan left first heading down back through the village, Bert and Trevor needed to get back to Bradford. The most direct route is straight up the hill from here, excellent! After warming up with another 1200ft climb we said our goodbyes and Calum and I headed north again to Skipton for shopping and two visits to the pie shop, how could I miss it? Having loaded up the bags with fresh food we headed back up on to the hills again through Eastby, only 1171ft this time but well worth it. On the way up there is a sign post which says 14%, now I've climbed enough hills to know that it's wrong, definitely worth a detour if you're in the area. We had planned to stay at Linton but the YHA in it's wisdom has closed nearly all the rural hostel in Yorkshire so we headed on to Kettlewell. The village was still quiet when we visited but the film 'Calendar Girls' had not been released at the time. I expect the place is unbearable by now. The hostel has recently been improved, this seems to consist of making the kitchen one quarter of it's former size!