More snow up in them hills and some local events of interest

Well the long windy dry spell has finally ended. On Thursday night/Friday morning it was continuous rain at low level with localised flooding but on high ground that was a different matter. I was in upper Teesdale on Friday reaching one of my outer most points Forest in Teesdale up past High Force (not a sole there!) then crossed over to Stanhope / Wolsingham. The valley roads were ok but when crossing over the peaks between the valleys it was grim. The roads were down to one lane with two tyre tracks to follow. There was a good 4-5" of drifting snow and the A68 was closed early morning as well. On the way back I passed through Tow Law where I have been twice on road bike this week in sunshine but it was back to normal, about 2 degrees (without wind chill factor and 3-4" of snow!
Forecast not looking too good for the weekend either but still hopefully get out for a ride of some description.

Not too bad at Forest in Teesdale

but crossing over the peaks

it just got deeper and deeper the higher we went

Onto local cycle events - there are loads of new events popping up this year which is great to see, I will keep the blog updated with more when I see them.

First up is an mtb event at Hamsterley Forest Saturday May 9th - three routes and all in the aid of Great North Air Ambulance. Cheap to enter and should be good value for money/cause. Brian Harrison has designed the 40mile route and has shed loads of climbing, as you would expect from Hamsterley/Brian, there is also a shorter route option and a family ride as well so plenty for everybody. Here is the WEBSITE

 

and here is a new sportive for later in the year Sunday 30th August, starting & finishing in St Johns Chapel. There are three routes with a 89, 53 & 31 miler options. As you can imagine there will be sheds loads of climbing and some great views, as long as the weather is ok! Again great value for money compared some of the rip off sportive's. Here is the website LINK which also has other local routes and plenty info on the area up there.