After a farcical breakfast scrum, brought about because we had been told to make an early start as it was a hilly day. Breakfast was negotiated to be at 7.30am rather than 8.00am, but nobody told the kitchen staff!! As a result when we arrived there was a jug of orange juice but no glasses, bread but nothing to put on the toast, packets of cereal but no bowls and a plate of about 10 croissants. As the staff struggled to sort things out there was almost a blood bath over what was there - and don't even mention the fuss with the people who wanted porridge or a cooked breakfast. We managed to grab cereal and toast and were one of the first away - initially on a dry, cool but cloudy day. That must have lasted all of 4 miles up the road when it started to rain, and rain and then rain some more. We got a bit of variety when heavy drizzle turned to heavy rain and the moved on to torrential downpours.
We climbed up to Monsal Head, where we had been instructed to stop and admire the fine views - one of the pictures below is of me indicating the general direction of where the view would be on a better day. We rolled on with plenty of climbing to reach the suggested coffee stop at Bamford. A few miles before we got there the heavens opened and sheets of rain poured down, so that by the time we arrived we were both drenched and shivering uncontrollably. 2 coffees and a substantial wedge of coffee cake helped, but not as much as the arrival of the luggage van and the opportunity to retrieve some extra clothes!! By now some of the others had arrived and we were quickly turning the Community Cafe into a fishing lake, so we decided to press on as the rain had subsided to light drizzle.
The next section was over a section of road used on the Tour de France in 2014 and on the Tour of Yorkshire. Called 'The Strines' it includes some steep descents with equally steep pulls out - one of which is meant to be around 25% at the steepest pitch. The saving grace was the fact that the road had been resurfaced for the TdF so is still smooth and easy to cycle even in rain. We got over the section in the dry and even saw a bit of sun, but as soon as we started to come off the moor the rain started again in torrents, only stopping as we descended to Langsett.
This is where we were planning to have lunch, but it was dry so we decided to go on to Holmfirth. Not such a great plan as we ended up in a bus shelter with the bikes waiting for the worst of the thunder shower to pass...... We found a cafe in Holmfirth, where we were able to park the bikes under cover in view of out table. Hot drinks and toasties restored morale and I caused a few raised eyebrows by using the teapot as a drier for my gloves. We stopped off at a supermarket to get a couple of pairs of marigolds for riding tomorrow! We finally got drenched again about 3 miles from the hotel trying to navigate our way through the suburbs of Huddersfield.
We are now at the Old Golf Course Hotel in Outlane - unfortunately for them the M62 was built over the course - which now allegedly has just 8 holes! We are mingling with 120 smartly dressed wedding guests and getting a few funny looks........ 
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