Miss His Dales Diary

Me and The Boy had seen someone up ahead on the path along the flood bank of the river Humber.

We were moving along quite well on our mountain bikes but did not appear to be making up any ground on the single figure. If a dog walker or rambler we would soon be right up behind them, relying on them having a good sense of hearing or just a sixth sense of another presence to be on alert to make a subtle move to one side, elbows in or pause and face us. We are generally quite polite and say our thank you's for any granting of a right of passage although generally the footpath signs request cyclists to give way to walkers.

Most are quite happy to exchange pleasantries, others remain vaguely unsociable and a few just look flabbergasted that anyone has spoken to them at all.

The most amusing like-minded outdoorsie types are usually a group of mature ladies who can be quite engrossed in a conversation, putting the world or their relationships to rights whilst we wait patiently for them to realise that we are there at all. If they have been discussing their men-folk in their side by side pedestrian huddle,  Me and The Boy can sense them regarding us with a combination of annoyance and grudging stereotypical acceptance as we scoot past and ride on.

The lone figure in the distance turned out to be a man on an old bike. He had struggled to manouvre through the kissing gate at the end of the river walkway which best entails a movement to hoist the bike up on its back wheel and push it through like a rearing horse whilst hanging on to the handlebars. He had not managed to heave up the heavy metal tubed cycle and had undertaken more of a twenty point turn in small precise increments in the confined space.

He engaged us in a good afternoon and remarked how mild it was for well into October. Obviously knowledgeable of things in the natural world he asked if we had been able to observe the family of stoats cavorting about on the bankside in the sunshine. We had not, but then we can be quite vocal between ourselves and generally noisy giving a running commentary on the state of the path, warning of a looming pothole, tyre sidewall threatening half brick or just a very muddy, muddy puddle. Nature has plenty of notice to make itself invisible when we are around.

We were keen to keep going and not seize up. He continued to discuss the varieties of creatures available for viewing which, at that very moment in the low tide basin included, well I thought he said, a ruddy duck and an Oyster Catcher although he could have been swearing about the first one. Swans and Geese were also apparently in abundance but we had not, heads down and watching our progress, seen anything of these creatures.

We mentioned that we were heading inland and cross country to ascend Spout Hill.

I had wanted to introduce to The Boy the prospect of climbing Spout Hill more by persuasion and a casual mention that it might be a reasonable thing to do. By this understated and subtle policy I felt that he may be more amenable to doing it. Our passing aquaintance, upon the words Spout Hill , partook of a very sharp intake of breathe, uttered a profanity and rolled his eyes simulating an oxygen starved brain from a muscle wrenching activity. I presumed from this dramatic reaction that he indeed knew of Spout Hill and in his younger days may actually have been up it on a bike.

The subject slope was a regular venue for cycling clubs to run their winter Hillclimb competitions. I had walked up it, huffing and puffing a few times but surprisingly had never myself been up it on two wheels. On a particularly icy day some years ago I had been surveying one the of the stone built houses built out of the steep bank. My footing was at best precarious on the road surface of hard packed snow and rather comically I started to slide across the frontage, scribbling frantically on my observations as though on a conveyor belt.

Introduced to the mythical proportions of Spout Hill there was a brief look of fear and trepidation on The Boy's face. I found this disconcerting because he had developed quite a liking and aptitude for attacking an upward slope to such an extent that I was frequently left behind to struggle to keep up with him.

Spout Hill was two miles further on. The approach was flat and fast but I was conscious of conserving some energy. The Boy asked, in timid voice, where was this hill?. As we turned a corner at the old village pump I just pointed skywards. I believe The Boy uttered something rude at this point. I just gasped 'see you at the top....or at home" and so it began.

A good session of mechanical attention in the garage a few days earlier had resolved a sticky gear changer and I now had full use of the smallest chainring. I engaged this immediately the road started to rise and persisted to pedal furiously making slow and labourious but nevertheless some forward motion. The Boy, with 19 less gears than me was waltzing away and up like a natural born climber. My chest heaved and my breathing became faster and more wheezy. Perhaps I should have signed up for the Well Man Clinic after all. The gradient did warrant a single black arrow on my Ordnance Survey Sheet although I am convinced that a truer representation  may have affected by the fading or abrasion of the symbols on what was after all an old map.

At the halfway point on the hill there is a gap in the north bank where a public footpath converges from Brantingham Dale below. The Boy had already passed this point but I slowed up, if that was possible given my pitiful average speed, and pulled over. He must have wondered if I had decided to retire from cycling at this point. We have an unwritten understanding. Climb off and you have to sell your bike. This is very open to interpretation and if you feign falling off, or as footballers do simulation, in a circumstance of giving up then there may be a right of appeal.

I did however have a valid and strongly personal reason for stopping. The clearing had, in the winter of the previous year, been the meeting point for family to celebrate the life and times of my Father who had died a few months before in the July. Mother had read out one of her poems and in a prevailing wind a fine shower of Father's ashes was distributed in one of his favourite walking locations and indeed a very beautiful part of East Yorkshire.

I offered up, at that welcome pause in my ascent, a prayer of thanksgiving for the memory of my Father and a cheeky comment that I had lost some weight and was well into my cycling again after a bit of a falling out in terms of ability and confidence in recent times. He will have been happy about this. I could sense his spirit was with me on Spout Hill and our brief communion gave me fresh momentum and impetus to power on, relatively speaking, to the crest and to the prize, firmly second place to The Boy, of a fantastic long distance and clear view over the valley below.