Rash?

I wasn't expecting to need the mental motivation of tagging my photo #grimcollection.  That's not really for cycling days. But on the seventh rainbow (and you know what arrives with that), I had come to terms with my ride being somewhat inclement.  In fact, there wasn't much dry all the way to Kettlewell.  Where was the full sun forecast?!  Trouble is, the weather seemed to give me a little too much thinking time.  

I wasn't really fancying the back road loop home after all that rain.  With a thinning back tyre and a brand new replacement sitting at home, I didn't want my luck to run out completely on the way back with a puncture.  But, neither did I want to reverse my route on the same road...

Unless, said the little shoulder devil, you spice it up a bit?  After laughing it off a few times, it was starting to feel like a possibility.  I concluded that if it was raining when I emerged from the Kettlewell toilets, I'd head for home.  

But it wasn't.

Onwards and upwards.  And lucky for me, right on the flat bit before the hill began proper, I looked over and spotted the first bit of close sunshine since leaving Bolton Abbey. Fleeting but enough.

It was quite tough, to be honest - wet, gritted, loose gravel and a whopping highland coo attempting to thwart my arrival at the top.  It was standing bang in the middle of the single-track road on the other side of the cattle grid.  There's no way she was stopping me so I ploughed on through and, thankfully, off she moseyed. 

A headwind home but with the little buzz of a winter hill under my cleats, I was fairly certain I was going to make it. And the same road home was delightfully dry. Mostly.