Woodhead & Snake Pass
The weather this weekend has been goregous. Yesterday it was scorching and I spent it in the garden playing with my kids. So this morning, while it was still cool I set up to do a run I’ve wanted to do since I started to learn to ride.
Up the M1 from J30 to J35a, over the Woodhead Pass, through Glossop and back via the Snake Pass. There was not a lot of traffic, but I’m not particularly fast (bike just about able to touch 100 on the motorway, and I’m about up for 40mph on corners), and it took just over two hours. And it was a bloody great two hours too.
As I came up to the actual Woodhead Pass proper, I went for an overtake on a big lorry, but there was something coming. I’d opened the throttle right up, and as I shut it off in a hurry the bike hopped into neutral, slight panic later, I shifted gear up (into 2nd of course) which locked the rear as I was doing 40-50mph. Massive panic later, I shifted to third and was ok.
As I came out of Glossop I found the Glossop Triathlon was on, so until I was clear of the Snake, there were LOTS of bikes going up (very slowly) or coming down (pretty fast) and lots of pissed off drivers trying to kill me by overtaking bikes when I was. Bah.
Other than that, it’s glorious to ride down the snake, the smell of pine woods and bracken… You just don’t get that in a car.