Saddleworth and Holmfirth

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We had planned to travel up Cragg Vale and then tackle Holme Moor on this challenging ride. At the start of the ride we were both feeling lacking in energy so we cut out the Cragg Vale ride.
On the A640, we took the stunning New Hey road down to the Pole Moor turning, all downhill and beautiful countryside. The thrilling downhill continued down Bradshaw Lane and several smaller lanes into Marsden. The climbing then started up to the A62 where we had a stark reminder about how dangerous the roads can be. A sheep had just been hit and its poor body was in the middle of the road with several of its distraught mates looking on in confusion.
It had started to rain and as we climbed the rain got heavier. We went through Diggle, Dobcross and Saddleworth before turning off on the A635. The climb up to the moor top wasnt particularly challenging, although the weather made the long ride difficult. Every climb has a downhill and the trip down to Holmfirth was welcome. A quick fishcake butty and we decided that after getting so wet, I didnt want to do Holme Moss, my feet were soaked and my saddle region was very wet. Continuing up a hard climb would have led to saddle sores which would have been foolish.
The ride back into Huddersfield was uneventful, and I took a very hard climb up to Lepton - probably my steepest hill of the day. After taking a tumble (see main blog), I sailed down to Middlestown and tackled Storrs hill to round off a nice ride 77 mile long with 8000 feet of climbing