Eatpe du dales

Met up with shaun and jason near Grassington for the start of the etape du dales sportive, 110 mile loop round the dales with plenty of hills involved. The plan was to ride round together and enjoy the ride hopefully still getting a reasonable time. We set off around 8.30ish into a headwind which was to stick in our faces for what seemed like the whole ride, add in 4 or 5 hours of rain and you've got a climb up to the Tan hill inn that you'll never forget. All was going well when we managed to lose Jason on a decent, he got a puncture and me and shaun being horrid people left him to defend for himself.
We carried on over a few more climbs, our legs were feeling it and we were both struggling,  up in the hills it was pretty grim with mist wind and rain trying to make the ride a misery, we were both prepared for the weather with our clothing so it didn't bother us to much.
There were 4 feed stations on the way round which were fully prepared with energy gels, food, water and sis energy drinks. We stopped at the last one so i could get a flapjack and pulled our selfs up the last climb. We had 30 minutes to do the last 10 miles if we were to get inside the 7 hour gold time limit. Out of nowhere i managed to get my second wind and managed to drag a group of us at over 25 mph for the whole 10 miles to the end, finishing under 7 hours at 6 hours 55.
Excellent route and would love to do it again in nicer conditions. Jason came in half an hour after us which was excellent considering he came 4th in a 24 hour race 7 days before.