Cycling the Way of the Roses. Rachel Crolla

now lightweight and allow airflow to the head.

      Clothing

      Most people will find that cycling-specific clothing is useful. Depending on temperatures and personal preferences, cycling shorts or tights are padded in the right areas and improve comfort during long days in the saddle. These items are designed to be worn without your usual underwear.

      Cycling vests usually have several useful features. High-vis colours and reflective strips help make you more eye-catching to other road users, and a dropped back means that there is no draughty gap between top and bottom halves of your clothing. Many cycling jerseys and tops also have large easily accessible back pockets – it’s amazing how much gear and food you can cram into these.

      A lightweight waterproof is also a must. Cycling-specific models include reflectors, pockets and longer backs. They are windproof and are generally designed to pack away compactly.

      Wearing cycling gloves is again a matter of personal preference and temperature. Some people would not cycle to the corner shop without their gloves, whereas others don’t wear them outside of winter. Cycling gloves soak up sweat and allow you to maintain a better grip on the bars. They also include cushioning to lessen the vibration and impact caused by uneven road surfaces. They can also protect the palms in the event of a fall.

      In windy or cold weather it can be useful to take an earband.

      As well as sunglasses, many cyclists will wear clear glasses in less bright conditions. Others just put up with the odd insect in their eyes and do without. If you are prone to runny eyes when cycling, then glasses are fairly cheap and worth their weight in gold. Contact lens wearers might also find that clear glasses stop their lenses from drying out quickly while riding.

      Riders passing the remote Keasden church don glasses in bright conditions (Day 1)

      Footwear

      The question of footwear might require a little thought. Wear what you are comfortable in. Most relatively firm soled trainers will suffice, and these have the benefits of comfort and saving you carrying extra footwear.

      Specific cycling shoes are made with efficient transference of power in mind. The majority now work on a cleat system with clipless pedals and can take a little getting used to. There are several different cleat and pedal systems so you need to make sure yours are compatible; you may need to upgrade your pedals as many lower-priced bikes just come with standard ones. The firm sole of cleated cycling shoes means that little of your effort and power is wasted, but the downside is that they can be uncomfortable to walk in. Interestingly, some studies show that clipless systems actually make many average cyclists less efficient as they encourage upward pulling on the pedals.

      Unless you particularly want to waste storage space by taking extra shoes for the evenings, choose footwear that will cover all eventualities (if you are planning to walk around York city centre or up the rough track to Coldstones Cut, for example). Cycling kit companies do seem to have taken note of these problems, with cycling shoes and footwear which looks more like a trainer with flexible or coverable cleat plates becoming more common.

Maps and apps

      The maps in this book, along with the detailed route descriptions, should provide everything you need to do the Roses ride and all the day rides described. A Sustrans map of the route is available at the same scale as those in this book. For those who wish to have more detailed mapping, the route is covered at 1:25,000 scale by the following OS sheets: OL41, OL2, 298, 299, 290, 294 and 295. The Ordnance Survey now offers access to all its British maps on computers and mobile devices for a small fee. Other apps such as Viewranger allow users to access parts of OS mapping for a small fee and use Opencyclemap to provide larger scale free maps.

      Apps such as Strava have become increasingly popular for logging rides and comparing times and can be very useful for working out an expected average speed and timings. One word of caution: beware of assuming that the distances and particularly cumulative height gains shown on GPS-based apps are exact. During the research for this book the Way of the Roses ride was logged (on one-day, two-day, three-day and five-day itineraries) on apps. The route had been the same but the total ascent data varied wildly from 2272m to 2846m. The actual figure is likely to be somewhere in the middle, around 2500m. The figures at opposite ends of the spectrum were taken from GPS app calculations on a two-day and one-day Roses ride, and my conclusion is that the apps are more accurate for ascent when you ride more slowly. The other warning is that smartphone-based GPS apps tend to deplete batteries, so a bike computer can be a good option.

Signage

      Roses signage in Clapham (Day 1)

      The route is impressively well signed the whole way across. Some cyclists claim that they have barely needed to consult a map. The route is signed throughout with the small blue pointer signs of the National Cycle Network bearing two small red and white roses. Note that the network numbers of the Roses route change several times during its course, and cyclists should beware following route numbers rather than the rose markers. The Roses route is initially labelled the 69 but soon becomes the 68 at Clapham and subsequently the 688, 67, 65, 658, 66, 164 and finally the 1 on its way into Bridlington. It also shares parts of its distance with long cycle rides such as the Lancashire Cycleway, Yorkshire Dales Cycleway and Yorkshire Wolds Way, so there is often a proliferation of signs.

      As of 2017, having checked the route several times, there were signs at all the junctions going west to east (there are marginally fewer on the east-to-west route). Some signs take the form of blue stickers bearing the rose emblems on lampposts and road signposts, and others are easily obscured by foliage. Be eagle-eyed when approaching any junctions and scan the nearby road furniture for the tell-tale rose signs.

Cycling dos and don’ts