Out past town at 7AM, the usual route, then over Hartshead Moor, through Queensbury to Denholme, and down as fast as we dared to Oxenhope. In Keighley surprising numbers of Sunday morning cyclists began to appear and, even more surprisingly, so did the sun. Up the side of flooded Airedale and along the lanes to Gargrave, tagged on the back of a fast club run for a few miles. A café stop for the most overpriced beans on toast in the world (seven quid!), then out into blustery headwinds to Barnoldswick. Skirting away from Colne and Burnley the roads grew busier, culminating in the singularly unpleasant A6068. A surprisingly tough drag south of Burnley was rewarded by the sinuous descent into Todmorden. Over Summit to Littleborough, heads down along the rat-run to the motorway, then back onto quieter roads over Denshaw and Delph at a snail’s pace, really feeling it now. On the last hill we were knackered enough to crash into each other at comically low speed, before the final drop down the hill took us over the magic 161 kilometre mark.