John and I slept like logs, but Jackie had been kept up all night by a German girl bawling her eyes out about something, so she was feeling really low, especially when we had to start off in the pouring rain. Squelching through Lincoln we tried map reading to find the B1398, but the Routemaster Maps lack of detail prevailed, along with Lincolns potty road signs.
Eventually we spotted the elusive road about thirty feet up in the air crossing a bridge. There seemed no way up to it, and we ended up on a three mile detour along a country lane full of hedge clippings which caused me to have the first puncture of the ride - in the wet of course!


Puncture No:1 - near Lincoln


Only a handful of miles passed before the rain turned to torrents. Even sheltering under trees was futile.
Passing through Scunthorpe our morale was getting very low, and depsite the rain clearing the sky was still stormy. On reaching Thorne John suggested a luch stop, and as if by magis this cafe apperaed on the street corner. Inside it was tiny,like someones front room converted into a kitchen. What was more impressive was great pile of chips, eggs, rounds of bread and a 1/2 pint mug of tea for £1.10, so we gorged oursleves on grease and carbohydrate before doing battle with the weather again.
We soon surrendered, about a mile down the road a thunderstorm broke out, so we dived into a bus shelter along with some locals and spent half a hour watching water swirling down the road.

Bus (Rain) shelter at Thorne near Doncaster

Sunshine at Selby.
Once the storm was passed, things cleared up a bit, the sun shone for a while and we had an easier ride through Snaith, Selby, and cawood to York where we stopped for more eats!
Osmotherly was our destination, and we decided to take the A19 through Thirsk. This turned out to be a good choice because carriageway repairs were being carried out, so we managed to ride much of it on the closed off side of the road, which was completely traffic free, if you didn't count the odd digger here and there.
Osmotherly Youth Hostel was excellent. It's situated in a valley, and is an old mill extensively modified to provide very comfortable accomodation. After a good shower we wandered into the village and had an excellent meal at the Queens Head.

Osmotherley Youth Hostel

Sunshine near Selby.