At the top of the road ascent we took an undulating bridleway across the dales, and descended through the ford at Fore Gill, before rising over a crest and down to an unlikely overgrown bridleway tangled with deep heather.
We battled to where the path vanished, decided this route was not quite right. We descended the road towards Surrender Bridge and picked up the obvious landrover width bridleway. 
The golden winter sun projected a deep mystical light across the spectacular ruined Old Gang Smelting works. We stopped to admire the ruins whilst amateur photographers were waiting for us to get out of shot before the light changed.
We pressed on through another deeper ford, which was attacked with gusto and bravado by Adrian, Curtis and Dave, who all ended up with wet boots, whilst the more gentle technique of Jo-Anne, Alice and Voj also resulted in wet boots...!
The final ascent toook us up to the Great Pinseat summit, where we posed as meerkats, and then continued the gentle looping descent back down to the road.
On the long descent, John Witcombe crashed. He lost his front end turning in the mud at speed and slid along the muddy heathery bank. Fortunately, three of us had recently completed our Wilderness First Aid course. Firstly, we checked that his bike was OK, as it was lying there not moving and not breathing. It had full range of movement and responded well to braking, We concluded that the lack of a pulse and below average temperature was acceptable, as it was a bike. We moved on to the more vocal patient. John W said he was fine, and was walking around and able to hold a coherent conversation and had full range of movement. However, we checked him, frisked him, made sure that he was breathing and had a pulse, just in case he was putting it on. Satisfied that he was alive and able to continue, we pressed on.
Back through the Fore Gill ford, and right over the gentle bridleway descent to Healaugh with steaming brake discs, then dropping back into Reeth and Grinton. As my watch was an hour fast, we were back with a couple of hours of daylight remaining. Adrian, Curtis, Mark S, and I set off on a quick Grinton loop of short steep up hill, then long sweeping grassy descent. Conscious of the fading light, we carried a little too much speed, raced beneath the fallen tree, and twitched and slid our way round the grassy wet bends. No crashes, no offs, and back to the Dales Bike Centre within 40 minutes before spending a pleasant evening sampling the excellent food, beer and hospitality of the Bridge Inn, Grinton.
The Dales Bike Centre is an excellent venue which is clean, friendly, helpful, and has a drying room. The cakes, coffee, bacon sanwiches and porridge are all highly recommended.
We woke on Sunday to rain. The river had risen 2 metres overnight and was climbing high up the bridge. The roads were like streams, and the carpark was flooded and rising. We braved the sleeting rain, and decided to do a brief ride getting back in time to escape before the roads flooded. Up the hill and along the easy bridleway, 2nd on the right on the road to redmire. There was running water on the bridleway, and we rode on to the gate where there should be a shallow ford... The ford was over wheel height, fast flowing, and about 3 metres across, and rising quickly. We decided to turn back. As we sped back along the bridleway, the water was already much deeper. Jo-Anne sank her front wheel, launched off her back and skimmed from one puddle into another! Soaked to the skin, and fortunately only a mile down the road from the Centre, Mark escorted her home and the rest of us soon followed after a brief extra section of bridleway. We got changed and then left the bike centre with the flood levels rising, and all made it out of the dales just before the flooding closed the roads...
