POCKLINGTON

Sheila arrived at Pocklington at 2.24 am and, by then, she had cycled 212 miles with 681 miles to go. She will be setting out in a few minutes on the next leg of her epic journey, which takes her around the outskirts of York via Stamford Bridge, past Castle Howard and on to Thirsk, between the North Yorkshire Moors and the Yorkshire Dales.
As every skoolboy knows, before Norman the Conqueror killed King Harold with an arrow at Senlac Hill, near Hastings on 14 October 1066, Harold had to pop up to Stamford Bridge near York to have a battle with some marauding Vikings led by Harald Hardrada and Harold’s own treacherous brother, Tostig Godwinson.
Harold and his Anglo-Saxon army covered a distance of 185 miles from the Sussex Coast to York in just four days, a feat of strength and endurance that almost matches Sheila’s 892-mile round trip to Edinburgh and back – though it is doubtful whether Harold and his army were equipped with carbon fibre racing bikes and certainly none are depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry.
After 220 miles, the route passes from East Yorkshire into North Yorkshire and the road rises up hill and down dale through the Howardian Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, which, according to its own website is “a unique and captivating landscape with its well-wooded rolling countryside, patchwork of arable and pasture fields, scenic villages and historic country houses with classic parkland landscapes”.
It has also got a few hills and Sheila will need to climb a total of 1,732 feet at a maximum gradient of 7.4% before she can cool her sweaty feet in the charmingly-named Cod Beck at Thirsk.