Hilly road loop from Lanchester inc crossing into Northumberland - Blanchland

What a crap week of weather we have had since Monday. We had two days of near continuous snow / rain with a max temperature of about 4 to 5 degrees. Yesterday was better so I got my three hour hike in, dodging between the heavy showers.
Today the forecast sunny again so time to head out on the road bike again and pound a few miles in. I wanted to do a local loop as I had a few jobs to do in the afternoon so I started at Lanchester and headed out from there. The gritters had been out again and the roads were loaded with salt! I will not talk you through the route as here is a link to the GARMIN LINK all in 52.5 miles, 5500ft climbing, 3 hours 48 mins, ave 13.8mph. The sun stayed out for the whole ride, not like Monday where it clouded over and the temperature plummeted. Todays temperature ranged from 0.3 degrees to 11.2 degrees on the garmin. I had a tail wind heading out to Stanhope but had a massive headwind heading back into Lanchetser. No problems with the bike but I was starting to get my pain in my lower back again around 45 mile mark. I did a couple of extra loops of the old Durham Beast route to get the miles up on the way back to Lancheter but that meant more and more climbing! By the time I was finished my legs were getting little like jelly and only 18% left on the battery.
Once back home it was time to wash, dry and charge the bike. Below are a selection of photos from the ride, enjoy and hopefully more soon -

The naughty sheep was trying to nibble my back tyre through the gate