So my short trip to the southern Yorkshire Dales came to an end yesterday with the long cycle back to West Yorkshire’s Calder Valley. Cycling friend Craig offered to join me for the ride and we met up for coffee in the busy farm shop in Airton which, by the time we left at around 10:30am was already heaving with cyclists.

Although cloudy for much of the day, the rain stayed away and it was a satisfying climax to the October escapade. We followed route 68 – the Pennine Cycleway – for almost all of the route. This took me back to Gargrave and then along the seemingly endless canal into Lancashire. We finally escaped its clutches at Burnley at which point the (usually) gradual climb over the Pennine moors started. Following the descent into Hebden Bridge and a couple of pints in the main square, we hopped in the train back to our respective homes further along the valley. The day was rounded off with a familiar crawl up the long hill of stainland after the familiar cycle back from the train station in Halifax. Below is a short video that sums up some of the action (but keep reading; there’s more!):

That video was cobbled together using footage from my iPhone, edited as I was in bed earlier this morning. As I speak I am downloading 150 GB of 4K video from the Canon XA-40 that, for the first time really, I have used to record a cycling trip. It was one of the reasons for having ventured up into the Dales in the first place. Although I did take the camera with me when I cycled around Britain earlier in the summer, the tripod that I was using made using the camera somewhat of a chore. The purchase of a relatively cheap and much smaller tripod has transformed the way in which the camera can be put to use and my next job is to edit all the video – from both the XA-40 and iPhone – from the Dales trip together for a longer film in glorious 4K. In anticipation of that happening, here’s a very short taster of some of the Canon 4K footage…