Last weekend Paul, Roger and myself attemped the C2C ride across the UK, coast
to coast at the hilly point. The ride starts in Cumbria at Workington and ends
at Sunderland after 136 miles with the lake district fells and the pennine hills
in between.
Our ride was backed up a superb surport team of Clare ( two wheels) Andy ( van
driver and massage) mudboy ( aka jack the eight year old mud biker) Len (
caravan tower and provider of dry clothes) and Sue ( cook, comforts and alround
expedition mum) with out whom we would not have been able to do the ride in the
single weekend we had avalible.
A proper report is in the pipeline, URL to be revealed when its ready, but in
the meantime heres my top and bottom things about it and one or two high lights.
Bottom
-Getting out of bed at 5am -Riding in the rain for 6 hours on sunday -being wet
and cold and finding the Youth Club all locked up -Walking up all those hills
watching the boys still riding ahead of me
Top
-The purr of coker button trye on tarmac when your eating up the miles -The
desent through Wythrop woods to bassenthwaite lake Steep slatey single track
with a huge drop off to one side and a view over the lake that came straight off
a calender. -Riding over Howgill Viaduct, feeling like tightrope walkers as the
land dropped away below us. -Getting into dry clothes at the youth club
Memorable bits
-Leaving Keswick we decided to follow the railway path, when we finally found it
the path was perfect, smooth hard-pack with such a gentle up-hill gradient to it
that Clare thought it was down hill.
-We gathered for lunch in the village of Thekeld, I arrived to find Sue had
cooked up Pasta and sauce , with proper plates, forks, squash and salad. We ate
sitting on the grass shaded from the sun by a tree, WOW, thanks “mum”. Every
time we stopped Sue was feeding us bananas and maltloaf, filling up water
bottles and concerned for our well being. Having the caravan as a refuge from
the bad weather on sunday gave us riders a much appriated break from the rain at
lunchtime and somewhere to change into dry clothes.
-The look on Sues face as I wrung aboout half a pint of water out of my socks
was priceless, Len felt moved to offer me a pair of his own dry socks. Now they
are washed I need to post them back to him. the boots are still wet tho, three
days later.
-I will remember with fondness the metomorphasis of Jack into mudboy as he rode
along with us on his “full suspension MTB” for the last 16 miles on sunday, he
rode through every puddle turning Lens orange cagoule a deep brown colour and
his own face a pale shade of mud broken only by the HUGE grin that shone
through it.
-Arriving at the cottage we had been lent in Allenheads, joking that Roger would
have beaten the van and car to it, to find that he nearly had.
More later
sarah