vernon
Harder than Ronnie Pickering
- Location
- Meanwood, Leeds
I managed to persuade an ex colleague to do the C2C with me this week. It was to be my first cycle camping of the year and provided an opportunity to try out some of the gear that I'd be taking to Knockengorrock festival in MAy. I'd serviced my Galaxy - retaped the bards, replaced some cables and adjusted the remainder.
We were ferried to St Bees for an overnight stay at the camp site there ready for an early start.
Breaking camp on Monday morning revealed a problem that did not manifest itself when setting the bike up. The chain was skipping round the cassette under load. Heading into to Whitehaven we found a bike shop who diagnosed a worn cassette - I thought it was a sticky mech but was persuaded that the mech was fine and that the cassette needed replacing. A new cassette with a max of 30 teeth replaced my 34 megarange cassette and the problem was solved.
There were a coup0le of other C2C riders gathering at the starting point and one of their pals took our starting photo. The weather loked very promising.
I'd done the C2C a few times before and was confident that this ride would be a breeze.....
I liked the waymarkers on the way to Ennerdale which reflected the mineral railway origins of the cycle route.
The ride to Ennerdale was uneventful and the scenery was becoming more interesting: Blake Fell and Gavel Fell near Loweswater.
Winlatter became the first real test of my raised gearing and the missing four teeth made their absence felt. I coped but only just and, for the first time, took the official forestry route rather than the more sensible road route. It tourned out to be more enjoyable than I'd anticipated but was envious of my pal's lower gearing.
The descent of Winlatter was tiring as I had to minimise the descent speed as my bulky frame plus camping load is a challenge for any cantilever brakes. Towards the bottom of Winlatter, my front tyre punctures and I think the cause was the innertube coming into contact with an expose hot spoke cup on the rim where the rim tape had moved. The puncture was on the inner part of the tube and there was no trace of any sharp objects in the tyre. The rim was extremely hot....
Keswick provided us with fine fish and chips and we pressed on along the old railway line to Threkeld and on towards Troutbeck for the first night's stay. My pal got the grid reference of the camp site wrong and we cycled a couple of unecessary miles, uphill, into decreasing light and to an unplanned stay at a different site. The fine weather stopped here.
I woke up in the middle of the night tjhinking that someone was shaking me awake - it was me violently shivering in the cold. The temperature had plummeted and my sleeping bag which had hitherto coped on all of my cycle camping trips wasn't up to the job of keeing the cold at bay. Putting on a couple of layers of clothing and draping a poncho over the bag sorted out the temperature regulation.
Most of day two's riding was uneventful untilLittle Blencow where we came across a strange amalgam of old and new architecture. I want to live there!
and a closer view:
We skirted Penrith and headed to Melmerby along the A686 - a bit more direct than the Sustrans route. Melmerby has a fantastic organic bakery and tearooms. Their vegetable soup and mix of organic wholemeal breads plus, for me, a spicy bean pasty was a welcome top up of calories which redied us for Hartside. I was anticipating struggling up Hartside but was pleasntly surprised by being able to pedal non stop up it despite having taller gearing. The rough track shortcut (which we ignored) looked a lot more manageable that it did five years ago. The surface is now relative smooth compared with the boulder strewn shortcut that I regretted taking the first time I cycled the route. Sadly the cafe was shut when we reached it and a rest plus bacon butties would have been most welcome.
A disgruntled me at Hartside summit on discovering that thre cafe was shut.
We enjoyed the descent to Leadgate and passed through Garrigill at which point I began to flag. Hartside had consumed all the calories that I taken onboard at Melmerby. Our target was Nenthead but there wasn't anything left in my legs to press on so we wildcamped a couple of mikles short of the target - not all bad news the savings could be spent on more food the day after.
We struck camp behind a dry stone wall:
And a portent of things to come came into view:
The low cloud descended and was to stay with us for the night and a lot of the final day.
We had breakfast in Nenthead after having porridge at the 'camp site' and had a further stop at Allenheads for a further top up at the museum cafe. Visibility was still poor. At Rookhope, we elected to go directly to Stanhope for lunch before taking on the feared Crawleyside Hill. What a push Crawleyside turned out to be. We were hoping for the clouds/mist to lift but this was not to be. In addition the wind was very strong and both of us were blown off the road as we approached Parkhead. We arrived at Parkhead looking forwards to the descent on the Waskerley Way but the visibility was still poor:
We were hoping that the wind would clear the air. It was not to be. We could take advantage of a speedy descent of Waskerley because of the poor visibility and in places we had to pedal downhill!
As we reached Hownsgill viaduct, the hoped for panoramic view did not materialise:
and
Chillingly the viaduct now sports signs giving contact details for the Samaritans and NHS direct as a consequence of the viaduct becoming a suicide hot spot. A bunch of daffodils was wedged in the railings halfway across - in memorium of a loved one no doubt.
The edge of Conset was soon reached - the smelt wagon bearing testimony to the steel making heritage of the town.
at this point we took the route to Rowlands Gill via Berry Edge a first for us both:
The old track bed through Shotley Bridge and onto Rowlands Gill was a nice ride once we'd done the first mile or so after the above signpost. A fish and chip shop stop at Rowlands gill was the last refuelling stop before taking on the scenic route along the Derwent walk and onto the Tyne where we crossed the river and rode along the north bank in twilight:
I got a puncture on the cyclepath near Wallsend. A cyclist coming in the opposite direction stopped to see if we were ok and offered his spare tube. It wasn't needed as I'd got a couple of spare tubes - nice gesture though.
A mile or so further along the route we were flagged down by a bus driver who advised us that the section of the route we were about to enter was closed because of major reconstruction work. He gave us clear directions on how to get around the blockage and we came across him again on his return leg when he gave us further directions. Who said bus drivers were spawn of the devil?
Finall we reached the end of the ropute down by the Fish Quays just after 22:00.
The car park at the end was very busy with youngsters tearing around in ntheir cosmetically souped up cars. It provided us with some entertainment until or lift back to Leeds arrived ten minutes later. He'd been parked up by the priory. We didn't fancy the uphill ride and elected to be picked up by the buoys.
Despite the minor problems it was an enjoyable ride. It was tougher that I remembered though some of that was probably due to higher gearing on my bike. It was certainly interesting spending most of a day riding in poor visibility and high winds. I'm up for doing it again in the opposite direction but it will have to wait until other coast to coast cycle tours are completed. For Dave, the final day was a personal best: 65 miles of fully laden touring - he'd not done that on an unencumbered bike.
It was a good 'un.
We were ferried to St Bees for an overnight stay at the camp site there ready for an early start.
Breaking camp on Monday morning revealed a problem that did not manifest itself when setting the bike up. The chain was skipping round the cassette under load. Heading into to Whitehaven we found a bike shop who diagnosed a worn cassette - I thought it was a sticky mech but was persuaded that the mech was fine and that the cassette needed replacing. A new cassette with a max of 30 teeth replaced my 34 megarange cassette and the problem was solved.
There were a coup0le of other C2C riders gathering at the starting point and one of their pals took our starting photo. The weather loked very promising.
I'd done the C2C a few times before and was confident that this ride would be a breeze.....
I liked the waymarkers on the way to Ennerdale which reflected the mineral railway origins of the cycle route.
The ride to Ennerdale was uneventful and the scenery was becoming more interesting: Blake Fell and Gavel Fell near Loweswater.
Winlatter became the first real test of my raised gearing and the missing four teeth made their absence felt. I coped but only just and, for the first time, took the official forestry route rather than the more sensible road route. It tourned out to be more enjoyable than I'd anticipated but was envious of my pal's lower gearing.
The descent of Winlatter was tiring as I had to minimise the descent speed as my bulky frame plus camping load is a challenge for any cantilever brakes. Towards the bottom of Winlatter, my front tyre punctures and I think the cause was the innertube coming into contact with an expose hot spoke cup on the rim where the rim tape had moved. The puncture was on the inner part of the tube and there was no trace of any sharp objects in the tyre. The rim was extremely hot....
Keswick provided us with fine fish and chips and we pressed on along the old railway line to Threkeld and on towards Troutbeck for the first night's stay. My pal got the grid reference of the camp site wrong and we cycled a couple of unecessary miles, uphill, into decreasing light and to an unplanned stay at a different site. The fine weather stopped here.
I woke up in the middle of the night tjhinking that someone was shaking me awake - it was me violently shivering in the cold. The temperature had plummeted and my sleeping bag which had hitherto coped on all of my cycle camping trips wasn't up to the job of keeing the cold at bay. Putting on a couple of layers of clothing and draping a poncho over the bag sorted out the temperature regulation.
Most of day two's riding was uneventful untilLittle Blencow where we came across a strange amalgam of old and new architecture. I want to live there!
and a closer view:
We skirted Penrith and headed to Melmerby along the A686 - a bit more direct than the Sustrans route. Melmerby has a fantastic organic bakery and tearooms. Their vegetable soup and mix of organic wholemeal breads plus, for me, a spicy bean pasty was a welcome top up of calories which redied us for Hartside. I was anticipating struggling up Hartside but was pleasntly surprised by being able to pedal non stop up it despite having taller gearing. The rough track shortcut (which we ignored) looked a lot more manageable that it did five years ago. The surface is now relative smooth compared with the boulder strewn shortcut that I regretted taking the first time I cycled the route. Sadly the cafe was shut when we reached it and a rest plus bacon butties would have been most welcome.
A disgruntled me at Hartside summit on discovering that thre cafe was shut.
We enjoyed the descent to Leadgate and passed through Garrigill at which point I began to flag. Hartside had consumed all the calories that I taken onboard at Melmerby. Our target was Nenthead but there wasn't anything left in my legs to press on so we wildcamped a couple of mikles short of the target - not all bad news the savings could be spent on more food the day after.
We struck camp behind a dry stone wall:
And a portent of things to come came into view:
The low cloud descended and was to stay with us for the night and a lot of the final day.
We had breakfast in Nenthead after having porridge at the 'camp site' and had a further stop at Allenheads for a further top up at the museum cafe. Visibility was still poor. At Rookhope, we elected to go directly to Stanhope for lunch before taking on the feared Crawleyside Hill. What a push Crawleyside turned out to be. We were hoping for the clouds/mist to lift but this was not to be. In addition the wind was very strong and both of us were blown off the road as we approached Parkhead. We arrived at Parkhead looking forwards to the descent on the Waskerley Way but the visibility was still poor:
We were hoping that the wind would clear the air. It was not to be. We could take advantage of a speedy descent of Waskerley because of the poor visibility and in places we had to pedal downhill!
As we reached Hownsgill viaduct, the hoped for panoramic view did not materialise:
and
Chillingly the viaduct now sports signs giving contact details for the Samaritans and NHS direct as a consequence of the viaduct becoming a suicide hot spot. A bunch of daffodils was wedged in the railings halfway across - in memorium of a loved one no doubt.
The edge of Conset was soon reached - the smelt wagon bearing testimony to the steel making heritage of the town.
at this point we took the route to Rowlands Gill via Berry Edge a first for us both:
The old track bed through Shotley Bridge and onto Rowlands Gill was a nice ride once we'd done the first mile or so after the above signpost. A fish and chip shop stop at Rowlands gill was the last refuelling stop before taking on the scenic route along the Derwent walk and onto the Tyne where we crossed the river and rode along the north bank in twilight:
I got a puncture on the cyclepath near Wallsend. A cyclist coming in the opposite direction stopped to see if we were ok and offered his spare tube. It wasn't needed as I'd got a couple of spare tubes - nice gesture though.
A mile or so further along the route we were flagged down by a bus driver who advised us that the section of the route we were about to enter was closed because of major reconstruction work. He gave us clear directions on how to get around the blockage and we came across him again on his return leg when he gave us further directions. Who said bus drivers were spawn of the devil?
Finall we reached the end of the ropute down by the Fish Quays just after 22:00.
The car park at the end was very busy with youngsters tearing around in ntheir cosmetically souped up cars. It provided us with some entertainment until or lift back to Leeds arrived ten minutes later. He'd been parked up by the priory. We didn't fancy the uphill ride and elected to be picked up by the buoys.
Despite the minor problems it was an enjoyable ride. It was tougher that I remembered though some of that was probably due to higher gearing on my bike. It was certainly interesting spending most of a day riding in poor visibility and high winds. I'm up for doing it again in the opposite direction but it will have to wait until other coast to coast cycle tours are completed. For Dave, the final day was a personal best: 65 miles of fully laden touring - he'd not done that on an unencumbered bike.
It was a good 'un.
When I stopped there the coffee & chocolate cake tasted like the nicest ever 
but on reflection the cake was a little dry & the chocolate was poor quality (hope that makes you feel a little better 
)
