CoB7 Day 7 Alnwick to Newcastle

10th August 2020

The final day of this leg, and since we didn’t fancy the hotel’s offering of full English we found a nice café in the square for some brekkie. The square reminded me of many towns on the continent, except there it would have been full of cafes. Not so in Alnwick where I suspect the chill Easterly winds discourage outside dining on all but a few days in the year.

And off we set, with a lightness of mind for me, being the last day. Today’s 65km would mean that I had done 8 days of serious exercise in the last 10, so I was feeling a bit weary, but the end was in sight. I did reflect that if I end up doing a 2 week stint I need to build in a couple of rest days, just to recharge the batteries, mentally if nothing else.

The lanes leading up to Morpeth were pleasant cycling territory without too much to report, and after a couple of hours we entered Morpeth itself. You can’t judge a book by its cover, and it appears you also can’t judge a town by its name or location! I had always pictured Morpeth as a run-down northern town, but it was far from that, it was a buzzy lively spot. I guess it’s a middle class commuter town for Newcastle these days but none the worse for that. We had a very pleasant lunch in a back lane before cracking on. I forgot to take any photos though!

We passed this sign for a village called Guyzance, which is completely irrelevant apart from its name and so wasn’t worth the 3km detour. It was first recorded in 1275, it has never expanded much beyond two rows of cottages since. Bit like me and my long awaited growth spurt I guess.

The only other thing of note that we came across were these strange contraptions in the middle of a field. They looked like storage tanks, but there didn’t seem any reason for them being so high or any means of getting stuff up there. They turned out to be water tanks, which had crossed my mind but as they seemed to have roofs it didn’t make sense. They were scheduled for demolition in 2016 but are still there, ripe for some glamping refurbishment?

Onwards to Newcastle and we cycled across the Town Moors, which provide a green traffic route into the city centre, must be a god send to cyclists who live in the city wanting to get out into the countryside. By chance our route took us past St James’ Park and golly but it’s huge!

So into Newcastle. To be honest there were only two things on our minds, the first to get a beer, the second our trains, so we didn’t tour the city or take any pictures. When I restart the ride in Newcastle I’ll make sure to spend an afternoon here before setting off. I’ve had a couple of stag do’s here but never spent time looking round, it looks like a great city.

Defoe wrote about Newcastle at length and was obviously impressed with the trade it had with mainland Europe. He starts with

Newcastle is a spacious, extended, infinitely populous place; ’tis seated upon the River Tyne, which is here a noble, large and deep river, and ships of any reasonable burthen may come safely up to the very town.

and then goes on to discuss the coal trade and other industries. He makes a number of positive comparisons with London, though he does makes some disparaging remarks about the slums. Perhaps more on this fine looking city when I start the next leg.

The train service from Newcastle was excellent, a little over 3 hours and on time. And because of the Covid measures it was not crowded at all which, being selfish, was a bit of a bonus. A quick ride along the Euston Road followed to grab the Met line and then home.

If you have followed me along this week and read this far, thank you ever so much for indulging me. It’s been a great few days but in truth the visual highlights were few and far between, so I hope it hasn’t been too boring. I’ll give it a little while and then write up some reflections of the route.

CoB7 Day 6 Berwick to Alnwick

Castles on the Hill

9^th August 2020

On another fine morning, Peter and I set off at a leisurely pace over the new bridge across the Tweed, which gave us a great view of the 400 year old original that I rode over yesterday to enter the town and wrote about in that day’s blog.

As we rode I must admit to feeling a little guilty; I was so tired I was struggling to make conversation and I don’t think I was very good company for Peter, but perhaps he was grateful for the peace and quiet. It didn’t help my mood that I was retracing my route uphill from yesterday for the first few kms and in truth I think we both found the morning’s riding a bit boring, lumpy and repetitive.

Travelling south from Berwick, if you are not using the A1, your route ends up going round the houses; we crossed and re-crossed the A1 half a dozen times before we came to an NCN 1 sign, next to another announcing a no through road, hmmm we knew where this was going. Sure enough a pleasant tarmacked road ran for 5km taking us past Goswick Sands golf club, and then just stopped. Again we were left with a choice, to follow the route I had previousy planned, or to go along NCN 1, routes which as I mentioned yesterday are never particulalry reliable. From where we stood my route looked the best surface, so that’s what we plumped for. WRONG!

Not only did the surface soon become loose rubble, very difficult to cycle over, after 1km we came to a level crossing. Not the usual barriered one but a 5 ft high locked fence stating it was a private crossing and there was no access. Afterwards we both admitted we momentarily thought about climbing the fence and dashing across, then remembered we were grown-ups and that wouldn’t be very smart. So we had to retrace our ride back over the rocky track to the junction and take NCN 1 afterall. You can see the diversion on the track above.

To be honest it wasn’t too bad, at least after the dry summer we have been having. There was a narrow, hardened mud trail that was fundamentally flat, and apart from having to concentrate on the surface we both quite enjoyed it; it certainly gave us a break from the hilly tarmac. Late on we had to wait at a footbridge for a recumbent cycle to cross coming the other way, quite how they handled the terrain I am not sure; it goes back to the points I made yesterday about the need for better signage clarity in the signage on the NCN to let riders know what type of cycling the route is suitable for.

Eventually there were breaks in the dunes and we got a view of the fine sandy beach and Lindisfarne Island. If you look at the picture closely you’ll see 2 hikers making their way across the sands….somehow that seemed more epic than what we were doing, but I suspect we were being hard on ourselves.

By late morning we arrived in Bamburgh with its particularly fine castle. For anyone who watches The Last Kingdom, this is the ancestral home of Uthred of Bebbanburg and while the series is anything but historically accurate, there was a real Uthred the Bold of Northumbria, although he was assassinated in 1016, 200 years after the setting of the TV series. The current stone castle is from a much later period than that and stands proudly looking over the pretty village of Bamburgh. You get a real sense of what the castle would have meant to villagers in the past, and currently I guess, as it drives local tourism. I visited the castle many years ago on a lads camping trip before I entered the real world oof work; I recall it looking even more commanding from the beach but we didn’t have time to check that out on this trip. Another time perhaps.

The afternoon was much more interesting than the morning, with another 2 or 3 castles in the next few kms. As well as Bamburg, Warkworth, Dunstaburgh and Alnwick are all major castles within 40km of each other, and I wondered why there is a concentration of them on this part of the coast rather than further north or south.

A bit more pedalling and we stopped for fish and chips at Seahouses; the chips were great but frankly the village was a bit disappointing, a fishing village overrun with tourists and traffic, I have no great desire to revisit it in the future.

One oddity we came across was this pillbox, which looks like it is made from sandbags, even though it was clearly concrete. It also faced away from the coast and my guess is that it was defending a possible glider landing site, Peter felt it was a film prop and that the land could easily have represented Northern France. Well Peter, with the benefit of some post ride Googling, I am afraid I have to tell you that you are wrong. These are ‘Beehive’ Pillboxes, made from concrete filled sandbags, cheap and easy to build and there are a load of them in Northumbria apparently. Gotta love the internet.

About 3pm we arrived at day’s destination stop at Alnwick. I was sure I’d come here on my camping trip nearly 40 years previously, but I didn’t recognise it at all. Alnwick is home to yet another huge castle, this one is still the ancestral home of the Duke of Northumberland and judging by the number of staff in castle ‘uniforms’, still a major source of work for the village.

Alnwick is a fine town, with a number of pretty little houses and pubs. One particular curiosity was ‘Dirty Bottles’ which is currently being refit as a bistro bar. One thing they won’t touch though is the window display. More than 200 years ago the recently widowed owner of the pub put a curse on anyone who moves the bottles from the front window, and there they have stayed, uncleaned, undusted for a couple of centuries. It seems even that length of time isnt sufficient quarantine to kill the curse, which puts Covid 19 into perspective. Apparently the site was in danger of being turned into flats, but the good news is that it reopens tomorrow (13/8/20) as a bistro/bar, so while we were too early to visit, make sure you do if you are in Alnwick. Just don’t touch those bottles!

We struggled to get a table for dinner anywhere, it being summer, Covid and Sunday, but eventually settled into the Black Swan for a fine and stupidly cheap meal. Fine place Alnwick, may come back here and use it as a base for exploring the area further sometime in the future. In fact that has been one of the unsuspected side benefits of my tour, when I find somewhere I like Adele and I come and stay for a few days. So far we have been to Chichester, Hastings, Shrewsbury and Liverpool following my visits to those fine places; my friends take the piss out of me treating my wife to a weekend in Hastings or Liverpool, but I promise you, in all instances I suggested going to Rome. In each case she chose the likes of Shrewsbury! Italy eat your heart out!

CoB7 Day 5 Rothbury to Berwick

A Tale of Two Fords – Ford Angrier and Ford Popular

Saturday 8th August 2020

I said goodbye to Rothbury and started the day with a very pleasant ride along the River Coquet for the first couple of miles, before the route took a sharp and steep climb into the Northumberland National Park. I knew it was coming and I knew the worst of the climbs were early in the day, so it was just knuckling down and getting on with it. I knew that Southern England was enjoying (?) a heatwave, but with 70km and a lot of climbing to do I was for once grateful that the weather up north was nothing like that. I counted my blessings and pedalled on.

After a fair few miles I realised I was on the National Cycle Network; now these routes can be a mixed blessing; you assume they pick routes that are easy to cycle on between towns, geared to casual cyclists and away from the traffic. Unfortunately sometimes they prioritise the traffic free element over the practicalities of the route and sure enough after some lovely quiet roads I was left with the following choice.

Should I go straight on, on what clearly was an off road track, or bear right and continue on the road? A quick check on Google and I realised this was a difficult choice as the road route would see me on the A697 for a number of miles, and while I don’t mind dicing with death occasionally, this looked like it would be too much. Using Google I also worked out that the off road part of the NCN route only lasted a third of a mile until it hit some kind of paved road, so that’s the way I took. Big mistake……what I hadn’t discerned from Google that it soon became very boggy and muddy as it descended sharply into a ford across the river. I gave up trying to ride, it wouldn’t have been difficult on a fat tyred, unladen mountain bike and even walking on the slippery slope was difficult. Fortunately I didn’t have to go through the ford, which was pretty deep, as there was a pedestrian bridge next to it, but it did make me cross. If we are to get more people cycling, Sustrans (who are responsible for the NCN), can’t have these routes, that start on tarmac and then turn into paths that are only suitable for macho mountain bikers. So that’s the first Ford, Ford Angrier (geddit?)

I rolled into the pretty little town of Wooler, a little larger than Rothbury just in time for lunch and got introduced to the local gravedigger, sort of. She reminded ever so much of Nessa from Gavin and Stacey, and certainly not someone I would be picking an argument with. A welcome break, I even met a few other cyclists before I got on my merry way.

See if you can spot Nessa

Northumberland is pretty but it is also empty; it’s true that there isn’t much traffic but apart from ruined castles there isn’t much to see. Now I like castles, but even I can become bored of them.

About 20km from Berwick I did come across the busy village of Ford with a particularly grand castle. The buildings in the village probably haven’t changed much in hundreds of years but on this fine Saturday afternoon the pub and the coffee shops were rammed. So that’s Ford Pop…. oh never mind I am sure you already got there.

The best thing about today’s ride was the fact I was meeting Peter at Berwick that evening. Peter was joining me for the last 2 days of cycling and it was great to get a bit of company. After a final struggle up a hill I rolled into Berwick. I was here 2 years ago with Adele on a grey August day, but today with the sun out , people on the streets and approaching it from the River, it all looked a lot more attractive than I remembered.

Once at the Castle Head Hotel I lost out at hotel room roulette with Peter. He got a lovely double bedded room with a nice large picture window whilst for the same price I got a prison cell. I did sleep well though.

No window, save a skylight way up out of reach

Berwick is a frontier town obviously and over the years ownership has flitted back and forth between England and Scotland, though it has been English now for 500 years. Berwick Rangers though do play in the Scottish Leagues…

The town has plenty of good looking restaurants, and only a few were still closed because of Covid, but we really struggled to get a table anywhere and ended up eating at our hotel. We did manage a pint afterwards at this fine establishment though, a Wetherspoons in all but name.

At least in Berwick I was once again in step with Defoe, though he didn’t have much to say about the town:

where indeed there is one thing very fine, and that is, the bridge over the Tweed, built by Queen Elizabeth, a noble, stately work, consisting of sixteen arches, and joining, as may be said, the two kingdoms. As for the town it self, it is old, decay’d, and neither populous nor rich;

I am not sure much has changed. The bridge is still there (actually built just after Elizabeth’s reign and opened in 1624) and the view from it today may not be an awful lot different to the one that Defoe may have had 300 years ago.

CoB7 Day 4 Haltwhistle to Rothbury

Phew, Scorchio! Lots of climbing f-f-f-f-f-f Chris Waddle.

You’ll either get the reference above or you wont. If you don’t get it you really need to watch the Fast Show, a 1990’s Charlie Higson and Paul Whitehouse sketch show which I suspect you can find on You Tube. And to be brutally frank if you haven’t seen the Fast Show what the hell are you doing here wasting your time reading this rubbish when you could be watching Swiss Tony and gang, more of which later? I can sense Adele’s apprehension even as I write this. *

I had a very good night’s sleep at the Belford House hotel, but they don’t offer breakfast and the only place open in town at 830am was the local sandwich take away, so I sat in Covid corner while I had my first ever breakfast burger. Not perfect, but suitably filling, and by 9 I’d set off for my first stop, Housesteads Fort. I had a ticketed time slot of 10am and got there just after as I hadn’t allowed for the 500ft of climbing within the first 5km, a great way to start the day.

Just before I got to Housesteads I came across this intriguing structure, which turned out to be a lime kiln, one of the only remaining multi vaulted kilns in Northumbria, so there you go.

I arrived at Housesteads dripping with sweat, and the museum with obligatory face mask was unbearable so I quickly left that to look at the fort itself.

Housesteads is apparently the best preserved fort on Hadrian’s wall, but it really did look just like a pile of stones; I much prefer the fort on Hard Knot’s pass in the Lake District. The walls of the latter are more distinct, and the setting allows you a much better perspective of the fort layout. Sure you don’t get views of the wall, but the frontier setting is just as evident.

Actually, despite my cynicial comments, this is quite a good exampleof underfloor heating

Visiting Housesteads meant a diversion from my originally planned route, so despite Dave’s advice I ended up on the military road. It wasn’t so bad, but man it was straight. Its almost as if the Romans built it, and after a while it just gets boring. Mile after mile of dead straight road, as you crest the next slight rise you get to see another stretch of road with a climb in the distance. The gradients weren’t brutal, that was to come later, but it was boring. There wasn’t that much traffic, but what there was was generally travelling at 70-80 miles an hour, pretty unpleasant, but the tarmac was smooth so I was able to get some speed up.

A Roman road you say?

Northumbria is pretty and while the landscapes are stunning there isn’t much to break the journey up. In the 50k or so between Housesteads and Rothbury, my ultimate destination for the day, there was only three places where I could stop for food and refills. No pretty villages, just the odd collection of farms or cluster of houses. And it is lumpy, some of the climbs were brutal, reaching 20% and they really sap the energy, so I took them slow. I am loving my new bike, but the gearing is to high, something I’ll fix when I get home.

I had lunch at Kirkhale Manor, which isn’t a manor anymore, but it is where Capability Brown, the famous landscape gardener was born. He designed a formal garden for the manor, which was never actually built so the whole place is a statement of what might have been. A decent and very welcome ham and cheese toastie though, the place is a bit or a biking mecca too, at least 4 groups were there while I lunched, but given the paucity of places to eat on the route I guess that’s not surprising.

While I only had a little over 25km to go, a quick look at my Garmin showed I had 3 major climbs before I got to Rothbury.

Warning, this next bit is rude and will not make sense if you don’t know who Swiss Tony is. If you think you might be offended, please skip the next paragraph.

Three climbs, so it was time to summon up my inner Swiss Tony; now reader, riding a bike up a hill is much like making love to a beautiful woman. You approach it with some trepidation, is it going to be beyond you, will you find that you really were not up to the challenge? You will need to approach it slowly, making sure you will be able to go the distance, because it’s no good if you blow too soon. You need reserves of energy, pumping your away with your legs, keeping your balance while maintaining your position, after all falling off your mount would be disastrous. As you near the end, the challenge gets steeper, you are not sure you can hold it together, not sure you can make it to the crowning glory, until eventually you summit, the elation is tremendous, but it only lasts a moment, before your spy the next one coming up, the next challenge, and you move onto that.

I rolled into Rothbury, exhausted, about 3.30, to my overnight digs, the Queens Head Hotel, where for the 2nd night running I had been given a room at the very top of the hotel. Enough climbing already! The first thing I do when I get to my hotel room is check to see if it has a heated towel rail, that I can switch on, even in summer. If it does it means I can wash my cycling gear and be confident it will be dry by the morning. Now I wonder, is it going to far to go back to your bike to get your cycling multitool and bleed the radiator so the whole thing heats up? Possibly, but it worked.

I had a little stroll along the High Street, pretty little place, but there is not much here. People use it as a base for walking and local sight seeing, but its not particularly touristy, and has about 4 pubs. I had a fantastic burger and a couple of pints at one of them, the Turks Head, and then headed off back to my hotel for an earlish night.

Another 70km tomorrow but not quite as much climbing. Thanks for reading, in fact muchos gracias, butros butros gali.

* Postscipt. Well I was right about that. Adele has told me to remove the Swiss Tony paragraph, and even her father complained about it. To me, I think it might be the best thing I wrote all week so it is staying.

CoB7 Day 3 Whitbarrow to Haltwhistle

And I am off again. After a few days chillin’ in the Lakes I set off this morning to start 5 days straight cycling, with today’s trip taking me due North to Carlisle and then due East to Haltwhistle, about halfway along Hadrian’s Wall. Haltwhistle styles itself as the centre of Britain, why it does that and if anybody cares anymore I don’t know, but that’s what it claims. it did cause me to reflect though that if it really is the centre of Britain, then I am not even halfway on my Circuit of this fine island.

After just a couple of kilometres I came to Greystoke, famous as the ancestral home of Tarzan. Well, judging by the sign at the gateway to the castle, Tarzan has foregone swinging through the trees, yelling at the top of his voice, and now just wants a quiet life and to be left alone…..maybe he settled down with Jane after all?

The first 20-30km of the route is along the Eden Valley. Now try closing your eyes for a moment and havbe a think about what those words conjure up. A steep sided valley with abundant produce hanging from the trees, the very definition of low hanging fruit perhaps. Nah, none of that, its just the flat plain of the River Eden. I suspect it got the name as it is probably very good farmland, but it is not especially attractive; the cycling is pretty boring too. Quiet roads for sure, but fairly flat and few interesting villages along the way; However it does a very fine view of Blencathra, which today was cloud free. The road to Carlisle isn’t quite as straight as my Strava image above suggests, clearly my Garmin was playing up, but it’s not far off.

Thirty kilometres in and I reach Carlisle, it does get a mention in Defoe’s writings, but only to say it a border town, and doesn’t have much trade. He does note that it is significantly smaller than Penrith and Kendal, perhaps because of the constant threat of cross border raids over the centuries. Today it is tired, noticeably more so than Penrith, and without the financial input from tourism that helps Keswick and to a lesser extent Penrith or from a modern University that has seen Lancaster blossom, it is difficult to see how it will prosper again.

It does have a fine castle though, and in a wonder of planning I had pre booked admission tickets yesterday so I could do some sightseeing. In these Covid Times you get allocated a time slot; I was a bit early but the staff let me in anyway. There has been a castle here since at least Roman times, and a stone keep was built by William Rufus (the Conqueror’s son) as he reclaimed Carlisle from the Scots. Despite being the most besieged castle in England, it is all in pretty good nick, perhaps partly because it was used as a training base for the Border Regiment up until 1959. It does mean parts of the castle have been developed over the years, for example there are a number of Victorian buildings in the outer ward, which would have been used as barracks I guess, but the main keep and curtain wall are pretty much as they might have been hundreds of years ago. I love all that stuff and spent a good hour here, before setting off again.

From one Elizabeth to another

If the first half of my day had been easy going and predominantly downhill, the second half was very lumpy and I was pretty tired by the end of it. The bike has been great but hills are a whole new kettle of fish when you are carrying a few kilos on the back. I think I might have over packed, and maybe I shouldn’t have brought the remainder of the bottle of red wine I started in the Lakes!

Despite clinging to its’ rather strange claim, Haltwhistle is pleasant enough. It was pretty quiet, but its difficult to judge these things these days. Adele and I plan to walk Hadrian’s Wall next spring, so maybe we will get a better idea then. I had the obligatory end of ride pint at the Black Bull Inn, a mere youngster having been established in 1652. Part of the inn is built in the old church house, and apparently the beer pipes run through the graveyard. I am not sure how that works, but I guess it keeps the ale chilled.

It was while at Haltwhistle that I discovered another travelling companion, a certain Celia Fiennes, who travelled around England in 1690, 20 or so years ahead of Daniel Defoe. I am going to cover her in a bit more detail in the Reflections page to this leg, for now it is fair to say she wasnt particularly impressed by Hatlwhistle:

This Hartwhistle is a Little town, there was one Inn but they had noe hay nor would get none, and when my servants had got some Else where they were angry and would not Entertaine me, so I was forced to take up in a poor Cottage wch was open to ye Thatch and no partitions but hurdles plaistered………… but noe sleepe Could I get, they burning turff and their Chimneys are sort of fflews or open tunnills, yt ye smoake does annoy the roomes.

I didn’t see too much of the actual wall today so first thing tomorrow I am off to Housesteads Roman Fort, again with a pre booked ticket, before embarking on another 72km day. With twice the amount of climbing. Eek.

CoB7 Day 2 Lancaster to Whitbarrow

Sunday 2^nd August 2020

What a fantastic day; while it’s true that climbing Kirkstone Pass was something of a crowning glory of the ride, even if I approached it from the easiest side, cycling round the lanes of North Lancashire was outstanding and worth doing in its own right. Beautiful, quiet, just great cycling.

After a pleasant evening in Lancaster and a carb loaded breakfast, I helped Adele get the bags back to the car before setting off. And true to my memories of Lancaster, as I walked back to the hotel to get my bike it started to rain, nothing heavy, but just enough to put a dampener on things right from the start. Never mind, off I set all swaddled in rain gear to get the day under way. After all, I had 86km of cycling ahead of me and try as much as I might to ignore it, the thought of the climb up to the Kirkstone Inn loomed large in my mind from the very beginning. It’s a climb I’ve done previously, from the North and I recall it as being a tough climb, and today I was on a heavier bike, with less helpful gearing, so…..

Gonna have to get over those dark peaks eventually

Anyway onwards from Lancaster. As I mentioned in yesterday’s blog, the city has clearly invested in cycle lanes, including a rather smart new traffic free bridge over the River Lune, so I had none of the struggles escaping the urban sprawl that I experienced departing Preston yesterday. It’s true that for the first few miles you have to use the A6 until you get to Carnforth, but it’s not too bad and pretty soon the route took me off the main road into beautiful farming villages.

The first ‘big’ town is Carnforth, but a few miles before I got there, at the village of Bolton Le Sands, the heavens truly opened on me; at times like these you have to decide whether you just press on, knowing you have a full day of cycling ahead of you but run the risk of being wet all day, or shelter for a bit and hope for the rain to pass. I knew the forecast wasn’t particularly bad and would get better as the day went on. A quick look at the sky showed one dark cloud moving at a decent pace, so me and the bike put pride before a fall and sheltered in a convenient bus stop. Ten minutes later the cloud passed and for the rest of the day I barely encountered any rain of note, so good call for once!

I described Carnforth as a big town, but that is relative, it is still pretty small. It does have an interesting looking Railway Heritage museum, if you like that sort of thing, and it is also where the classic film Brief Encounter was filmed despite being set in Kent. Aside of the trains there is little history of industry around here and so it doesn’t feature in Defoe’s writings at all, so no quotes from him for a while.

A typical view of the beautiful River Lune

This area, just before you reach the Lakes, nestles in the crook of Morecambe Bay and for much of the first 30km I was at or below sea level. It is full of really pretty little villages, usually with pubs, most of which were open despite the ongoing crisis. I cycled through Warton Village where it seemed every cottage had a date above its doorway, many of which were from the 1600’s….by the time I decided to stop to take a picture I was on the outskirts, but even the new builds here are several hundred years old!

After 30km I arrived at Levens, normally far too early for a stop but I knew the rest of the day was going to be through very remote villages and I couldn’t be sure of anywhere to stop for a break and refill my bottles; I didn’t want to climb Kirkstone without sufficient fluids so I stopped at Levens Hall, largely dating from the 16^th Century. A very pretty house, and a welcome coffee and cake.

The whole area is farming based and never had any real industry, but still worth visiting and makes for great cycling. For a long time I was cycling across fields on tarmacked paths without a car to be seen that reminded of the cycle paths in Bavaria. Idyllic.

All idylls come to an end though and eventually my route hit the A591, the ‘motorway’ into Windermere; I didnt need to cycle aloing it but crossing it was enough of a challenge in itself.

I knew from my pre ride planning that this signified the start of the serious climbing, so head down, teeth gritted and off I set. And it wasn’t too bad, I was just setting up my playlist to get me to the top when a couple of cyclists overtook me, and by the time they set off I was 150 yards behind them. I had no intention of chasing them down, but after a while it was obvious the distance was closing slightly, so for the next 30 minutes or so they became my ‘hare’ and I slowly but surely reeled them in. It is amazing how much easy cycling is when you have someone to chase! I moved in behind them, but the gradient was still 5% and I knew if I went past they might chase and re-overtake me, which alweays makes you look like an eejit so I sat in behind the pair of them, not wanting to race. However after a while I faced a middle class guilt trip in that I was getting a tow from them and I ought to at least do my share at the front, so I dug deep, pulled out when there was a break in the traffic and slowly overtook them. I expected them to settle in behind me, but they didn’t and pretty soon they disappeared into the distance. Geraint eat your heart out!

And so I got to the top of the Kirkstone Pass and the Inn, which has been there since 1496, that’s just 5 years after Henry VIII was born! I had to stop for a beer of course, though the Covid queue meant I was soon feeling a chill, so I drank half of it and set off, just 25km to get home.  Obviously the ride down to Ullswater didn’t require too much effort and wasn’t particularly scary, but the road near Glenridding was busy and not especially pleasant, however there aren’t any real alternatives. Once you get to the Aira Force turn the road really kicks up hitting 5 to 10% for a couple of km. Tough, but I wasn’t in any hurry, so just dropped to the lowest gear and sang along to James for a while to take my mind of things. Nothing is flat in the Lakes, so even after that climb there was still plenty of lumps to get over but soon enough I was coasting into Whitbarrow, my destination for the next few days.

The next day Adele and I climbed Helvellyn and I then chilled for a few days. Well, as chilled as you can be when your team loses in the play offs. For the 9^th time. Tomorrow I restart, cycling to Haltwhistle. I can’t wait!

CoB 7 Day 1 Preston to Lancaster

Finally, finally, leg 7 of my Circuit of Britain is underway, 18 months since I finished the last leg. The plan was for Adele to drop me off at Preston railway station where I finished last time and for me to cycle to Lancaster, where she’ll be waiting for me in our hotel. Inevitably, despite a reasonable weather forecast, the heavens opened when we were just 30 minutes away from the drop off point. To increase the angst we then got stuck in a 1 hour traffic jam on the way into Preston (it turned out there had been a couple of accidents).  So I got unceremoniously dumped into a Dunhelm Mills’ car park, and made my way to the station on my bike, allowing Adele to do a u-turn and skip the traffic.

Completely accidentally my route took me past the last B&B I stayed in, so I really felt like the route had linked up. Working my way out of Preston was a pain and not especially attractive, lots of busy Saturday trunk roads to get out of the town, with nothing much to report.  Pretty much as soon as I hit countryside at Bilsborrow however I came across this wayside oasis, on another day with more time on my hands it would have been a mandatory stop, but I’d just got started and needed to get miles under my belt. Another time perhaps.

Mentally this was a strange leg, it was short and I knew Adele was waiting for me, so I didn’t hang around at all. I was also flying, helped by the fact that she had all my bags though it felt like I was cheating a bit). All in all it didnt feel like I was touring, it felt more like a normal everday ride in the Chilterns.

That all changed somewhat when when I reached Galgate, a village a mile from Lancaster University, my alma mater. In those halceyon days of the early eighties, Galgate was where we headed when we needed a break from campus life, and today it seemed very much as I remembered it. Back then there were three pubs in the village, and I was glad to see both the New Inn and Plough were still open. The Green Dragon is now a tea room, but given all the pub closures over the last 40 years, two out of three ain’t bad.

I cycled up the lane to the University. I knew it had grown and changed significantly and that my college had been knocked down and relocated, so I wasn’t exactly disappointed or surprised when I got there but equally so much had changed that it wasn’t really a trip down memory lane. It clearly is a leading edge university these days and has buildings and facilities to match, and but it’s hard for me to relate it to the place I went. The only exception was Alexandra Square, which hasn’t changed in 40 years; pretty much everything else had.

The other thing that has changed is that the City of Lancaster has clearly welcomed cycling and now has a cycling lane that takes you the 3 miles from the university to the city, and I was to discover there is something similar on my way out of town the next day too. In fact Lancaster itself had changed. I had a great time at Uni, I loved the City, but it always seemed run down and a bit depressing; it was the early 80’s, unemployment was high and the university felt like an unwelcome guest. Given some of the run down and depressed cities I have travelled through on my circuit, I was concerned that Lancaster would have fared particualrly badly. I needn’t have worried.

Even in the Year of Covid, and outside term time, the city was lively with plenty of pubs open and as full as the social distancing restrictions allowed. In fact given the surrounding areas, with plenty to see and do, and the great cycling I had the next day, I think it compares favourably with Shrewsbury, asnother of my favourite cities from my rides. Shrewsbury may not have all that Chester has to offer but is still attractive to visit in its own right. The comparison between Lancaseter and York is the same I feel.

Adele and I had pleasant evening strolls around the town before and after dinner. I wasn’t, Adele wouldn’t have let me do that anyway, I was just enjoying a grand old city with some fine buildings. Time for a quick night cap in the Toll House and off to bed, in preparation for the real start of the journey, a full day’s 86km ride to Whitbarrow (near Penrith) over one of the highest passes in the Lake District.