At the frankly miraculous hour of 9:30 my brother and I arrived in the small
Hamlet of Mungrisdale in the North Lakes for what promised to be a great
days riding. The sun was shining but there was a cool breeze and a light
mist which hinted at a threat of rain (did I mention we were in the lakes?).
After the habitual bouncing about on forks, testing of brakes and clicking
of gears we were set to depart. Then the payphone rang. Looking around it
was clear we were the only people foolish to be about and so I picked up the
phone. 'Hello' came the voice of ol' dear number 1. 'Do you see a house
opposite the phone, can you go and ask the lady to phone me please' click.
bzzzz. I knock on the door, old dear number 2 answers and when I relay the
message she thanks me and hobbles over to the payphone. Nice.
Anyway...we set off and the surrounding hills soon erase puzzling thoughts
about my critical part in communications technology. This area is not one
I've visited often and seems to have much to offer. There are many
bridalways leading off either side of the road we are following, each
winding off tantalisingly around a corner. However after two or three miles
on the albeit fairly pleasant road we start to question the marital status
of the route-guides father and stop beside one of the more interesting
looking bridalways to examine the map further. It looks like another 4 or 5
frustrating miles on tarmac are ahead. Seems a bit daft we mutter (well
something like that). hmm, hey look we could take this path and it takes us
right near the start of the route 'proper' I casually say. And so with the
damning comment 'Its shorter than the road bit, what could possibly go
wrong?' we decide to follow the bridalway. It winds around the side of a
hill, climbing past some old mine workings on a fairly easy but loose path
and eventually flattens out to a fast flat section which we speed along with
self-congratulatory grins on our faces. The path narrows and becomes grassy
singletrack (a sheep track?) as it heads back down to meet up with the road.
Superb.
A short road section leads us into the biggest ascent of the day, up to
Skiddaw house. Its not a huge climb, gaining around 700ft but it is fairly
short and steep. Other day-trippers are driving up the initial easy part of
the climb and parking a third of the way up. As we pass them they're sat in
their cars munching sandwiches, probably getting ready to go home again.
Calves burning we try and make it to the top in one go but are beaten. I
blame only having 24 gears. As we start to descend the ground is a perfect
match of technical rockiness, and steep enough to hammer along bouncing over
the top, with water bars every 100m or so adding to the fun. A stream
crossing helps to cool us off before another short sharp climb up to Skiddaw
house. The path now heads back down the valley, mainly downhill at first
with the mixture of fairly boggy ground and fast rocky sections proving to
be great fun but tiring through constant acceleration and deceleration to
get the most out of the terrain. The path then flattens to follow the river
caldew for a few rocky miles. I had been loving my hardtail all day but felt
it was hard to keep momentum going here, where I would have sat down and
been able to spin on my full-sus bike I had to stand and hammer, very
tiring!
We arrived back to the car after some 25 miles, a fantastic ride and
definitely worth coming back.
Steve.