Celebration

[Wowbagger]

That's our route. The beautiful horizontal line represents the train ride and demonstrates that New Mills station is due west of Edale.

Many thanks to Kim for providing the route and the decision that that is what we would do. It was bloody hard work and I was aching the following day - not arthritis, but that pleasant whole-body muscular twinge which shows that you have been putting yourself through the paces. Total ascent: 2414' (736m).

[Kim]

Thanks to Nothing happening, I've got a multitude of aches and assorted interestingly-coloured bits.  Everything except the Achilles, it seems, so I'm declaring that an overall win.

As I said at the time, Knees™ mean that walking downhill can be problematic^[1] for me, and even if I have to use the 24" gear to get up, a mountain bike lets me get back down again with much less walking.  It's nice to get to places like that, away from the roads.  I keep forgetting how fun technical off-road riding can be, though I admit my comfort zone for that involves more trying to stay upright in treacherous (but ultimately harmless) mud than bouncing downhill over scary-looking rocks at what's invariably the wrong speed.

There was a point where, about halfway up Coldwell Clough - and after a fair bit of faffing around with cows and navigation errors and descending the sort of rutted singletrack that could pass for a drainage ditch - proper mountain bikers in body armour started coming the other way.  I was feeling my general lack of fitness and started to have doubts about the sensibility of continuing, but turning back is abhorrent and the easiest bailout option was to push on to the main road.  Once we got to the top the going got much easier, the view became worth it, and - Wowbagger's mildly inappropriate bike^[2] notwithstanding - I reckoned (more or less correctly) there wouldn't be as much prolonged unrideable stuff.  The pretty bit with the fords (and the rather enjoyable descent to get to them) made the whole thing worthwhile, IMHO.


_{[1] I had a moment walking on the moors above the Upper Derwent about 12 years ago where a fatigued knee failing to lock caused me to slip and twist an ankle.  Getting back down was slow going and unpleasant.
[2] Actually Mrs Wow's Thorn, which coped admirably well, given the limitations inherent in cow-muddy off-roading on touring tyres.  Just as well he didn't break it.} 

[Wowbagger]

It was an excellent afternoon. Mrs. Wow's Thorn is a Raven Sport Tour, constructed of Reynolds 853 main tubes, 531 forks. The only difference in the frame is that her top tube is a bit shorter than mine. Her inside leg measurement is the same as mine despite her being 3" shorter than I am. Long after I bought my Thorn Raven ST, I found that they recommend that only riders weighing less than 16 stones should ride them. In all the time I have had it I have been well in excess of 16st. I also regularly and gratuitously exceed their recommended luggage limit. My bike's frame has survived almost 36000 miles of this sort of abuse and is still a lovely ride. I would suggest that Robin Thorn and Andy Blance are being rather cautious in their recommendations regarding this frame.

I am glad that your injuries are healing well, Kim. I have to say that I was a trifle concerned when, on impact, I asked you if you were OK and you replied "I'll get back to you on that..."

I have to say that our timing at the cafe was perfect, at 2.50pm. They were serving their "Hillwalker Special" breakfast until 3pm and then it was possible to move seamlessly into a scone-style cream tea...

[Kim]

I am glad that your injuries are healing well, Kim. I have to say that I was a trifle concerned when, on impact, I asked you if you were OK and you replied "I'll get back to you on that..."

First rule of nasty falls:  Stay still until you've considered each body part individually and worked out what's serious, rather than just paying attention to what hurts the most.  Doesn't half make onlookers worry, thobut.

In this case what hurt most was my right ankle, which was twisted into an unnatural position due to being entangled with the bike, but wasn't actually injured.  It was sensible to establish that I hadn't broken any arms or wrists (which also hurt) before wriggling free of that.

[Polar Bear]

Envy.