It was 13th January. The usual thing happened, we were sat at home, in the middle of winter, perusing the Audax UK calendar, and I had got to the 600s. Obviously, we would enter the Bryan Chapman on the tandem, but I wanted to ride a couple of other 600s to make a Hyper Randonneur series. Now, it was 2010 the last time I did anything like this (2011 was going to be, but Bryan Chapman on fixed caused an injury which prevented that). I thus had only one attempt at the K&SW, and I wanted to have another go and be a bit faster (possibly trying on fixed). My other (than the Bryan Chapman) regular 600k - The Border Raid - is no longer running, so I had to look elsewhere, and I’d heard lots about the Pendle 600 being a challenge. Well, I entered it.
Things have gone a bit wrong since then. We’ve had to DNS the Gospel Pass 150, and The Dean, due to the cold spring. We almost froze to death on the Cheltenham Flyer 200k; we managed Yr Elenydd on the tandem, but only with 15 minutes in hand, then I rode a hilly DIY 200k on fixed in April, and got the same injury as in 2011, but on the opposite risk. I had to stop riding fixed, do some rehab, and managed to be ready for the Brevet Cymru on the tandem - but we only managed 200k of that due to Feline’s knee. I did manage to ride the Bryan Chapman, riding on my Madone as an experiment for this ride, which went well, though the lack of miles told a bit as I kept bonking after going to hard early on. Then, a few days before the K&SW, I caught a bad cold, so was out of that. Meanwhile, I had been working long hours, and this continued, with a 24h stint awake helping at the National 400 last weekend, and hardly any miles in the last month, it wasn’t until Monday that I committed to riding this, and booked accommodation (camping).
I was by then back to commuting, having almost recovered from the lurgy, though still with a productive cough. I needed to get some early nights, but it wasn’t to be. Plus, I played 5-a-side on Thursday for extra tiredness. I didn’t finish my gpx file until midnight on Thursday night, and then started removing the aero clip-ons, and finally got all the audax set-up changes done to the bike. Meanwhile, I’d had an offer from Reg T of a lift up, and I could use Mike’s rooms at the Travelodge, which made life a lot easier than camping.
So it was with a poor week’s sleep that I arrived at the start hut for this one. Andy commented that he hadn’t seen me for a while. It’s true, I’ve been too busy to do all but the minimum SR series (and PBP and an arrow) in the last couple of years. I would have felt much happier about starting this ride if I’d not been ill and missed quite a lot of riding. But I was there, and I was going to give it my best shot.
As soon as we got rolling, my legs felt heavy. A tail wind blew us along the A59, but I felt the pace wasn’t quite enough, so I went off the front of the main bunch. This did not last long; my front race blade must have got a knock in the car, and was rubbing. I looked down at it, and also noticed my EDelux had come loose. This is what happens when you fit it at 1am. So, I pulled over into a side turning and watched the group sail past me as I fiddled. I gave chase, but they turned off and were out of sight, some way ahead. I decided I wanted to catch them, but when I saw a rider ahead, he was on his own, and it took me a while to catch him. It turned out he too had a problem, and had not simply been dropped, so we eventually did catch the group.
Once we got into the big climbs, I settled into riding with DrMekon, enjoying the views, and comparing notes on our respective new commutes, both rather hillier than Cambridge; after a hairy descent into Pately Bridge, we arrived at the 1st control, a petrol station, together. I had another minor mechanical, my speedo sensor’s rubber bands had snapped, so that needed fixing. DrMekon waited for me, and we set off, heading into the notionally toughest section of the ride. But initially it was like the Phoney War. I’d been confused about the route, and thought we went up Rosedale Bank, so was waiting for it. But when we got to an Abbey, it wasn’t Rosedale Abbey, and we went up Wass Bank, and then when we got to Rosedale, we went down. There was a sign asking us to please dismount. Of course we did not. This started a series of steep, sharp climbs, up to 1:3, that seemed to go on for ages. The average speed ticked steadily down. It ticked down on the descents as well as the climbs, due to the steepness requiring careful descending. At one point, I saw the sea, and thought it must end soon. But we were not going to escape that easily. Eventually, though, we did arrive at Robin Hood’s Bay, and thanks to the tail wind, about 4h in hand despite the steep climbing.
It was beautiful sunshine here, and we set off as a group of 3, Reg T joining us. I soon realised I was struggling to hold their pace, but they waited for me repeatedly despite my insistence that they should push on. I thought about turning into a side road and hiding until they gave up waiting for me. I was feeling a bit sick, struggling to digest lunch at the same time as fight the headwind and climb the hills. Towards the end of the stage, though, I had recovered somewhat, and was able to do more of my share as we arrived at Stokesley. This was another petrol station control. I opted for light food here, trying to keep my stomach on side. A can of Irn Bru, a milkshake, and a Magnum. By the time we got going again, Hill Billy and Marcus had appeared. Marcus went straight past and presumably went looking for something more substantial in town.
Once we’d had enough of getting cold outside a petrol station, we set off again, now on a flat route which just had the wind to contend with. We took reasonably equal turns on the front, though I think DrMekon was working harder of the three when he was there. Eventually Reg said something about the pace, and we eased off a bit. If he hadn’t said something, I think I would have. When we arrived at Darlington we were presented with the expected road closure; this was quite a significant detour. There was a short debate about whether to try to find a shorter route around, but probably it would cost as much time finding an alternative as just to ride the official diversion. There would be a risk in trying to get through anyway that it was really impassable and a lot of time could be wasted. In the end the detour added between 5 and 10km, which is a fair bit if you are on the limit, but despite the difficulty of the ride, we did not expect to be right on the time limit.
Amazingly, despite the forecast, we had not yet had any rain of significance. Showers had passed us by, and one had threatened to make us wet. It started to look a bit more likely we would get wet on the way to Barnard Castle on the A67, and it got sufficient, and also colder, such that we ended up with jackets on. But even then, it was a trivial amount of rain, and we felt we had been very lucky. At the back of my mind, however, was the forecast of much heavier rain at night, and we were not flush with time. We’d started talking about the sleep stop and how long we could afford. 1h sleep seemed to be on the cards, which is much less than I manage on most 600s.
I was starting to feel I needed something a bit more substantial than co-op or petrol station food, so we found a fish and chip shop in the town (we found two, but the first was closed, and had Damon’s rucksack which he had forgotten). Damon reappeared shortly after we started eating our chip butties, so we got some updates from him on other riders’ progress, and he got some footage of us talking about how hard it all was. We left around 8pm, I think, and Marcus appeared at about the same time having controlled at the co-op. DrMekon and Reg chased him down, but I was suffering slightly again with the pace after eating, so I "let them go" as they say. Now we headed into the North Pennines, a beautiful area of rolling hills and moorland. After a while, I found Reg at the roadside making some adjustments, so we played yo-yo for a while over the tops. I told him there was a nasty climb out of Stanhope. This was familiar to me, as I’ve done the Sustrans C2C route a couple of times. As we crossed the moor at the top, we spotted lights ahead, and it was DrMekon and Marcus. It seemed Marcus was having an attack of the dozies so they’d slowed down. DrMekon switched allegiance when we came past, and came with me - Reg and Marcus fell behind. I think it was then Reg had one of his punctures.
By now, everything seemed to be taking a very long time. A feature of this ride seemed to be that when you thought you might be now descending towards the control, another hill would offer itself to you. It was getting a bit old. Plus, a kamikaze sheep tried to get me when I was doing 30-40mph downhill. Good brakes and grippy tyres are a bonus. Also, there was a rabbit which tried similar. We arrived in Hexham very ready for pizza; the guy in the shop looked at me as if I was mad when I walked in. They couldn’t give us a proper receipt so while we waited for food, we got ATM receipts across the road. Back in the pizza place, a bizarre incident occurred where a drunk - seemingly underage - teenager tried to ask us first of all where the best places to drink in Hexham were (I think he’d already found them, to be honest) and also where all the fit birds were. If he found them, I predict failure, on account of his being barely able to stand up or string a coherent sentence together. And the fact he looked about 15.
Marcus joined us for this stage, Reg having been and gone. I was dropped as per. But then Marcus seemingly started with the dozies again, so it was DrMekon and I. He too was struggling by now, and the weather was taking a turn for the worse, with the rain starting then getting steadily heavier. There were 3 large climbs to deal with, the biggest and last being Hartside at 1900 feet. But first we had to get there, and a stop was made by a street lamp in the middle of nowhere for consumption of rations, and stimulants. DrMekon was my supplier, as I was out of caffeinated gels, he offered me a pro plus. I looked at it suspiciously - not sure they should be red - but took it anyway. DrMekon was getting a bit ahead on the climbs, but didn’t leave me behind. We had a bit of a poor descent on loose chippings at one point. They were freshly laid, and very deep outside of car tracks; not ideal in the dark by any means. We got to Alston, and I was tempted to have a doze. The pro plus seemed ineffective. But, I did not want to get cold, so I followed DrMekon through the town and out again into the wilderness. A sign warned us about how dangerous Hartside could be. We didn’t take any notice. What were we going to do, where would we go if we didn’t make it to the sleep stop?
As we climbed, things got worse. The rain became heavier still. Then, at about 400m altitude, I noticed visibility getting poor, and I realised we were heading into cloud. Great, we can’t see, are riding into a gale, and are being soaked. And I didn’t even have my rainlegs. Yes, this was worse than the Border Raid 2008. I was very glad I’d worn my winter weight rain jacket. Without that, I’d have been stuffed. DrMekon had vanished into the mist, but when I reached the summit he was waiting for me. I don’t know if he had found shelter behind the cafe, I hope so. What then followed was an atrocious descent, visibility was about 30 feet, and even with great lights, descending speed was very slow, the average for the whole descent was only 30kph and the initial part was done at 20-25kph due to the poor conditions. Of course now you are also getting very cold. It seemed to be taking ages to get to the sleep stop, but eventually - around 3.40am - we arrived.
Andy made me a ham sandwich while I removed various soaking items of clothing and put them on radiators around the hall. We discussed briefly how long to sleep, and agreed that an hour would do, which meant a 5am wake-up. I cunningly bagged the spot of floor next to the radiator in the sleep room. As there was just a carpet and no bedding, I was still cold. I got woken up at 5.15am by DrMekon, who had woken up naturally, the wake-up call not having come. I was not aware I’d only slept for an hour, and felt fine. Perhaps I should try shorter sleep stops on 600s in future. It took me ages to get ready, though. I had two helpings of shredded wheat with banana, prepared by the omnipresent Damon, who was also out on route filming at various times, and a strong coffee. I removed my knee 'warmers' which I’d slept in, and were still wet, and put them on the radiator. I also used the hand dryer in the loos to try to dry my legs/crotch area a bit. It was lovely putting on radiator warmed arm warmers, jacket, gloves etc. before going outside again. We set off at 6. It had just stopped raining.
The run to Keswick on the A66 was pretty miserable, the rain started again as we got higher up and continued unabated all the way along the road. DrMekon was after a coffee, but Keswick at 8am on a Sunday didn't seem to have many opportunities. If we'd been there later, there is a great vegetarian cafe in the centre that would have suited him perfectly. I think we might have been able to get a coffee at the campsite, but I don't think I made enough effort to communicate this, and we pushed on to Whinlatter Pass which was a pleasant change from the exposed, wet A66. Once we'd crossed, the rain seemed to have eased, and soon we turned south. We still had to go over Cold Fell, and got a view of the remaining Windscale tower at Sellafield, with scaffolding around the botched on filters suggesting that will be removed soon. We dropped down to Seascale, and the lead riders were just on the way out, and indicated there was a cafe. One said it was on the right, the other the left. I guess it is about perspective.
Not sure where it would be, we tried asking a local. "Oh, there are no cafes open on a Sunday here". We wondered if the other riders had hallucinated a cafe, or if the local was just ignorant. We went down the hill, under the bridge, and there it was on the left. It was the latter, then. The welcome there was really friendly, and we were well fed and had had a nice break when we left. And from now, for almost all the way back to the finish, we would have a tailwind!
On the approach to Hardknott, I decided I would not attempt to ride it. DrMekon gave it a go, and was very impressive, though I think he nearly doubled the horizontal distance with all that weaving. The descent was nasty as usual, and then the same story on Wrynose, and we were past that and had some less taxing hills to Ambleside and Windermere. In Windermere, we stopped for icecream and filling bottles; the icecream I had was double devon cream or something - very nice indeed. As usual here, the traffic was very heavy. Late afternoon on a Sunday is unlikely to be the best time to be here, as people are heading home. It was a relief when we got onto quieter roads again to take us to the A6 and Carnforth. The surface on the A6 itself was poor, and so was some of the driving, unfortunately.
At the control, which was a truck stop, we were allowed to bring our bikes indoors to keep them safe. I had a very nice steak and mushroom pie, with mashed potatoes, carrots, and gravy on top. Then I started to feel really dozy, and was resting my head on the table while DrMekon did whatever he was up to. Mostly, he was repeatedly forgetting to get a receipt.
I wasn't the only one struggling.
It was now that he had and admission: the previous night, my proplus was actually Ibuprofen. I avoid it because I get excess stomach acid and reflux a lot of the time, but it hadn't apparently caused a problem. but did explain why it didn't wake me up at all! So, this time, I had a proper one.
We knew the final stage was hilly - about 1000m in 55km from the profile - so we pushed hard out of Lancaster and kept track of our speed. The Trough of Bowland was beautiful, and the forest reminded me of the Forest of Dean. The pace we were doing uphill was below target, and then we caught up and overtook it downhill. Eventually we got to the "can finish at walking pace" point, and it was possible to relax about the time. We rolled in about 8.20pm, absolutely done in.
