I was buzzing by the end of this ride, filled with the glow of achievement and sharing tales of the road with the organiser and the other riders. I had been looking forward to it since September, when I happened to speak to an Irish chap of the organiser's acquaintance, who mentioned the Border Raid. I had heard of it, but I confused it with another local ride, the Border Bike Ride, which used to describe a rough circle of Darlington. Someone had tried to tell me that it went all the way to Scotland and back, which I had dismissed out of hand as being too absurd a concept...
The weather, first. It was hoying down all Friday, so I nipped into town after work to buy some suitable gloves. The lad in the bike shop tried to sell me some overshoes, and mentioned that snow was predicted on the tops overnight. I didn't believe him, and left with only my gloves. He wasn't entirely full of it, as when Saturday morning came, it was still raining, and there was sleet as we reached the summit of Yad Moss, nearly 2000 feet up. There were a few non-starters, and in other circumstances I might have woken up, looked out of the window, said "Sod it" and gone back to sleep, but I had been looking forward to this particular ride for nine months, and the thought of quitting never entered my mind. Well, not seriously. The first 70 km were miserable, we set off in the rain at 6 am and it didn't stop for four hours. As for my gloves, well, "waterproof" is a good advertisement, but they were sodden by Middleton-in-Teesdale. They were, however, thick enough to keep out the wind on the ascent of Yad Moss and the long descent to Alston.
Apparently, a couple of people quit around here - although I sympathised, as the conditions were grotty, I did comment later that they must have felt like the people who leave a football match at half-time when their team is 2-0 down, only to hear later that they fought back to win 3-2. MSeries was so cold that it took a full five minutes before he even started shivering. Hardcore marks to Alan M, who tackled the conditions in a pair of woolly gloves he bought at the pound shop.
To our relief, the weather improved as we rode north, and the roads were dry as we went through Brompton and Longtown. I had a Royale with cheese at Newcastleton, then we rode the marvellous, scenic road over Wauchope Forest, with views towards Jedburgh like visions of Middle Earth. The whole of the route between Newcastleton and Kelso was hilly, and it took a lot out of me, especially riding into a strengthening easterly.
Scott's View: worth seeing, but not worth going to see. Not on a bike, at least.MSeries and I at Scott's View.Apart from the wind, the weather was very benign for the rest of the route - it was behind us as we chased back through Galashiels and Traquair and over the Devil's Beeftub to Annandale Water. Relaxing a bit here, I had chance to admire the borders, spotting landmarks such as Wallace's Monument which I hadn't seen for about 25 years, and Smailthorpe Tower, which was scarred by previous border raids. These English marauders could only bring back a few receipts, some scraps of Scottish money, and some hard-won information (how to pronounce "Traquair", for one).
We'd met up with three other riders in Peebles, and shuttled along almost together through the sleep stop and Penrith to Shap Fell, where we finally left them behind. We rather assumed that they'd realised our mistake in coming over Shap, and decided to turn back to take the correct turning. We carried on, like manly men, to make the route about 1000 feet harder than it had to be. I picked up a bit of Kendal mint cake as proof of passage
The narrow, steep road from Kendal was a brute, and I just managed to get up it, but I had no time to recover, so I was pushing the bike up a couple of bits of Lambrigg Fell. Magnificent views of the wind farm, though, which was a consolation.
Randonneur hair: MSeries at Leyburn, after 550 km.After Sedbergh there came the aforementioned tough roads of Garsdale and Wensleydale. We made up time here, so we can't have been going too badly, despite the sharp hills and the easterly wind flailing at us. We didn't stop much all the way back to the finish at Aldbrough St John. I really hated the 50k between Leyburn and Ripon along the A6108. But the last 50k or whatever was along nice, easy lanes, and was the flattest bit of the route. Like MSeries, I was heartened by the news that the three lads we had been riding with were still behind us.
I was bouncing at the finish, already plotting my next rides. Had someone challenged me to do it again in reverse, I would have.