Having been variously injured for the past few weeks and months - well, not exactly injured- more just unable to run as much or as far as I am accustomed due to a number of niggles, I was kind of aching for a little adventure. It certainly wasn't going to be a running adventure, and most likely not a walking one either. The pressing issue of maybe starting school again in September meant that now was going to have to be the right time to go.
Somewhat fortutitously a vaccination shift I was due to be at on Thursday was cancelled because of lack of uptake (not good in the general sense, but good in that I had a spare extra day to do stuff). Bikepacking seemed like the most obvious thing to do- a run of fine weather into the weekend made it look like *not* going was a silly thing to do.
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| All packed and ready to go |
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| Oh the enthusiasm |
Nope. More faff. More procrastination. I'll leave *right* after lunch.
As we were finishing lunch- Mountain Rescue Callout. Ah- if this goes on for a long time, I might as well put it off til tomorrow....
I ended up getting back relatively quickly, and was pretty much booted out of the house by Lynne. I wasn't hugely psyched to be heading out of the house on an adventure at 3:30pm- as previously mentioned, that first step is definitely the hardest.
There was no expectation as to how far I was going to get on the Thursday night- indeed this was part of the whole thing... how far is it reasonable to expect to be able to get in a day on a bike? What is my current level of ability with ALL this stuff strapped to a bike?
The kilometres passed relatively fast, and I was astonished to find myself passing the M62 pretty soon. Under tyre was a mixture of road and gravel, the vast majority- at this stage- was ridable. My main concern was how often would I be able to fill up with water- and where would I camp this evening. It was these twin "anxieties" that shaped most of my thinking, which is a bit of a shame when you're meant to be enjoying yourself.
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| Dinner. (and breakfast) |
(One of the things I'm missing on my set up is a decent place to put sandwiches and food on the go... definitely needs a re-think)- so the pizza got stuffed in a pocket (warm back... ew) as I carried on up the road past reservoirs, hills, on and off the Pennine Bridleway, on single track and road. Fabulous biking on Extwistle Moor- where I saw a couple of Mountain Bikers on an evening trundle. On and up the Bronte Way and through Trawden as the light was fading.
I decided on a random field next to the road where the grass had been cut recently, figuring that there would be no animals to disturb, no crops to disturb, if I was next to the wall, my tent was low enough not to be seen from the road, and the cut grass would need to be dry before the farmer could do anything with it- so being up at 5am would get me out of there before being disturbed myself.
Tent up, I settled down to a very uncomfortable night due to my ecsema being affected very badly by the sweat I had not had a chance to wash off myself. If anything- this is the worst part of bikepacking, or hiking, or Mountain Marathoning for me. By morning I was a bleeding, red raw mess with not a lot of sleep. I've solved the eye issue with laser surgery- now all I need to sort out is my skin.
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| Campsite |
Up early, and everything was covered in dew. I put on every bit of bike clothing I had- leg warmers, arm warmers, gilet, warm jacket etc. and packed up camp in my barefeet, figuring that drying my feet next to the road and putting on dry socks and shoes would be a LOT better than wandering around in cold wet shoes for a long while. The tent was a whole lot heavier, due to the dew, but that got packed away, and I stood by the side of the road, with dry feet in my dry shoes, looking across mist shrouded hills and Colne as I munched my way through a couple of "pocket made" calzones.
Colne is a town of many cobbles, and I climbed my way up and through at a slow speed, still wearing everything I owned. Ridge of Weets was next, and the sun was still not out- the air was chilled, and everything stayed on. Down into Gisburn and I finally spied a service station about 200m out of my way. AHA! Coffee!
A minor detour rewarded me with coffee, water to fill my bottles and a toilet stop. Onwards and now Westwards, and it was only about 5k later that it was finally warm enough to take off my primaloft top and leg warmers.
From here, I vaguely recognised the road as a previous short ride with Hux and friends took us through the Trough of Bowland. Truth be told, it was playing on my mind a bit as the route was fairly arduous last time, and that was with an unloaded bike. Goodness knows how hard it was going to feel fully laden, on day 2 of a trip.
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| Sun lotion location |
Winding through Slaidburn and up to the start of the Croasdale fell gravel road, I stopped for an application of sun lotion, congratulating myself on getting to this stage this early. There were visions of having to cross this in the absolute heat of the day, so all good so far. I then utterly astonished myself by managing to blast across the tops in short order, with only a minimal amount of pushing. Yes, there are a couple of really hard going parts with massive rocks to negotiate, but by and large, it is pretty rideable. A superb downhill section dropped me into Hornby for a very well deserved breakfast of Almond Croissant and Coffee, where I sat, took stock of where I was, where I was about to go and how everything was feeling.
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| Croasdale fell road |
It was about 1030ish, I'd been on the go since 5 and covered a part of the gravel section I was really apprehensive about. Brilliant. Minor issue now was it was only going to get hotter, and the next section of gravel was Cam High road- last seen by me in 2016- January- at the end of the Spine Challenger. Scene of grim, cold feet and exciting hallucinations.
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| Breakfast at Hornby! |
Well-- the weather was a little different this time. I hauled my way to my feet, grabbed a goodbye snack of Rocky Road for the- uh- road, and set off towards Ribblehead. There were some delightful little backroads to take on the way up to Ingleton. The Old Roman road below Twistleon Scars was a pleasure to bimble along, and it was deceptively quiet until I hit Ribblehead where there were, quite literally, hundreds of cars and people. I didn't bother to stop for a photo, until I saw a Holme Valley MRT truck by the side of the road, who I decided to have a chat with. Apparently one of their guys was doing a 3 peaks walk, and they were supporting with a LOT of water.
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| Ribblesdale Head viaduct... which means...... |
Saying goodluck, I went onward, toward Cam Fell. Not looking forward to it, it became apparent that no, I might not be doing the Bowland section in the heat, but I would be doing *this* bit in the teeth of the day. Great.
Again, cycling as hard as I could over broken ground, on a fully laden gravel bike- which was really pretty hard. My max power output was *definitely* far above anything I normally put out on the road, but as the sun beat down, my speed got slower. Stopping to open and close gates robbed me of speed and momentum and it was a hard won slog to the top.
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| ...Cam high road is not far away |
Along the top of Cam High Road was hot, but pretty pleasant (looking down at one point to see the road from Hawes climb steeply up to me- and realising *that* was part of my homeward route- oh). And then a seemingly eternal downhill gravel section to Bainbridge- one of the only times where I wished I had a bike with some travel on the front forks. And the back end. And Massive tyres. And no luggage. Going down the track was hard work, I can't even imagine what it must be like having to go up it.
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| Lunch stop in the shade |
Askrigg was the place I stopped for lunch at a tearoom, in the shade of a tree- filled up with water and an icecream before heading north again. Straight into the teeth of one of the biggest, nastiest climb I had been on. As I went up I was unsurprised to find my head looking for ditches to fall into- just for a bit of shade and respite from the head. It was brutal and unrelenting in gradient and heat. At the top I looked across northwards to the hills I had yet to cross, and thought... "no". I need to be thinking about turning back. My legs are done, the heat is just too much, Kielder can wait for another day.
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| The turning point |
Down the other side of Askrigg, I turned left instead of right and found myself hugely under powered. Should have had a nap back in Bainbridge- now is a good time, if there is anywhere. A dappled spot by the side of the road where no-one had parked provided me with a place for 20 mins before figuring I should go on- and 500 metres down the road- a campsite.
This. Will. Do. They had space for a one person tent and showers. £8. Done. I stopped.
The restoritive effect of a shower and multiple Callipos cannot be understated- and I pretty much slept for 15 hours.
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| And they had ducks! |
Knowing it was going to be as hot, if not worse on the Saturday, 6am was the start time of choice. Again, packing up a wet tent in bare feet, cooking breakfast and being away by 5:50 was the order of the day.
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| 5:55... and it already looks like it's going to be a warm one |
First things first- Buttertubs. 20% or so of upward grind- the weather was a delight, and all the warm clothing that I thought I was going to need came off before I was halfway up.
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| Buttertubs |
Down to Hawes, put on sun lotion- it was hotting up despite only being 7am, and then straight up Fleetwith Moss (I think). This route was all about road, and was intended to be a speedy way home. The momentum of the luggage on the bike kept me going down through Kettleshulme and into Skipton by 9am, for a brief breakfast of, you guessed it, an Almond Croissant and an espresso- before carrying on. At this speed it looked like I might be home for 3pm- but the heat of the day was already bearing down. It was 24 degrees and climbing, so a race against time really. (It hadn't helped that in the last week I've been involved in 2 presentations about heat exhaustion, heat stroke, seizures and death- which kept my mind occupied). Lynne and I were in fairly regular contact, and as it got hotter, I got slower, and we decided that a minor rescue was probably a good idea.
Hammering on southward it became apparent that I was absolutely knackered beyond description as I resorted to walking up a number of hills, a short interlude at Tim Lane was had and it was obvious that lunch was needed.
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| Found it! |
I hit Slathewaite where I had perhaps the most delicious Chicken Caeser Wrap every made by BP- and spoke to Lynne, who was getting ready to come and find me. My Wahoo registered 35 degrees as I climbed out of Slathwaite- it was getting on for midday and it was obvious to me that I was going to get no further than Meltham. Hands were getting blistered from sweaty hands sliding around in my mitts, legs had stopped working a while ago and it was with great relief that I came across our van on the way down into Meltham.
Rescue- with iced water, food, a change of clothes, and a towel. Respite from constant churning- thank goodness.
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| Rescue |
I think I could have got home, but I'd have been in a lot worse state than when I was picked up.
Learning points from the trip:
1- get a side access bottle cage. I found I wasn't drinking a lot because I couldn't access my bottle due to the frame bag being in the way. This probably contributed to me being over heated and exhausted on days 1 and 2.
2 - Drink more- another reason I wasn't drinking much was because I was a bit concerned about running out of water. Paradoxically I ended up not drinking enough even though I had water on the bike, and so dehydrated because of that. You can always buy water at a service station if necessary.
3 - Take a towel. I was SO glad of the towel (yes, it is a luxury)- but with skin as bad as mine, it is effectively a necessity.
4 - Get a bag to hold sandwiches!
5 - The main thing that stops me going is the anticipation of destroying my skin over a few days of adventure. It really does take the fun out of things. Starting to look into DMARDS to perhaps help with this.
6- just because there are 15 hours of daylight doesn't mean I can actually cycle for 15 hours! (far from it).
All in all it was a great trip, with some lovely places. There were times when I wished I had a mountain bike, there were times I wished I had bigger gears to help get up hills- however, the Fairlight Secan never missed a beat. It went over a whole lot of terrain that stretched the design limits of the bike, and although it wasn't as comfortable as doing it on a more suspension laden bike, it still coped.
As if that wasn't enough, I was just sitting down at the end of the day to chill out and the rescue alarm went off.... ah well, a nice way to book end the adventure. Off out on the bike with the Mountain Rescue kit on the back.
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| Off out again.... |
That sounds epic.
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