The last time me and Dave attempted this particular Daft Ride, we ran out of daylight and our lack of lights meant that we cut it (slightly) short before things got dangerous. This time, we’d have lights and we’d both arguably be a bit fitter and therefore faster so we’d have every chance of nailing it. Not only that, we’d be starting a bit earlier than last time – we’d aim to be riding at 6am which meant I had to leave the house at 3:30am (rather than the pathetically-late 4:30am of last time)

The route is best described as a monster. Approximately 130 miles, 15000-ish feet of vertical ascent and several really big hills..nay, mountains to ride over. Most of the route is off-road and plenty of unrideable, ‘hike-a-bike’ sections to ensure the calves get plenty of gyp.

This time we started from the tiny village of Blencarn at the foot of Cross Fell. We planned to end the ride at the end of the final descent. We’d probably need our lights by this point but all being well, we’d get away with only needing them for the ascent and the half mile or so along the road back to the cars.

Battering along trails remembered from last time, we made reasonable progress along the bridleway alongside Ullswater following a fast warm-up along the road.

The ascent of High Street, apart from a comedy (but painful) fall on my part, came and went without too much drama. The sections where bikes needed to be carried weren’t terribly difficult (that’s 3 Peaks training, that is) and following a couple of photos and some jelly babies at the top, the ascent was fun…in a really scary, ‘christ this is a bit steep’ kind of way.

Pathetically under-powered XC race Brakes almost melted and at times completely grip-less-on-wet-grass tyres cursed at, we continued our journey on minor roads towards Staveley, on towards Borrowdale (I think) and Tebay.

Then on to Sedbergh for a raid on the local bakery followed by the second major climb and descent of the day. While our shopping for sandwiches, sweets and pastry was deeply pleasurable for us, going to the Spar was no doubt less fun than usual for the ‘normal’ shoppers in there due to the pungent sweat-and-dung funky stench of two off road cyclists. Undeterred, we queued up with grumbling pensioners and frightened children with armfuls of high-calorie food and ate most of it at the nearest kiddies’ play area.

The long, hard climb from the ice cream-selling sheep farm across Brant Fell to the summit of The Calf was, as it was last time, very tough. The bridleway is mostly rideable though and it was one of the most rewarding sections of the entire route, especially when passing a group of walkers who cheerfully passed compliments on our apparent fitness level J

Reaching the top, another ‘bikes leaning against something quite high up’ photo opportunity was taken, more jelly babies and a Clif Bar and then we were off again for the descent down to Bowderdale.

I’m sure I’ve read magazine articles about this trail where it’s described as some kind of flowing, fast, sinuous singletrack. It’s fun, a lot of fun, but it definitely needs some commitment. I remember the last time I rode this trail that I was a bit surprised at how much like hard work it was in reality. It must have eroded a bit since last time because this time I found it very tough indeed. Having to stop a couple of times to massage my hands back to life, progress along the trail was slow. Eventually reaching Bowderdale completely knackered, we carried on to Crosby Garret Fell, site of the now-infamous ‘Being Chased By Cows’ episode of 2009…

Eventually we reached our second Spar of the day in Appleby. More food devoured while we mused on how ‘shouty’ the locals seemed to be, we pressed on towards Dufton and the climb up the moor to the astonishing High Cup Nick.

This climb was incredibly tough, sometimes frustrating. Short rideable sections permeated by unrideable sections of rocks, deep bogs or primitive wooden bridges, our progress was now so slow and tiring that thoughts were now turning to the imminent sunset and our ability to complete the ride as planned.

Once at the top and the whole majesty of High Cup Gill could be seen, the mood lightened again. Pictures were taken and ‘wow’s’ were wowed. Jelly babies and Clif Bars were eaten. Bikes were picked up and we braced ourselves for yet another bruising descent, this time towards Cow Green Reservoir and on to the minor road where we decided to ‘decide what to do next’.

Our original plan would have been to ride north-west to Garrigill, climb Cross Fell and descend back to the cars at Blencarn. Simple….apart from the fact that we were switching our lights on now, a good 15 miles from the start of the climb of Cross Fell rather than maybe a short section at the end. We were running late in other words and we agreed that a revised route along the road would be the sensible option rather than attempting, in the dark, the potentially tricky navigation that Cross Fell would require. The route along the road looked like it should be about 20 miles…..

We headed south-east to the junction at Middleton-in-Teesdale (which took a while) then headed to Brough on the minor road across the moor. By now it was completely dark, it was windy and it was raining. The road was also a rather large climb, which was a surprise. I remember reaching Brough and declaring that the last road was  ‘beyond horrible’ or something. We’d survived, but the ride, a good 15 hours after we’d left the cars, was by now starting to really take its toll on us both.

Digging deep, we pressed on towards Appleby (again) where we’d ride along minor roads to Blencarn. It was clear by this point that our earlier ‘about 20 miles’ estimate was optimistic.

The batteries in Dave’s GPS ran out. We slowed down a bit more as we tried to navigate deserted singletrack roads in the dark…neither of us was entirely sure which way was The Right Way until Dave, in a moment of inspiration, remembered the ‘sequence’ of villages that lay before us.

‘Dufton, then Knock, then Milburn…Milburn is right next to Blencarn..I’m sure it is’. Awesome. We’d have had to sleep in a hedge if it wasn’t for this single moment of genius.

We made it back to the cars just after midnight, 161 miles ridden and 17,000 feet (maybe more) of vertical climbed. We were also about 4 hours later than expected. Agreeing that we both felt like we’d just competed in a 24 hour race, we hastily said our goodbyes, threw our kit into our cars and GOT THE HELL OUT OF THERE.

Technically, we were beaten again by perhaps the daftest of all Daft Rides, but we’d actually ridden a lot further than the original route in a fairly respectable time (bearing in mind food and photo stops). We’ll have another go at it next year I’m sure, but for now, it’s all about recovery. You see, there’s a certain 100-mile mountain bike race that needs to be dealt with next weekend. Is it possible to recover sufficiently from a 161 mile mountain bike ride in just 4 days? We shall see…

To celebrate me reaching The Big 4-0, a week off was planned. We were going to have a family holiday that for a change, didn’t involve a 24 hour bicycle race. I had an idea that we were going to Scotland but apart from that the whole week was a mystery.

We arrived at our cottage in the grounds of Threave Castle (surprise number 1) – handily just 7 miles from the trails at Dalbeattie. Not long after we’d arrived, Phil, Jacqui, their kids and their bikes arrived (surprise number 2). They were going to stay in the adjoining cottage for the weekend. Ace.

Then Lee, Rachael and their little one arrived (surprise number 3). Lee had his bike ready and his helmet on so off we went for a blast around the harder-than-I-remember Dalbeattie red trail.

The next day, Phil and I set off again for Dalbeattie but had a much bigger ride planned. Two-thirds of the red trail, drop down to the road then a climb over Little Hard Hill (it’s not little), eventually arriving at nearby Mabie Forest. We were supposed to be meeting Lee there but arrived an hour later than expected. Waiting for us were Dave, Wayne and Michael – more bikes and more surprises (number 4 in fact).

A ride around the Mabie red trail began, good laughs, good company and some pretty spectacular crashes. Back to ‘our place’ for home-made soup and then a few beers and The Longest 40^th Birthday Celebration Ever rumbled on…

Eventually the party came to an end, friends went home, leaving Debbie, the girls, Michael and I to spend the rest of the week sightseeing and riding bikes some more…I even managed to get a few early-morning rides in at Dalbeattie too – despite the beer and cake consumption, I think I made a good job of making sure my fitness didn’t suffer too much. Which is lucky, because the next few weeks are MENTAL with the number of big races I’m lining up at.

We even came back with a kitten! We’ve called him ‘Archibald The Grim’ (I’m sure you can work it out).

Regular readers of drivel on Twitter will be aware that I crashed out of a criterium race a few weeks ago, my rear wheel giving way on a hairpin bend covered with some  kind of super-grippy (AKA drunken football fan-proof) blue paint. I noticed at the time that I’d lost rather a lot of skin from my leg and caused some cosmetic damage to the bike. I hadn’t noticed however that my rear tyre had a one-inch hole in the outer layer of rubber – torn off by the aforementioned Man City blue grippy floor covering – which exposed the canvas (?) material underneath….

The 112 mile Pendle Pedal (I’m calling it by its old name because every time I say the new name for the event I cringe a very large cringe….)

Setting off in the first group, Dave and I managed to ride for 5 miles before I got a puncture. Having not ridden the Vitus since the crit a few weeks ago I wasn’t aware of the tyre problem until now. Eventually we got going again with a new tube in my tyre and the first improvised tyre boot of the day protecting it from the tarmac and a silly number of cattle grids, each one accelerating the already-rapid growth of the tyre’s bald patch.

One after another, the route took in some truly brilliant climbs – big, brutes of hills that had varying gradients throughout their length, fantastic views from the top, stunning descents and most of them regarded as ‘classics’ – Trough of Bowland, Nick O Pendle, Waddington Fell, Cross O Greet to name just a small number of the big ones and also some really steep buggers that I don’t think have names other than ‘Bastard’ or ‘Oooyerfucker’.

35 miles later, my rear inner tube finally made contact with the tarmac and punctured. Luckily it wasn’t whilst hurtling down a steep hillside, it was halfway up a hill, my relative lack of speed meaning that I didn’t end up in a ditch.

Another tube, another gel wrapper. By now the exposed tyre canvas had worn through and the tyre had a proper hole in it.

Stopping to check we were ok, local celeb and national cyclocross champ Paul Oldham reassured me that I’d ‘get 500 miles out of a gel wrapper’. Maybe an overestimation on his part or a reflection on my riding technique, the gel wrapper lasted quite a lot less than that.

Gel wrapper bodge and inner tube swap number 3 kicked in at 97 miles, again I was riding uphill (evidently the Gods wanted to annoy rather than kill me), by now the hole in the tyre was now a large gash and I was getting worried that the whole thing would burst open.

The riders that were passing us now as we tended to my stricken bike for the 3^rd time today were many of the same riders that we’d passed, were passed by, then passed, then were passed by and then passed throughout this entire ‘test of patience bike ride’.

Thankfully, that final tube/wrapper swap saw me to the end of the route. The tyre problems, whilst irritating, didn’t take much away from what was a brilliant day out on the bike. The route is a real cracker, the event raises money for a brilliant cause and the feed stations had Mars Bars. You can’t ask for much more than that.

I’ve been lucky enough this year to have been sent some Mt Zoom components by Ant White (of the XC Racer.com shop and ‘kicking plenty of arse in races’ fame).

Aside from looking ace, all of this gear is light. Very, very light – we’re talking proper featherweight stuff here – and even if some Mt Zoom bars, bar ends, headset top caps, bottle cages and jockey wheels might not make a massive difference weight-wise if you chuck them on a pretty hardcore bike, they still look the part, work well and for the weight, they’re surprisingly durable.

If, however, you’ve got a lightweight, racy bike anyway and want to gain every possible advantage then these components are just the ticket. After all, there’s no point in putting lardy bits on a light bike is there?

The carbon handlebars are a nice width without being so wide that you can’t thread the bike between a couple of trees without breaking your fingers and they’re ‘bar end friendly’ which means they’re reinforced in the right places if you like riding with bar ends.

The headset top cap is a one-piece affair and weighs something like four grams.

My favourite components though are these beautiful jockey wheels. They might look fragile but after several hundred miles of sometimes-clumsy Pennine off-road riding, they still look pretty good. In fact they’ve not worn at all really.

Check out the Mt Zoom website for more details, specs, links to sponsored rider blogs and loads of other stuff.

I’d been looking forward to a full weekend of cycling up at Dalby for a while – the Dalby 100K Mountain Marathon and cyclosportive were supposed to have been held on consecutive days, the plan was to do the 100K road event on Saturday, camp out that night then ride the 100K MTB Marathon on Sunday. Nice.

That was until the sportive was cancelled due to a small number of entries.

After a much better night’s sleep in my own bed rather than a tent, I drove up to Dalby Forest at a very early hour (but not so early that it could be called ‘daft’ – how times change), met up with Budge and Dave and waited for the start. Eventually, once the huge signing-on queue had been dealt with, we were off, immediately hurtling down a short stretch of twisty singletrack. Joining a fireroad, I expected that it wouldn’t be too long before the next section of swoopy singletrack was reached.

Mile after mile of fireroad was ridden at speed. The exciting singletrack never arrived. Taking turns at the front of a group of around 10 riders, me and Dave we got our heads down and hammered along. Occasionally glancing back to see how many other riders were managing to hang on, things eventually settled down  as we left the forest behind and reached the rough moorland climbs, our group now down to four or five riders.

The ‘theme’ of the route was taking shape and basically it went like this: Gain altitude on rough bridleway and/or fireroad. Descend down tarmac road. I was riding my Ragley TD:1 – a lightweight, fully-rigid 29er – and even I was feeling a bit ‘over-biked’. A cyclocross bike would have been ace.

Dave’s chain snapped. We stopped and fixed it as a few riders left behind earlier went past. We got going again and caught them up. We were hammering again, until we reached what appeared to be the edge of a cliff. This wasn’t right. We turned around and rode back across the rock-strewn path across Fylingdales Moor, meeting riders who were riding in the opposite direction.

Now in a large group again, we ventually arrived back at a junction and noted the fact that there were no signs at all, We rode down this alternative trail. It turned out to be the way we should have gone earlier L

We’d lost loads of time, so a big effort was needed now to keep things respectable.

That wasn’t to be either. My carbon crank had other ideas and decided that today was going to be the day that it was going to DIE. A large crack had appeared in the carbon fibre and my pedal was working loose. I didn’t want it to fall off completely as that would have meant walking so the only option was to put all the effort in with my left leg only – any effort with the right leg would have only made the crank arm fall apart faster.

….which started to hurt quite a bit as my 90/10 pedalling action screwed around with my biomechanics (or something) and also meant that our pace dropped dramatically.

So we had a nice leisurely ride to the finish, but we were still looking forward to the fabled ‘final flourish’, no doubt using some of the red-grade trails back at Dalby Forest.

That didn’t happen. The final 30 miles or so of the route was almost exclusively on roads and that’s exactly how it finished. The course designer had seemingly made a concerted effort to avoid anything remotely interesting and directed the route along A and B roads instead, which was a bit weird.

By now my pedal was almost falling off so perhaps the lame ending was a good thing anyway…

At least there was an ice cream van and the finish.