As daft rides go, this was going to be a real test. The last big ride Dave and I did was big enough – could we ride an even harder and longer route? The route was planned. Dave spent several afternoons checking his plan and riding sections of the 131 mile monster and the weather watching began as the date drew near.

We met at Morland, a tiny little place near Penrith at 6:30. Yep, that meant me setting my alarm clock for 4:15am. Ouch. It was throwing it down with rain in Manchester and it was dark, so dragging myself out of my pit and resisting the urge to send the “I’ve got swine flu” text was the day’s first big test. Obviously I got out of bed, ate some breakfast, strapped the bike to the rack and set off. It was still banging down and was still dark…

By the time I arrived in Morland though, the weather was fine, it was daylight and there was even some sunshine – result. We headed west towards High Street. A fast road section was followed by gravelly trails and moorland singletrack, then a great trail that followed the shore of Ullswater – mostly fast and narrow but with sections of boulders, then a huge climb to the summit of High Street itself.

Eventually we arrive back at the road – ‘big ride number one’ complete. Now for the next one. We rode to Staveley (I didn’t stop at Wilf’s for the first time EVER), Burneside and headed north to Borrowdale. Eventually riding underneath the M6 and heading south towards Howgill we prepared ourselves for the next big climb. Almost reaching Sedbergh we turned left and headed towards the summit of the Calf. After a quick photo/food/view stop at the top, we rode the utterly ace singletrack that just goes on and on and on and on down the valley to Bowderdale.

Another short road section, then across Crosby Garrett Fell towards another huge climb over Cross Fell. We were well over 80 miles into the route by now, we’d not stopped much at all apart from map reading/food scoffing/bodging a torn tyre with an ID card/going shopping for more water stops but we were getting concerned about the shortage of daylight…it was looking like we’d need to leave the final High Cup Nick section for another day, given we had one small LED light between us.

We pressed on and maintained a good average speed to Blencarn where we got on with the job of climbing Cross Fell. We had almost reached the summit when we had to make The Decision. With only an hour of daylight left, we would be pushing our luck to continue even on the modified route – leaving no margin for error or delay probably wouldn’t be a good idea so we turned around and rode back down again (which was fun). All we had to do then was find Morland (where we’d left the cars)…….

Eventually, we made it back to Morland after a ride back that just seemed to go drag more than it should have done. Dave’s rear tyre was going down and was flat by the time we got back so I suppose it dragged even more for him but we made it back in one peice, our intended route altered to avoid getting eaten by werewolves but another mammoth ride in the bag.

After checking the ride stats: 116 miles, 17266 feet of ascent.

Dave’s more detailed account of the ride here (I had no idea where I was most of the time!)

The Rainow village fete fell race (AKA ‘The Kerridge Climb’) is basically a run straight up a bloody big hill, then along the ridge at the top then straight back down again on another very steep bit. It’s probably a mile at the most, which means that it’s a particularly painful one. After paying my 2 quid (a special price for non-locals – it’s only a pound for locals!), I lined up with about 40 other people ranging from little kids to older runners; some taking it seriously, some less so. We SPRINTED across the field and immediately started the ascent which reminded me of the first climb in the 3 Peaks – comically steep in other words.

There’s no room to get past anyone unless you want to run through some thorny bushes so it’s a bit of a procession. Near the top the path widens so I got past a couple of people and was then running behind a young lad about 12 years old as we got to the top. BAM. He accelerated away from me so I gave chase, not wanting to be dropped on my ass by a little kid. I was chasing after him like he’d nicked a packet of Toffo’s from my papershop and I just couldn’t catch him. Once we got to the final descent, he accelerated away again – the little sod has been practicing! He then beat me to finish 5th. I then had a sprint finish with this other bloke who decided to shoulder me into a spectator just before the finish line.

They’re a bit competitive, these village fetes.

I’d not done a fell race for ages, but it’s great preparation for the 3 peaks cyclocross race, I’ve been running a lot more than usual in recent weeks and it’s also just up the road in Edenfield so it would be rude not to (entry was a more-than-reasonable 3 quid too). 15 minutes before the start a huge raincloud appeared, complete with thunder and lightning and changed the warm and dry conditions to completely wet and muddy. Luckily the rain ended as quickly as it had started and we were off, running up the hill in the direction of the Scout Moor wind farm from the farm yard start line. Almost immediately the ascent of the hill had many walking and scrambling – I was pleased at this point to be keeping up with the quicker runners around me and successfully getting past the slower ones. The route continued to climb upwards for a mile and a bit, crossing the new(ish) wind farm access road and ending at the highest point of the race, the wooden cross on Whittle Pike.

After this summit the race went steeply down the other side of the hill towards the broken track to Waugh’s Well. I lost loads of places on this descent (and the other 2 steep downhills) as I was mincing down whilst other runners appeared to be turning the bravery up to 11 and throwing themselves down the slope. Another climb, I advanced up the pack. Another descent, drop back again. This was a frustrating pattern. I just couldn’t seem to ‘let go’, I was getting slower in fact as the gradient got steeper.

The race was 4 miles long and I finished in 42 minutes I think. So not too bad but I guess I’d have done a lot better if I’d not been such a big jessie on the descents. At least the £3 entry fee included a cup of tea and use of the farmer’s hosepipe for cleaning your legs at the end. It’s all glamour in Lancashire.

I took part in the Manchester to Blackpool charity ride yesterday. There were a few guys from work doing it too, but we all had different start times (mine was the latest one at 9am). After the ride through town to the start at Old Trafford, I set off in a massive (and chaotic) group of cyclists though Trafford Park towards Eccles. Dozens of broken bikes littered the pavement in the first couple of miles, no doubt due to many of the bikes being dragged out of the shed/garage/compost heap that morning. I spotted a young lad in Horwich CC colours fly past in the middle of the road so I decided to follow him at probably 3 times the speed of everyone else.

I’m surprised that this ride is still allowed to take place. Thousands of cyclists take to the busy roads, causing huge congestion and no doubt a great deal of animosity as large groups ride 5 or 6 abreast in 12 mph rolling roadblocks whilst faster riders overtake the cars who are caught up in the chaos.

I was one of the people risking my ass by overtaking traffic, sometimes on the wrong side of the road, just so that I could make reasonable progress to the next gap before hitting the back of the next massive group. And so it went on. I was still swapping turns on the front with the guy from Horwich – sometimes another couple of riders would join us then eventually drop off the back. Things calmed down for a few minutes after riding past the accident scene – what looked like 2 cyclists and a car had collided; by the time I went past there were paramedics, police, the lot. The guy lying on the road looked poorly.

I went past Budge and Sally eventually then went past Tim with only a couple of miles to go, crossing the finish line in 3.28 after 63 miles of shaking my head incredulously at various near-misses and displays of craziness that wouldn’t be out of place on the streets of Delhi. Not a bad time considering the congestion though.

The plan was to then say hello to Deb and the kids, get something to eat then ride home. But the weather was nice, we were all in Blackpool, the bike was safely stashed in the boot of the car so I thought ‘sod that’ and we had some fun in the Pleasure Beach, arcades and prom instead.

We all went out on our bikes on Saturday, just a few miles up to Philips Park for a picnic. Well, we all went out on bikes apart from Rachael and Eleanor, who were sat in the trailer instead. I discovered that the trailer only fits the 456, it wouldn’t attach to the Scandal without rubbing the brake rotor but I assume this is more to do with XTR hubs than On One frames. One thing’s for sure, the contents of the trailer weigh a LOT more than 6 months ago!