“I’ve had an idea for a horrible ride to do this summer”.
My sales pitch in January, and before I knew it I had four virtual hands up.
They’d all agreed it would be fun to ride from the north boundary of the Lake District national park to the south, with as much off-road as possible, and taking in some classic Lakes passes. The route is two whole OS explorer maps long (which is not, as the comedy genius I’m married to says, ‘about four yards’) - about 95 km with 3300m of climbing, a big chunk of that being hike a bike. It seemed a bit excessive for a one day job, so we concocted a scheme to ride it over two days, using Wasdale as a base camp and the overnight stop.
The months flew by and before we knew it it was the day before the ride. Spirits were high in camp on Friday evening. We had a good forecast, dry and not too hot. Bikes were fettled, bags packed, unpacked and re-packed. A huge pan of chilli was demolished (thanks Dickie), followed by an early retreat to the tents (thanks to the midges) meant we were all ready to go at 6am the next morning.
We got up to the start point with a little help from our better halves, said we’d see them in the Wasdale Head Inn for dinner and got those wheels rolling. We had no clue we’d still be at it 11 hours later!
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There wasn’t much science to the route planning, I just wanted to pull in lots of good mountain biking and avoid road sections as much as possible. So we started just north of Aughertree and picked up a trail south to catch the Cumbria Way and make our way around Skiddaw, heading for Keswick by lunch time to pick up the southbound part of the Borrowdale Bash. We made very good time early on, and quickly covered the more mundane part of the route. The first real climb was up to Whitewater Dash, where I noticed I had had my GPS paused for the last 4km, precious height gain lost.
Would this cost me Strava kudos?
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Rolling down towards the old Skiddaw House hostel was a welcome breather. The temperature had really climbed over the last couple of hours and we were beginning to get a taste of how hot the day would be. It was so nice to let the bikes roll and the freehubs buzz while we got a cooling blast of wind.
Keswick was close - this got us all motivated and and quite quickly we were rounding Lonscale fell and making our way down into Keswick for lunch. We sat and refuelled, less than half way through our distance for the day, I think we all knew the tough miles were ahead in the heat of the day.
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Now to tackle the Borrowdale bash, a classic for good reason with some great descents. Getting moving after a hearty lunch wasn’t easy. The feeling of pedalling through treacle soon subsided as the blood got moving. We got to the top of Walla Crag by 1pm, temperatures peaking, sapping our energy, but we were now in real mountain biking territory so we marched on and devoured the drop down to Ashness Bridge for a revitalising dip in the stream. On to Watendlath and up to the descent into Rosthwaite, We blasted down the tech, and onto the flowy path below. I sat behind my mates racing down to the road with a huge grin on my face, everybody laughing as we finally got spat out at the road with brake rotors pinging and arms pumped - what a hoot!
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Soon the suffering would begin. We picked up the road to Honister pass and began to winch our way up, arriving at Honister slate mine just in time to see the cafe doors close! At this point we had a tough choice to make. It was getting late in the day and we still had a lot of climbing to do. We had intended to continue the climb up to drop down Warnscale, an epic techy descent we’d all been looking forward to, but we knew doing it would add an hour to our time on the bikes. We decided to leave it for next time and do our best Tom Pidcock impressions, flying down the road to pick up the trail at Gatesgarth. This turned out to be a huge mood-booster - we were all in full tuck position at 75kph, water streaming from our eyes, weaving through the turns, getting funny looks from folk in cars going the other way.
We picked up the trail and were greeted by a security guard letting us through a farm gate near the bottom of Scarth Gap, while overhead a helicopter and two paragliders performed steeply banked turns to touch down at the southern end of Buttermere. Hugely impressive. We sat and watched for a while and tossed around ideas on what it was all for. It turns out it was for Tom Cruise’s new Mission Impossible film, so look out for 5 tired mountain bikers in the background looking on in amazement.
Since the top of Honister I’d been saying “we’re nearly there, one more big climb and we’ll be at the pub”. Black Sail pass had completely escaped my memory, but as we loaded the bikes onto our backs and started the shlep up to Scarth Gap it dawned on me that we still had another climb to go…and it was a bit of a monster. I did my best to break it to the group as good news but my announcement did not go well. Accusations of sado masochism flew around and vows to never listen to me ever again were made.
Despite the long distance covered and bikes loaded on our backs, we did catch a couple of walkers on the climb and had a pleasant chat about mountain biking in the days of elastomer shocks and vee brakes. It made me very thankful for modern suspension tech and brakes you can rely on.
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With the last of the snacks gone at the top of Scarth Gap we thumped down the path towards Blacksail YHA, weary legs and arms wincing at each of the drainage bars along the way. It was getting on now, approaching 7pm, and the evening YHA residents had clearly been indulging in the vino for some time. It would have been easy to join them, but this time we really did have just one more climb to conquer and one last victorious descent into Wasdale.
The climb up Black Sail Pass is about 90% unrideable and 50% hike a bike, a proper punisher to end the day. Thankfully the temperature had dropped but the fatigue was strong. We hauled the bikes onto our backs and trudged up to earn that last descent to Mosedale Beck and the Wasdale Head Inn where a pint and some food would be waiting. Dropping into the descent I could practically taste the steak and ale pie, I’d been looking forward to all day - only a lovely techy descent with a fast bottom section stood in our way. We made it to the bottom safely and piled into the bar… “Sorry boys, kitchen is closed”, smiled the barman.
Not the perfect end to a long day, but as we sat by the stream with a pint we all agreed it had been pretty epic. We’d covered 57km and 2100m of climbing. With empty bellies we headed to the campsite and scraped together some dinner.
What about day 2? As a group we’d moved too slowly on day 1, so it seemed sensible to think about practicalities now (better late than never). With the support crew containing two young children and some tired blokes now whining like young children, we agreed to park it for another time, particularly as the forecast was for an absolute scorcher. After packing up the tents we stopped on the edge of Wastwater for a cold dip and a hot brew before picking up the long road back to the Midlands.
Words & Pictures: Paul McPherson