C2C Day 3 - Stanhope to Sunderland - 40 miles 1,400ft of ascent

Saturday 30th July 2016

Coast to Coast bike ride

We all had a pretty good sleep last night, apart from Claire who'd had one drink too many and kept waking up apparently. We had another good breakfast along with the other guest at the B&B who was a lone traveller from Ireland called Ann. Ann was not just a lone traveller, but was also a bit lonely, and was missing her dog who was staying with her daughter. Apparently she even shed a tear or two over the dog, although I was completely oblivious to this as I still had food on my plate.

We managed to escape the breakfast chat and were on the way for about 10am, but only after Claire had insisted on the resident dog (Olly) being let into the courtyard for a fuss. The Hill started within about half a mile of leaving, and was quite possibly the worst hill of the trip. The experience wasn't helped by a number of things. The defibrillator part way up, the man taking his daughter for a stroll who commented that we were nowhere near the top and the worst was yet to come, and the squaddie running uphill carrying what looked like his own weight in a rucksack without breaking sweat. Our still aching legs were also a big hindrance and I have to confess that we did have to push our bikes up the steep sections.

When we reached what we thought was the highest point we were quite distraught to see the road snaking away up even more hill into the distance. However, there was an unexpected surprise part way up the extra hill, when the blue C2C sign directed us right onto a well surfaced fine gravel flat track. This was the start of the Waskerley Way, and the end of our suffering as it was the start of the long predominantly downhill 35 miles or so to Sunderland.

It was lovely to be able to cycle along with minimal effort, with no cars to worry about, admiring the views. Claire had now discovered her top gear (unusable prior to Dave the legendary mechanic's assistance) and shot off into the distance. Matt and I had a more leisurely ride and a chat so Claire had to keep waiting for us to catch up.

Most of today's route was off road on good cycle tracks. From Consett to Sunderland there was a disused railway line on and off for most of the way. Some of the signs must have been put up by the Coast to Coast apprentice as they seemed to be in the wrong order and sometimes not there at all, but we managed to find our way. We spotted one bloke who was dressed in a grey tracksuit and was messing around on his phone with his back to us. We were expecting him to flash at us as we passed him, but he didn't so he must have just been catching Pokemon. Shame really as we had time to spare and were ready to spring into action.

We stopped at a water bird centre about 9 miles from the finish and had something to eat before the final few miles to the coast. The last few miles were along the riverside and were a nice ending to the ride, although the final section along the seafront was about the most hazardous of the whole trip with children, dogs, and fishermen and their rods all over the place.

We finally rolled up to the official end point, a sculpture thing with a hole in to see the lighthouse through. A man nearby offered to take a group photo, and then we made our way across the beach to the waters edge and persuaded a lady to take another group photo of us all dipping our front wheels in the sea.

We turned up at the B&B, The Chaise, at about 3.30pm to find that our rooms were ready. The Chaise is not quite as homely as the other B&Bs, it's more of a typical seaside B&B. It's clean and has hot showers though which is all we really need. Claire and I are in a room for 4 and Matt is in a room for 5 so we have plenty of space.

We headed out at 4.30pm to the local bars (which took a bit of finding). The first one was packed out and OK, whilst the second one is practically deserted but much nicer so we have stayed for a second drink whilst deliberating whether to have Indian or Italian for dinner.

Overall, last night's B&B (The Red Lodge in Stanhope) was probably the overall best for general setting, accommodation, welcoming host, breakfast and site dog. The B&Bs in Whitehaven and Penrith were almost on a par (although getting rid of the seagulls in Whitehaven would make a big difference).

We can't fault Trailbrakes for their services. The accommodation has been much better than we expected, and our luggage has arrived long before us every day. Hopefully our taxi back to the west coast will be just as efficient tomorrow morning.

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C2C Day 2 - Penrith to Stanhope - 46 miles 5,100ft of ascent

Friday 29th July 2016

Coast to Coast bike ride

We went to a couple of pubs last night and then had Spanish Tapas in a little restaurant where we were served by the northern equivalent of Barbara Windsor wearing a flamenco dress. She advised us that the portions were much bigger than normal (i.e. Southern pansy style) tapas which we completely ignored on account of just having cycled 52 miles across the Lake District. Big mistake, as eating all the tapas portions (meatballs, chicken wings, blue cheese garlic mushrooms, seafood platter, croquettes and garlic bread plus 4 pints of lager between us) turned out to be more of a challenge that the actual cycling. In the end we had to leave a couple of meatballs, a piece of chicken and a bit of bread.

We all slept a lot better last night, I'm sure in part due to the lack of antisocial seagulls. Breakfast was good again and we were on the way at about 9am. We got off to a slow start because Claire's gears were playing up. I managed to improve them a bit but didn't achieve perfection for fear of making them worse. But at least her chain wasn't falling off any more. She was very happy to be able to use her big chainring again.

The first 15 miles or so looked on paper like they'd be a gradual uphill so we thought it would be a good warmup for the traverse of the Pennines. However, they were actually a series of steep hills followed by long descents, taking us lower than we were before we started going up the hill. We'd already turned the ascent of the Hartside Pass into a bit of a demon in our heads, and the "warm up" only served to make it worse.

We found ourselves cycling with a couple who'd been staying in the same B&B as us the previous night in Whitehaven, called Ray and Paula. We were pretty much keeping pace with each other, and by the time we started the ascent of Hartside we were making an effort to stay together. Hartside turned out to be nowhere near as difficult as our demons had suggested, being more of a long slog than a steep climb. Matt and I arrived at the top first and took a few photos, but when a massive pack of motorcyclists turned up we hot footed it to the cafe to get a table and get in the queue for drinks and cake.

We spent a while sitting at a picnic table outside, eating cake and chatting to Ray and Paula, and finally decided we'd better get going. The next section was pretty tough. We'd decided not to take the easy (flatter) option, and once that decision was made it was only a short leap to decide to take the "off road" option. It didn't sound too bad on paper. In reality it was probably the wrong decision for us, although the cycling through rivers was quite exciting. The long uphill sections with massive loose rocks which we had to push our bikes over were not so good. Nor was the long bone shaking steep descent. We eventually emerged in Nenthead hot, sweaty and dusty.

I had to sweet talk the pub into doing us some sandwiches as it was half past two (i.e. way past lunch time). While we were waiting for the sandwiches Claire and I nipped into North Pennine Cycles next door. The shop was full of part dismantled bikes and bike components and smelt of grease. I thought it was like heaven but Claire was disinterested, presumably expecting rows of shiny bikes and colourful cycling jerseys.

The owner - Dave - obviously knew more about bikes than anything in the world and it wasn't long before we'd asked him to have a look at Claire's gears. After about 2 seconds he poked the rear mech, tutted and said "well your indexing's all out". Then he pushed something and turned something else and all of a sudden everything was working properly at the back. Unfortunately the diagnosis for the front was a bent front mech. We asked how much it would be to replace, expecting £60 or more plus an extortionate amount for fitting, to be told that the replacement part was £37 and he'd fit it for £3 (!). He'd finished fitting it by the time we'd eaten our sandwiches, and had also adjusted the brakes. I only wish we lived nearer. Dave thought that Claire's saddle was rather high and was a little dubious about Claire being 6' tall. But when he gave the bike a test ride and could barely reach the pedals he seemed to accept it.

After that things got pretty tough. We were all suffering and our legs wouldn't work properly. There were more hills including a steep hill immediately after lunch, followed by a steep descent and then another steep ascent to the highest point on the route, where we were disappointed to find that there was no sign to mark our achievement. We were overtaken by two blokes doing the whole 140 mile coast to coast route in one day, which should have spurred us all on, but it only worked on Matt. Then my saddle mounted bottle holder started squeaking terribly on every slight bump, and that was it for me. I don't know how I made it to Stanhope without killing someone or throwing my bike into a ravine, but we and our bikes all got there in one piece eventually. The bottle holder has now been removed though for its own safely. The only other obstacles were a pheasant in attack mode protecting its chick (Claire), an indecisive and possibly suicidal sheep (me and Matt) and a cute hedgehog (mainly Claire, but this delayed everyone waiting for her).

I think tonight's B&B is the best so far. The owner (Dawn) was outside watering the pansies when we arrived, and we were told to wheel our bikes through the pristine hall and kitchen into the garden shed. Our rooms are excellent and we felt very welcome. After de- sweating in the shower we headed over to the pub over the road for drinks and dinner, which is where we are still, over 3 hours later.

We've just about managed our whale and chips (me and Matt - only just breaching the trade descriptions act) and toad in the hole (Claire - aka 3 toads in a pit). We've decided we can handle a couple more drinks than usual as we're not having breakfast until 9am tomorrow on account of only having to cycle 40 miles mainly downhill tomorrow.

Unfortunately tomorrow's ride starts with a very big and very steep hill to get us out of the Pennines before we get to enjoy freewheeling all the way to the pub in Sunderland. Hopefully the "full body aches" will have subsided by then.

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C2C Day 1 - Whitehaven to Penrith - 50 miles 3,500ft of ascent

Wednesday 27th and Thursday 28th July 2016

Coast to Coast bike ride

We arrived in Whitehaven yesterday ready to start our 3 day coast to coast ride. This is a ride of about 140 miles from Whitehaven on the west coast to Sunderland on the east coast. There are 3 of us doing it together - me, Claire and my friend Matt. After some discussions and research we decided that we didn't want to camp, and we didn't want to carry all our overnight stuff on our bikes. So we booked through a company called Trailbrakes, who have booked B&B accommodation in cyclist friendly B&Bs, are picking our bags up each morning and dropping them off at our next B&B, and will pick us and our bikes up from Sunderland and take us back to Whitehaven on Sunday. It's a bit more expensive than organising it ourselves but so far the B&Bs have been great and everything has run smoothly.

We got to Whitehaven at about 6pm yesterday, stowed our bikes in the secure bike room, and headed into the town for some dinner and a few drinks. There weren't many places open but we found a Wetherspoons where we got a big dinner and a pint of beer for £7 each. We limited ourselves to 3 drinks and got back to the B&B at about 10pm, after a slight detour to admire the exquisite Georgian architecture on Roper Street that was mentioned in the coast to coast book. We'd already failed to notice it on Lowther Street earlier, but as we were on the way to the pub that's understandable.

We'd booked our full English breakfast at 7.30am, and were a little perturbed by our host Dave's surprise that we wanted to leave it so late to set off, but we chose to ignore him as there were only "light bites" available before 7.30. After just the right amount of breakfast we collected our bikes and set off down to the start point at the harbour.

The coast to coast route starts next to a sculpture thing at the bottom of one of the slipways by the waters edge. The tradition is to dip your back wheel in the sea in Whitehaven, which we did despite our concerns about falling into the sea in our slippy cycling shoes (sorry, but this didn't happen. I know it would have made good reading but rest assured we got soaked later). It was throwing it down with rain by this point so there was no one around to take a group photo so we had to take it in turns.

The route started off through the town and residential areas towards a disused railway line. The first 10 miles or so were easy going with a very gradual incline but after that things started getting a bit more challenging. The main challenge of the day (apart from the rain) was the crossing of the Whinlatter Pass, which is an altitude gain of about 800 feet over about 2.5 miles. There was a very short step section at the beginning which took us by surprise and we all had to get off and push as we were all in the wrong gear. Then there was another almost as steep longer section, of which Claire was the only one to cycle the whole way up (albeit slower than Matt and I bike/walked it). Then the gradient got a bit more gradual, and before we knew it we where whizzing down the other towards Keswick.

We stopped for lunch in a cheap and cheerful cafe in Keswick, which was at about the 30 mile mark. Strangely, we weren't really hungry but we had a sandwich and a hot drink each whilst attempting to dry off. We must have looked a pretty sorry sight. My top was fairly dry but Claire and Matt were soaked. We all felt like we were wearing full nappies in our sodden cycling shorts and Matt's phone had got wet and died.

We had about 20 miles to do after lunch, and the weather had improved a bit so it wasn't raining all the time. On paper it looked a lot easier than the morning's route, but on tired legs there still seemed like a lot of hills. The last few miles were mainly downhill on good roads so we covered them quite quickly.

We arrived at our B&B in Penrith at about 3.30pm and were pleased by the owner's surprise that we had got there so quickly. After a bit of chain lubing and hot showers all round we've all had a rest and are looking forward to dinner. We will be avoiding having too many drinks as tomorrow looks to be an even tougher day as we cross the Pennines.

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