Reunited

To borrow an expression normally applied to a game of football, today was a day of “two halves” and no mistake. After a gentle ride out of Keswick the road kicked up and the first part of the day consisted of some strenuous climbing for around ten miles until it transformed into a long but bumpy descent into Carlisle. The upside of the morning was that the  scenery was fantastic as we passed eventually cycled out of the Lake District.

Scott’s bike gave up the ghost once again and Julia had to pick him up and deliver him to Mary, who took him to a bike shop in Carlisle where, this time, a new chain was fitted. He joined the group at first lunch, which was held at a small church just outside Carlisle. Julia met up with the same vicar who had blessed us on our way four years earlier, however he had gone before the group arrived.  So, no blessing for us this time.

After first lunch Scott and I went on an unintended detour.  This came about because an Adam look alike some way in front of us turned right off the main road and I followed him until he disappeared from view.  We checked the route and realised we had gone wrong but were able to get back on track fairly easily. However, my error resulted in us putting a few extra miles on the journey for Scott and I, which on a seventy-two-mile ride we could have done without.

As we entered Scotland, the second part of the day turned into a long, boring, gradual climb up to Moffat. For much of it there was a “so called” cycle path, but frankly, in my view, it is safer to ride, for the most part, in the road. The route basically followed the line of a motorway, which was extremely noisy and the scenery dull. It’s a necessary slog which gets you well into Scotland and from tomorrow onwards the views will gradually get more spectacular assuming that is that it doesn’t rain, in which case we won’t see much at all.

We discovered that Ollie was on our trail having caught a train from London to Carlisle, where he picked up his bike from Mary.

Early in the week Julia had been told that her mother, Sheila, who was terminally ill with cancer was not likely to live for more than a few days.  Whilst cycling along, around 2.45pm I suddenly became quite emotional thinking about Sheila and ended up praying that she may have a peaceful and pain free passing. When I arrived at second lunch Julia informed me that Shelia died around 3pm.  I felt that as a priest I could not give her the last rites but I could be with her, as it were, in spirit.  Jung held that the psyche was not bounded by time and space and this moving experience seemed to be one of those occasions when this reality became conscious.

Ollie the, “chiselled whippet”, caught up with us at second lunch.  It was good to have the team complete once more.

Prior to second lunch, one of the places we cycled through was a place called Ecclefechan, famed for it tarts (confectionery, rather than women of dubious morals).  On a previous trip, attempts were made to buy said tarts but none could be found.  When we got home, we discovered that they had all been sent south and Julia found them in Sainsbury’s in Hastings!  Ecclefechan reminded me some what of the League of Gentlemen, if you attempted to buy something you would be told, “this is a local shop.  There’s nothing for you here!”

After a long day of contrasting countryside, wonderful views and then grinding boredom, we finally arrived in Moffat.  We got ensconced in our very comfortable B and B, then after the early evening ritual of showers, protein drinks and plugging my bike in, we went and ate in the narrowest hotel in the world. Lovely food and friendly service. A nice end to strange day.

Divine Providence?

We had a great breakfast supplied as ever by Julia and Mary, after which we gather outside in the courtyard of the Youth Hostel to pump tyres to full pressure and generally make ready for the off.  And thus, it was that the first drama of the day unfolded before we could even hit the road.  Scott couldn’t find his cycling shoes and after much searching, accompanied by suitable Anglo-Saxon adjectives, came to the conclusion that he must have left them on the carpark wall at Whalley.  Two solutions to this dilemma presented themselves, either he would count his losses and go to the nearest cycle shop and buy a new pair (expensive), or Julia would drive back to Whalley to see, if by some slight chance, the shoes were still where he left them. In the event it was decided that Julia would drive back to Whalley, where we had second lunch yesterday.  This she did and found them on a wall where Scott had left them. In the meantime, Adam, Lizzie and myself set off on some tough climbing over the Yorkshire Dales.  The pain in our legs compensated for by incredible open vistas illuminated by bright sunlight.  Marvellous.

The next drama involved Lizzie, who got a puncture when we were in the middle of nowhere.  She had a spare inner tube but none of us had a pump (foolish).  Two days of near fatal amnesia seemed to have gripped the whole team, not just Scott.  Julia relayed to me after we met up later that day that she had prayed and sang hymns loudly as she drove back to Whalley that Scott’s shoes would still be there.  Now it was my turn to cast the three of us on the Lord’s providential mercy.  About five minutes after the puncture caused us to grind to a halt, three cyclists rolled up and saved the day. They replaced the inner tube and re inflated her back tyre, so we were able to press on.  Now some sceptics might say that this was just a lucky coincidence; I, along with my mentor, Carl Jung, do not believe in coincidences.  Or put another way, it amazes me how often it is, that I pray and so called “coincidences” happen.

Eventually we passed through the village of Wray, which marks the halfway point in our journey; and “there was much rejoicing in the land” (Monty Python and the Holy Grail).  There is something about getting beyond the halfway point in a long ride which bolsters one’s confidence and belief that the goal will  eventually be accomplished even though there is still a long way to go. Scott was back with us, having been reunited with his cycling shoes but the heat of the sun was rising minute by minute and so his chances of making it to the end of the day’s ride were slim.

We journeyed on until we came into the glorious beauty of the Lake District.  A friend of mine from Croydon Folk Club, Nick Marshall, who had retired to Ambleside, was at the roadside to meet me, along with his wife.  I stopped for a brief chat and he gave me a contribution for our worthy cause (Cancer Research) before wishing the me well as I rode out of town.

The last significant challenge of the day, Dunmail Raise, soon loomed into view.  For a cyclist the word “Raise” suggests a gentle incline, however Dunmail Raise is anything but; it is long, steep climb up a dual carriageway with traffic thundering past.  Not pleasant riding at all.  The upside after this final climb of the day was a ten-mile descent into Keswick, our destination.

So it was that we arrived in Keswick after a long and hard day’s cycling. We found the Youth Hostel much improved since we were last there due to a complete refit after a flood in the latter part of 2015. Julia and Mary cooked Chinese chicken and vegetable stir fry. We then ended the day playing “Hum and Strum” at which I am useless, Julia won.

When is a Forest Not a Forest?

The afternoon ride was a complete and utter contrast to that of the morning’s ride with its urban ugliness.  Some of the most beautiful scenery of the whole trip was about to open up after second lunch.  However, prior to that we hit a nasty manmade challenge as we approached the small town of Whalley.  Two sections of the road were being resurfaced and so we were faced with a mixture of hot tar and sharp granite chippings, a lethal combination for the tyres of a racing bike.  The tar stuck to the rubber of our bike wheels and the chippings stuck to the tar.  We knew it was just a matter of time before we would be plagued with multiple punctures.  Scott and I, who were riding together, tried to manage this danger by stopping regularly and sweeping the chippings off our tyres but in reality, we had little success.  As soon as we mounted again, within seconds, the tar and grit were caked on our tyres again.  In the end, for safety’s sake, we dismounted and pushed our bikes until we reached Whalley; fortunately, not too far.  A bit annoying however, that a manmade difficulty caused me to walk half a mile or so when the hardest of hills had not defeated me.  I spent a considerable amount of time, after we had eaten, cleaning all the detritus off my tyres in the hope that I wouldn’t get a puncture.  I must have done a reasonable job because I didn’t get one.  Scott decided to abandon the afternoon ride as it was too hot for him.  He put his cycling shoes on a wall in the Whalley car park whilst we had lunch.  Mistake, big mistake!

After second lunch, once we were out of Whalley, the ride brought us to the exquisite panoramas of “The Forest of Boland”.  Now, you might be tempted to question the use of the word “panorama” in relationship to a “forest”, as often in a forest, “you can’t see the wood for the trees”.  “The Forest of Boland” is one of those anomalies of the English language where you use one word to describe something which is the complete opposite of the normal meaning of that word, e.g. “that meal was wicked”, when what you actually mean is, “that meal was very good”.  Or, when you go to a football match you “sit” in the “stands”.  The reason why the “Forest of Boland” fits this category is the fact that it actually has very few trees, a prerequisite of a forest, even a wood, I would have thought.  Of course, I am aware that at one time, when I were a lad in fact, you did stand on the terraces at a footie match whereas now you sit.  So, perhaps our forest did have trees at one time but now has but a few.

As I mentioned in my last blog, Lizzie was doing a great job steering us towards our goal for the day, Slaidburn Youth Hostel, that is until Adam decided to go shooting off like Geraint Thomas attacking in the Tour de France.  He past her and at breakneck speed disappearing over the brow of a low hill, where he was subsequently lost from sight.  The upshot of this was, he missed a righthand turn that would take us over the most spectacular vistas of the day.  Lizzie, taking her responsibilities as leader of the pack seriously, had to ride him down and bring him back up a considerable ascent to where I was waiting for them, quietly muttering to myself, “bloody boy racer!”

Once Lizzie had retrieved Adam, we all got back on the right track and together ended the day’s ride in Slaidburn.  Now it has to be said that Slaidburn Youth Hostel is the creakiest building in all England. When people are moving about inside the building it feels a bit like I imagine it would feel if you were on a Ship of the Line, sailing with Lord Nelson.  Having showered and downed a pint of protein drink, I walked across the road to the “Hark to Bounty” pub where I reacquainted myself with, “Theakston’s Old Peculiar”, a beer I have not tasted in the last four years, in fact not since the last LEJOG.  A couple of pints of that certainly got rid of the foul taste of the chocolate flavoured protein beverage I had previously downed.

The group returned to our creaking night’s refuge, where Julia and Mary cooked Chilli for supper; “a great big plate of yum” as Greg Wallace would say.  After supper the group split up for the evening, some went back to the pub for another session and some like me, tempted though I was, went to bed.

Oop North!

I would not describe myself as a “sun worshipper” but I am one of those people who seems to get an instant suntan and is not often troubled by sun burn.  In fact, I seem to get something of a tan if I go out in a strong wind: strange!  I am however sensible, particularly when cycling, and smother myself in sun screen on days when the bright rays of the sun seem to hit the tarmac and come relentlessly back at you.  For the most part, thus far on our journey north, the weather had been kind to those of us who can take the sun.  This was not true for Scott, who found the very hot days impossible.  He was unable to drink enough water to keep himself hydrated and if he applied copious amount of factor 50, the upshot was it melted off his face and ran into his eyes all but blinding him.  Thus, it was today he sat out the last section of the day’s ride which was a pity, as it was the most picturesque, taking the intrepid group through the Forest of Boland.

However, before we got onto that part of the day’s ride and whilst the sun had temporarily hidden itself behind some high clouds, we had some northern urban cycling to negotiate.  I had some horrendous memories from previous trips of the very busy route out of Runcorn.  One of the main roads, as I recalled, was a feeder road for a motorway and trying to ride across the very speedy oncoming traffic was, for me, a nightmare.  I confessed my fears to the others and Scott came up with an ingenious scheme for getting the old boy safely across the flood of impatient motorists, whose aggressive hooting had reduced me to a nervous wreck last time I came this way.  He had noticed that I was hesitant when cycling onto roundabouts and thus missed opportunities to get round quickly.  So, he suggested that the rest of the team surrounded me and that I concentrated, not on the traffic, but on the back wheel of the rider directly in front of me.  On the command “go”, we set off.  This worked brilliantly on several roundabouts.  However, the initial roundabout which had concerned me most, had changed out of all recognition when we tackled it.  Helpfully, traffic lights had been installed and so getting round it was actually a piece of cake.  That said, I had to admire and be extremely thankful to Scott for his accurate reading of my problem and for coming up with a very practical solution.  So, thanks Scott.

We cycled through a series of northern towns, Warrington, Bolton, Blackburn being the chief among them.  Two things I noticed about these towns.  Firstly, the sun had come out from behind its cloudy hiding place by the time we got to Warrington and the towns did not look as grim as I remembered them from previous trips.  Secondly, on the first LEJOG, I had noticed the proliferation of “Food Banks” in these conurbations and thought of them as part of the North/South divide.  This time round I had to revise my thoughts, as the “Food Bank” at my home church of St Matthew’s, Redhill, is being increasingly used as the months of austerity rolled, apparently endlessly, on.

Riding through the aforementioned towns was, for the most part, easy and flat.  In between the urban cycling there was some stunning scenery accompanied by some challenging climbing.  Ollie, who had been our chief navigator, left us at Bolton where he caught a train to London in order to attend the wedding of a great friend of his. Lizzie took over the task of navigator and did a great job.  We stopped to fuel up at Bob’s Smithy Inn.  I volunteered to go in and buy a drink to legitimise our use of the carpark for the lunch stop.  Well, someone had to take one for the team and as its eldest member I felt I had to lead by example.  I dared not admit this supreme self-sacrifice at the time however for fear of being told that I was full of something brown and rather smelly!