Thursday 12th May 2022. Less than a year ago, I was lucky enough to take a trip to Durham on a cycling holiday. The accommodation then was very good, but we found that we were cycling some 10 or 15 miles just to get to where the serious climbs began. This week I’m back, but now our digs are right in the centre, so much so, that the first climb of the day began just 100 yards away.
They’re generally a different group of people, but with some overlap, so we’ve planned rides that will suit people who’ve never been here before as well as those who’ve some experience of this gorgeous area. We are based in Westgate, in Weardale (no, I’d never heard of it, either) just across the road from a pub. No shops for several miles, however, so we’re self catering for most of the time. The cottage is great; three storeys, with four bedrooms and a ‘real’ fire which we’ve just lit. Sadly, it’s necessary, even though we’re well into May.
We went on a great ride this afternoon to ‘bed us in’, but the 20mph headwind for the last 15 miles certainly made its presence felt. It wasn’t a good day to have deep profile rims in the crosswinds, either.
On the last trip to this region, I managed to ride 9 of the 50 climbs in the Cycling Climbs of North-East England book. This trip, I’ve planned to tackle 12 of the climbs, 9 of them new. That’s the plan. Today, I should have ticked off three, but one wasn’t recorded on Garmin! I rode alongside Jim, whose device did record it, so I don’t know how that works. Anyway, I’m not bitter. I probably will never mention it again.
Tonight, we’re eating in, courtesy of Dave. Something with pasta, apparently. I’m ready for it.
Friday 13th May 2022. Today was dominated by wind. Seriously dominated. The westerly breeze was categorised as ‘moderate’ when I checked in late afternoon, but I’m pretty confident it had dropped from ‘strong’ earlier in the day. We knew it was going to be breezy, so we selected a ride which headed dominantly North or South, but that obviously meant cross winds. And boy, were those winds cross! Not sure what riled them, but they were certainly in a bad mood.
The first climb was up Crawleyside which was a bit of a grudge climb for me because last summer I thought I’d done it, but it transpired that I’d turned off the official route a quarter of a mile too soon! So of course I had to do it again. (I’d never make a Tory politician, slavishly following the rules that I’d set). Anyway, today, the stars aligned and I managed to follow the correct route, and, more importantly, Garmin agreed with me.
I had Jim worried at one point when we set off together from Blanchland and within half a mile I’d dropped out of sight. What Jim didn’t appreciate was that I’d been ambushed by bluebells just outside the village. I had to stop to photograph them, even though the result doesn’t reflect the true splendour of the display.
I also ticked off two more climbs today, but not the ones I’d planned. We decided to extend the initial route to take in Corbridge and Hexham, and in so doing, we passed close to an additional climb which I just couldn’t ignore. Thankfully, there was another in the group as daft as me (cheers, Jim!) and so we cycled up Leadpipe Hill which was up a dead end road through Slaley Forest. Halfway up, I was wishing we hadn’t, since it was really tough. However, this made up for the fact I abandoned my attempt on the final planned climb. For once, common sense prevailed and I decided, on safety grounds, that to tackle the final climb into such a strong wind wouldn’t be a good idea. The wind on the top of the fells was severe and I was already feeling battered after wrestling against the crosswinds down Crawleyside (yes, we went down as well as up, today). It should have been a lovely 3 mile descent but having to ride at least 4 feet out from the verge to allow for being blown off line was worrying, especially in moderate traffic. My arms were aching at the foot of the descent.
I had another reason to appreciate the decision to abandon the final climb. I was getting tired and thought that a serious climb into the wind might be too much, so I decided to take the shorter route home along the valley. A mile into this flatter route, I experienced bonk (when your blood sugar becomes too low to keep going) and since I only had four miles to go, I limped home at about 8mph, into the wind. Had I chosen the longer, hillier route, I would still have had the same experience but perhaps with more serious consequences. Once back at the cottage, a large bowl of bran flakes (with sugar) and a chocolate bar sorted me out in about 10 minutes.
We’re booked in at the pub across the road for tea tonight. At least we think we are. The door looks firmly closed at present, with no lights on inside and our table is booked ten minutes from now. (P.S. The pub was great. Cheap beer and wonderful food. Fully sated now.)
Saturday 14th May 2022. It was a much calmer day today. Still a light westerly, but after yesterday, it felt like flat calm. The ride was supposed to pick up three major climbs, but surprisingly, I nabbed four. When planning the routes, my guide was the North-East climbs book, but having sneaked into Cumbria for a while, I was pleased to record a climb from the North-West edition. Bonus points! But I think we deserved it since we were riding ‘out of region’.
Once more, I rode with Jim, who again recorded more feet climbed than me which doesn’t make sense. We’re a similar height, so that can’t be a factor. We’ve narrowed it down to the device Jim uses to record his rides. He uses Wahoo, which seems to automatically add a 10% service charge to all heights recorded. My Garmin just expects riders to use their discretion when awarding tips.
At nearly ten miles long, the Yad Moss climb ranks as one of the longer ones, but it wasn’t very steep. Although light, the headwind did have a significant effect, but I’m not making excuses.
After yesterday’s experience, I vowed to ensure that I was always topped up with calories, so we stopped for coffee and a scone at a café in Middleton-in-Teesdale before the long climb up to Alston where I had a lovely quiche with salad. Oh, and some chips. The chips weren’t an afterthought for me, but apparently they were an afterthought for the owner who forgot them whilst walking from the table to the kitchen. When they eventually arrived, however, they were very good.
All roads leaving Alston seem to climb, but none more than the route East through Nenthead. That’s where we reached the highest point of the week (2040 feet), and the ride back down to Westgate with a tailwind was marvellous.
Tea tonight was pies (not your ordinary pork pies, but high quality individual ones) with spuds and veg followed by cheese and biccies in the lounge in front of a log fire. We know how to live.
Last day tomorrow, although we still haven’t agreed what we’re going to do. There’re six of us and seven suggestions at present. Anything could happen.
Sunday 15th May 2022. With so many options for today’s ride, we found that the solution lay in people doing their own thing. One person had far to travel home so he left after breakfast, another decided to leave the bike and go for a walk, and I decided to tackle Peat Hill again before some were even out of bed. I had to do it once more so I could officially tick it off in my book. I was very relieved when today finally Garmin accepted that I did in fact climb the hill.
After we’d emptied the cottage and filled our cars, four of us went on a short ride over into Teesdale and then back into Weardale. It may have been short, but was easily the climbiest ride of the trip, rising a total of 2,700 feet in less than 20 miles. The payback was a wonderful descent on smooooth tarmac back into Westgate at the end of a great trip.
If you don’t like stats, look away now. For the rest of us, it may be interesting to note that I covered 178 miles, climbed 19,000 vertical feet (over 3.6 miles), ticked off 12 ‘official’ climbs (11 of them for the first time) and cycled in three counties. The whole group only had one puncture, and that was simply a flat tyre overnight and caused no inconvenience.
The roads around Weardale are spectacular, with little traffic (although there are plenty of motorbikes at the weekend) and terrific views. The latter are helped by the sheer height above sea level. The valleys are around 800-900 feet and the roads over the moors top out over 2000 feet so you can see a long way. To put this into perspective, the fearsome Shap summit is 1036 feet and the M62 peaks at 1221 feet. The roads here are very quiet but what surprised me was the huge volume of roadkill. Statistically, I guess every car must squash a rabbit on each journey. This morning, when I was out early, I came face-to-face with a hare which was very pleasant (at least for me, perhaps less so for him) and he was bright enough to skedaddle as soon as he saw me.
My next cycle adventure (excluding a few days cat-sitting in Stockport) is a month away, when I’m heading South on a ten-county extravaganza starting near Solihull. The accommodation’s all booked, the routes planned and I’m just hoping for reasonable weather.