A long time ago me and a mate decided we needed a long ride. We had done a few 100 miles ‘in a day’ trips so decided to go for the 200 – a nice round figure.
My mate planned the route by the simple method of linking as many of the Lakeland passes as he could manage – that was fine but we had to ride over from County Durham first! I stuck some slicks on an old steel framed bike I had lying around and at sparrow burp we set off.
We did Kirkstone Pass first and then down into Ambleside with Wrynose next. At the top we stopped to admire the view – as you do. This was the moment my rear tyre went BANG. Spare tubes we had plenty but no tyres. A bodged repair with bits of tube and cardboard looked awful and felt worse but got me back down to Ambleside where I was able to buy a tyre at Biketreks.
It was now far too late to try and regain the route so it was back via Kirstone Pass and retrace our route home – and you know what we only managed 185! 🙁