Up at 4am Saturday morning, train up to Barrow in Furness & set off from Walney Island at 9am.
This route is hilly, add in the ever present strong headwind & we were finding it a bit hard. By the time we rode through the valley between Cumbria and the Howgills the weather was closing in, at 70 miles we hit the base of Tan hill and started to climb. The tops were hidden in cloud and the rain was getting heavier – as was the wind. Once in the cloud it was horrendous, could hardly see 20 yards ahead and we were both soaked and shivering. Finally found the Tan Hill pub for a much needed hot drink and a seat by the fire.
Six MTB’ing ladies came in, it was their stop for the night, day 3 of an off road route starting in Morecambe, they were drenched and shattered too. Unluckily for us we hadn’t finished for the day so it was back out into the rain,fog and wind for another 22 miles – the first couple of which were down a horrible potholed gravel track more suited to a mtb than a carbon road bike, i was whimpering about my lovely new lightweight Cero wheels whilst slowly bumping down the hill til we finally hit tarmac again.
Once off the hill the weather improved and it was only another half hr into the Four Alls pub at Ovington for the night.
Lovely place, fed us well and dried all our kit including our shoes – much recommended.
Day 2 dawned overcast but soon warmed up, 40 fairly quick rolling miles into Great Ayton (birthplace of Captain Cook) and a coffee stop before the final 30 mile traverse of the North York Moors, which as we found out have some rather nasty 25%+ climbs!
Only a couple of passing showers yesterday though and we finally rolled into Whitby in glorious sunshine having ridden 174 and a bit miles and climbed around 14’000ft over 2 days.
I’m stiff, a bit tender around the under carriage but waking up in the hotel in Whitby is a nice feeling 🙂
That’s another of my ‘must do’ rides ticked off.
