From the Archives – Singletrack Issue 2 – Summer 2001
Madness? But that’s the challenge Andy and Graham set themselves. Early July was the time chosen to do it as that would maximise daylight riding.
The Invitation
With one month to go they both came to me to tell me their plans.
“We are going to ride the C2C from Whitehaven to Sunderland in under 20 hours and we need you to come along.”
Bloody hell! They want me to ride with them. They think I am really that good and that fit. I was totally flattered.
“Well it’s going to require a fair bit of training on my part. I’m not quite at my peak just yet.” That was an understatement. I had barely clocked up 30 miles in the last month and these guys were inviting me to ride 145 in a day. The alarms were sounding in my head of course and little voices were screaming, “Don’t be so bloody stupid! You will die.” But the warnings were being muffled with pillows of ego and pride.
“Er.. We don’t want you to ride with us. We want you to drive the car.”
The voices of warning turned into mocking laughter. Ego and Pride left the room. Plonker walked in to replace them.
“Oh. Er… OK. That’s cool. I can do that.”
I’ve never done the C2C but I am born and raised in Sunderland. I don’t think I could bring myself to ride towards the place with any enthusiasm.
Maybe I could ride it east to west?
That was a great read ? any chance of more like that in the current magazine? There must be some young and daft mtb’ers doing something similar with writing talent.
It was interesting as mobile phones would have made bits, especially the communication bits so much less uncertain.