Have I wronged Komoot? Did I once go out on a date with her and then abandoned her, leaving her with the tab? Or did one of you manage to hack my Komoot, in which case – chef’s kiss – that was an epic practical joke. More on that later.
We started the day talking alternative routes as the rain really began to hose it down outside. Martyn has been so kind and was clearly concerned for our welfare, whilst we were out in Storm Floris, and eventually he and I agreed to compromise and I (Malcolm was still resting) would take an alternative route through the Lake District, stopping frequently to text and phone them when I had reached milestones… well, that was the intention anyway.
After being reacquainted with Sue from Premier Inn who looked after us so well 7 years before and dried our clothes in what I now see as typical Cumbrian summer weather – a total dousing in rain – I set off.
Komoot doesn’t always orientate herself correctly at first and my first turning out of the hotel turned out to be wrong. I had to go back past an alleyway to the side of the hotel. Good start and within minutes I was drenched. The winds were fitfully blustery with occasional gusts that would cause the bike to veer out into the road. However, with the routes I was taking, there were very few vehicles on the road because, hey, you’d have to be an idiot to go out in that weather, especially cycling in it…
Later, Malcolm told me that the A6 was a dream road when he and Martyn took it to Kendal, but Komoot wasn’t going to give me an A road and, besides, and to be fair to her, there was a national cycle route to follow. Hills and climbs immediately, even to the point when there didn’t seem a point to it. The amount of climbs I did today was beyond punishing – the Lake District has an offensive amount of hills. At one point, I told an empty Cumbrian hillside this. In fact, if there is a lifetime quota for how many swear words someone can use in a lifetime, I think I reached it and breached it today.
It felt like slow going on Komoot’s route but I made it to the outskirts of Kendal in decent time, according to Martyn. I was to meet them at ‘The Ring of Bells’ pub to the south of Kendal and asked a workman ‘Do you know where this pub is?’ He replied ‘Yes’ and carried on working. Technically, he did answer my question. To be fair, he grinned a moment later and gave me directions.
I met up with Martyn and Malcolm, but we all decided to push on quite quickly to a village called Tebay, a mere 10 miles away. Besides, the rain had stopped and Storm Floris appeared to be fairly kind to me, at least (I haven’t seen the news, so I have no idea if others were badly affected)>
The second stage of the journey started off well but with an obscene amount of climbing and spectacular views. Above me and to the west was this high ridge with a weather station and telecommunications mask right on its summit and I remember being thankful that it was protecting me from the worst of Floris… but I was creeping ever closer to that ridge. Other than for one farm tanker scooting around a blind corner and almost into me (although I anticipated he wouldn’t see me until the last second and stopped, so it was less dramatic than it sounded), I only had the company of sheep, horses and cows. The roads – always, always climbing – were getting rougher and rougher, and cycling over cattle grids did nothing for maintaining momentum. And the weather station and telecommunications tower crept ever close. No worries, there must be a road leading down the other side. Yes, punishing climbing but just think of the glorious downhills on the other side, when all I have to do is ride the brakes.
An engineer from the weather station passed me in his all-terrain 4×4 and looked as astonished as the sheep I was passing. My heart was beginning to sink. I couldn’t see the downhill road and the road itself was nothing but gravel and ruts now.
Instead of protecting me from the storm, I was now on the ridge with a wind battering me that was not hindered by any obstacle in its path this high up. But that wasn’t the worst of it. Komoot had a blue line telling me my route. There was no route. All around me was moorland grass, a few clumps of reeds, rocky outcrops, boggy marsh and streams… and I was now several hundred feet up.
As I was receiving the full blast of the wind, Komoot was receiving the full blast of my ire. I now had to scramble down a mountain with a road bike.
Now I’m sure Komoot would argue that the map said ‘Expert’. But the map had said ‘Expert’ for many of our routes and I challenge Tom Pidcock (Britain’s best mountain biker) to have navigated that terrain whilst remaining on a bike. Even if I phoned Martyn, no-one but mountain rescue could get me.
Leading my bike through the bog and gorse, I made my way down the mountain, feeling the bog-water seep through my shoes. I navigated streams and their boulders in shoes that have absolutely no grip other than unforgiving metal toe clips. I fell several times. The bike slid down beside me. A small rocky cliff of about ten feet in height had to be avoided by me holding onto the bike with one hand and desperately clutching at clumps of gorse with the other. I upended again and had the ignominious experience of sliding down a hill with my bike sliding down beside me. Loose barbed wire from a fence beside a dry stone wall kept catching on the bike and the terrain was so steep.
Beneath me, there was a big tent and people milling about in a valley. Lord only knows of what they thought of the middle-aged goon bringing down a road bike off the side of that steep hill. I must have looked like some disappointing yeti, leading and sometimes carrying this metal machine he had found.
I hefted the bike over a dry stone wall, where it landed on its front wheel up vertically and then fell over the wall myself.
The big tent seemed to be for people who might practice circus skills but none of the ones I asked could tell me the way to Shap. The workman I stopped looked me up and down and shook his head but gave me directions.
I had to follow a rough track for two miles and then finally reached flat roads.
I have started to anthropomorphize the bike. I suppose you do that to inanimate objects when you are on your own. We had both taken a beating and I had expected her to be damaged: my left brake and gear system were shoved at an angle inwards, my seat was off at an angle and, even now, my handlebars do not line up true with my front wheel. But other than that, she worked fine. I kissed her. That bike is over 7 years old now and I know consumerism and the constant need to buy and replace items drives our economy, but if Halfords ever wanted an advert for well-made bikes of resilience, they need look no further.
Stupidly, I had forgotten to fill up my water bottles earlier and was not out of fluids. I made for Tebay but could not find a shop.
Komoot led me down a hill to a farm track in front of which was a tractor and a farmer just shaking his head from inside the cab… and, finally, I had had enough of her and Googled-mapped my way. But unnecessarily going up hills you have just descended is so depressing.
Still without water, I made for Orton but Floris was making her presence felt with headwinds that denied all momentum on downhills and the road was constantly up and down.
Six miles later, I made Orton and found a shop. Re-fluiding up I headed over the Westmoreland hills to Shap. But this was really exposed country and with Floris barreling in at me, it took ages to make any decent headway. Finally, I reached the A6 into Shap and phoned the others.
It had taken me several hours to make about 16 miles. But they had been 16 miles of ascent, descent, scrambling and headwinds.
I rode on to Penrith where Malcolm greeted me at the Agricultural Arms and would ride the last 17 miles to Carlisle with me.
God, I needed him. Each hill gradually seemed to sap all the remaining energy from my legs. People talk about the legs burning but I found it to be a seeping ache that seems to go deeper and deeper into the tissue, until it seems to be in the bones themselves.
Malcolm allowed me to ‘draft’ him as Floris’ winds and rain battered us but, I could barely keep up and the spirit was failing with all the hills that were coming.
Finally, we made it to the outskirts of Carlisle and had to use Komoot again. Our hotel was three-and-a-half miles away. It felt the longest three miles I’ve ever cycled.
One hell of a day. Today we intend to travel from the west coast to the east. Who knows what it will bring?
Rogues of the Roman Roads 