Living in the north of England, the many coast to coast routes are pretty convenient, so I've done several of them in different directions and styles, but always on road or gravel. The Woodcock route seems to be the benchmark for the MTB C2C, so seemed the obvious place to start. Looking at the route, there were a few bits I knew would be boggy at this time of year, but resolved to stick to the route as far as possible, suck it up, and improve on it for another trip if necessary. The techy bits in the Lakes didn't seem to warrant taking the full-sus, given I would be trying not to rush (for a change) and carrying winter-ish kit, trying to be more self-sufficient with food (rather than spending my last pay packet in pubs), and not adhering religiously to TLS, so my Genesis Longitude was the tool of choice.
In the spirit of not rushing, I got a mid-morning train after a wet ride into Newcastle, arriving in a surprisingly sunny Whitehaven in the early afternoon. I spent an agreeable hour and a half from Carlisle talking bikes with a 63 year old gent from Whitehaven who spends his summers leisurely touring Europe - you don't get that on the A69. After a last-minute refuel in the finest establishment Whitehaven had to offer (Greggs
), I warmed up with 3 road miles to St Bees for obligatory seaside photos and the start of the route proper.
An hour or so of easy road and old railway lines brought me to the edge of the fells just in time for the first shower. Fortunately it was short-lived. I must confess on the ride up Ennerdale towards Black Sail Hut, I was starting to imagine I might have been too conservative in my estimated timings (
). I sat outside the hut for a few minutes, munching snacks, chatting to the people arriving for a weekend of walking and drinking, and generally steeling myself for the hike-a-bike up and over Black Sail pass.
Having had to carry a loaded full-sus down bits of it in the past, I thought I knew what I was in for, but I was still taken aback by the brutality of some sections of the climb. Nevertheless, the height is gained quickly, and I was at the top just as the light was beginning to fade. The Wasdale side is more amenable to push up than the Ennerdale side, but even more amenable to ride down
Given the late hour and encroaching dusk, my rigid, loaded bike, and lack of company, I had to ease off on some bits, but it still put a grin on my face.
I caught the last of the daylight in Wasdale, "borrowed" some water from the campsite tap, and set off up the climb to Burnmoor Tarn.
Here the internal debate over the style of trip I was trying to achieve started to rage as I decided when to stop for the night. The push up Black Sail had taken a lot out of me, and I was pushing up to Burnmoor too, but I would be happier having got a bit further. I quite like riding in the dark, but it seemed a shame to miss the scenery. Despite being well aware of the reality of a 6 o'clock sunset, it somehow only seemed now to sink it. I'd resolved to at least get the boggy bit over and done with in the dark, when I passed a reasonable looking spot, dry with the remains of a wall for a bit of shelter, just as it started to rain. I called it, threw the tarp up fairly crudely, and was fed and in bed by 8 o'clock.
I often struggle for sleep the first night away from home and this wasn't much different, despite being warm and comfortable (and particularly thankful of the tarp - its first real trip out). But the morning was clear, slightly frosty, and promised a spring-like day ahead. Anticipating the sun climbing over the hills, I got my sunglasses out and tucked them on the back of my head... then promptly snapped one leg clean off putting them on my face - you can thank me for the resulting three weeks of spectacular weather!
(I opted not to carry the proper camera on this trip, probably a poor decision in hindsight.)
Every bit as boggy as I expected!
Down into Eskdale, up and over to Dunnerdale, with an unexpected (and not particularly welcome TBH) section through the woods at the bottom, across the stepping stones and out to the road. This seemed to add a lot of pushing and time, for little gain, pretty though it was, over the fire road route I was familiar with from the Lakeland 200.
And then Walna Scar.
I remembered it was a beast, but again I'd forgotten just how big. But also what a blast the long descent towards Coniston is.
I rolled into Coniston about 10.30, already starting to feel the miles and keen for coffee and a spot of second breakfast. An hour or so was spent in holiday mode, drinking coffee in the sun and generally availing myself of café facilities. I pootled off to Ambleside, where there was more eating and drinking while watching people engage in the towns principle activity: driving around looking for a parking space. At length, I decided making it to the Dales today was out of the question, and topped up supplies to allow for a night at Mosedale Cottage. I knew the reputation Mosedale has for bogginess, but I was keen (perhaps too keen) to stick to the original route as far as possible.
The Lakes was still putting on a show, and I tried to appreciate it, but I was frustrated at the lack of progress and feeling more fatigued than I'd expected. I know most of the route so far fairly well, but perhaps my mistake was forgetting about the not-insignificant bits in between the headline climbs: it's easy to get fixated on a major pass like Garburn and forget that it's a fair push up and over from Ambleside to the start, and not exactly flat over to Longsleddale afterwards.
After the long grind up Longsleddale towards Gatescarth Pass, the appearance of the bothy in the great wet blankness of Mosedale, was, to say the least, welcome.
I opened the door to find a group of 7 already installed in the main room. I have to admit I was initially uneasy about the company, but at least the stove was on, and I got to making a non-committal meal while I sussed out the situation. My fears turned out to be unfounded - there were actually three parties: a young couple from the south Lakes, a quiet couple of walkers from Cambridge, and three lads from County Durham. The latter were obviously having a drink, but turned out to be rather talking up their game - they had a couple of cans each at most, and the promised bottle of whisky turned out to be a miniature (which they generously shared). They were more concerned with having a good chat and playing dominoes (since no-one could agree on the rules of shithead to play cards). The main dorms having already been claimed, I set up in a small damp room with a broken stone sleeping platform, which proved perfectly acceptable accommodation for my weary bones. A lone walker arrived late in the evening, and in the morning we found two more young lads who'd got in after most of us had taken an early night, and were occupying the sofas. It's a good job there's plenty of room!
Even the prospect of several more miles of bog-surfing couldn't blemish the glory of another spectacular Lakeland morning. After a quick, but not overly hurried, breakfast, I was packed up and on my way with a new plan. The prospect of pushing on with the C2C just didn't fill me with joy, and continuing on the route to catch the train home from the other side of the Dales at Northallerton didn't seem much better, and had some timing issues. So I decided to make a beeline for home - but not the easy way.
Leaving the route at Shap, I'd road bash across the Eden valley on a more north-easterly bearing, to the village of Kirkland. There, a bridleway marked as "Maiden Way" climbs up into the Pennines across the side of Cross Fell, cutting off the corner of the main road over Hartside Pass. I was vaguely aware of the existence of the route, but having not heard of it being ridden, despite being relatively local, I figured it was probably going to involve hard work. Excellent. Clearly it was going to involve a steep climb, probably it would be indistinct, and definitely it would be boggy in places. But it would be more interesting than getting buzzed by roadies out for a Sunday cruise up Hartside and would take me fairly directly to Alston and a gentle run down the South Tyne (Railway) Trail to Haltwhistle and an actual train.
But first, a bit of a climb over into the aptly-named Wet Sleddale, and on-off riding with a liberal smattering of tussocks (Stu would be proud).
Shap Co-Op proved a gold mine of reduced breakfast delights: a whole bunch of admittedly very small, very ripe, and quite bruised bananas (57p); 4 "Irresistible" (true) croissants (10p), 2 stashed for lunch, I'm not an animal; and a coffee from the machine (actual real money). Stop Instagramming your breakfast, kids.
The road was pleasant, but, well, road-y, enlivened by some rare electronics woes.* It was about midday before I reached Kirkland, found the promisingly well-signposted Maiden Way, and began the long push. The quality signage lasted about two fields, before disappearing into a mess of fallen fingerposts and those weathered waymarks that indicate you're on some sort of right-of-way, but have long since stopped telling anyone which way it continues. After nearly taking a wrong turn up Cross Fell, and following a sheep trail up the wrong valley, I finally twigged that I was supposed to be going up that valley
It doesn't look very steep in the photo (never does) but anyone who rode last year's BB200 simply needs to imagine that bit in the forest, but without the trees.
This was followed by an old mining or quarrying incline, and then the gradient eased, but riding was still in the minority on the rough, boggy, and at times indistinct path. Eventually I gained the more rocky fell "top" and could look back across the Eden valley and out to the Solway Firth and Galloway beyond.
A gate of particular quality.
Looking over to Cross Fell.
I've just come down that ribbon of track.
The top part of the descent still required a bit of pedalling to push through the sodden ground, but the expansive views had more than made up for the effort needed for this route. Eventually it joined a well made up shooting track and I rocketed to the wide ford at the bottom. Soon after I was in Alston, in yet another Co-Op buying cheese to go with my remaining croissants for lunch - the croissant is the perfect bikepacking food: on it's own it's a tasty, energy dense snack, but it also serves as pre-buttered bread for anything else you care to put on it. From Alston, a gentle roll down the side of the heritage railway, only broken by the detour round Lambley Viaduct, was the ideal end to a trip.
Clearly this was not the trip I set out to do, but a good couple of days on the bike, so I wouldn't call it a failure. I think the take-away for me was that trying to find a middle ground between racing and touring is a fool's game, for my money. I'm not sure how I could have made this more "comfortable" - a lighter bike certainly would have helped, but I needed winter kit to keep warm. Perhaps ditching the cooking kit and relying largely on cafes, etc. would have helped, but eating is rather integral to the experience for me, and I was trying to do it on a budget, not having a job and all. Having company would have changed things massively too.
Had I been doing an ITT, I would have felt like there was more of a point to sacrificing comfort. In fact, I quite possibly would have stubbornly kept going, and hell, maybe even enjoyed completing the route, at least retrospectively.
I'll probably be back. Maybe not on this exact route, but I've still got a MTB C2C itch to scratch.
In the meantime, other adventures are calling. If you clocked the date, you'll notice it's taken me a month to get round to posting this. I've been pretty busy making the most of the unseasonable weather. I'll try and post some more of that soon.
*if you have to know: my phone battery is on the way out, and a symptom of this is it gets to anywhere between 30 and 50% charge and sudden decides enough is enough, and won't turn on again till its had a good long charge. This wouldn't be a problem, since I have a separate device for navigation, which is also a phone, with no SIM, running Outdooractive (formerly Viewranger). With Viewranger, I had OS mapping at least at 50k for pretty much the whole of the north of England stored on the device, but with the new software I only had an area covering the C2C route. With no SIM card or wifi, I had no way to download more mapping, and though I could bluetooth a route via GPX from my main phone, for some reason, Outdooractive needs an internet connection to load a GPX
. This meant having to get my phone out to check the route. The one with no battery 
Under less favourable circumstances, I wouldn't have continued up into the hills with an almost complete lack of navigation tools (no, I didn't have a paper map either). But with good weather, a good forecast, plenty of daylight, and at least a general idea of where I was going, I felt I wasn't putting myself in any great danger.
. Still impressed with the 'give up the job and wing it' ploy.
