Crossing England One Pub At A Time

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Crossing England on Hadrian's Cycleway gave me new-found confidence that I'm not a complete amateur when it comes to bicycle touring; destroying the rear derailleur on my week-old bicycle just a day later had the exact opposite effect! So when the train drivers of England decided to go back to work after their second nation-wide strike in five days - and with my no-longer-shiny but still-new bicycle armed with an ancient-looking, second-hand rear derailleur courtesy of the bicycle shop in Consett - I immediately hopped on a pair of westbound Northern Railways trains to head back to the Irish Sea coast, so that if the weather ever improved from 'awful' to 'mildly disappointing' I would be in the perfect position to strike out on another sea-to-sea cycle route (appropriately named the C2C) with the almost-guaranteed prevailing southwesterly winds at my back. Because even the most hardened pretend cycle tourists need a little helping hand from Mother Nature once in a while! Especially in Northern England, where she's usually pissing all over you.

So after holing up for two nights at the gloriously luxurious YHA Wasdale Hall beside England's deepest lake (which I occasionally glimpsed through the otherwise-impenetrable blanket of cloud) I returned to Ravenglass on the coast, before taking another train 20 miles north to Whitehaven, the official starting point of the C2C cycle route. The scene that greeted me upon arriving in Whitehaven could best be described as 'bleak' - how on Earth this grim location ended up sharing a name with one of the world's most beautiful beaches (in Australia's Whitsunday Islands) I have no idea, though I suspect it must be someone's idea of a sick joke!

So in keeping with tradition, I dipped my back wheel into the Irish Sea beside the official C2C starting point sign at Whitehaven Marina, and then got the hell out of there as quickly as possible.This was accomplished easily enough, as a bicycle/dog walking path led from (almost) the centre of town all the way to Rowrah 9 miles away... by which time I found myself pedalling through a bank of fog with no more than fifty metres' visibility! Only in England could that be considered an improvement. From there I continued on over rolling hills until I reached the Lake District at the broad expanse of Loweswater; and half-an-hour later I made my first pub pitstop of the ride at the Wheatsheaf Inn in Low Lorton.

A steak & ale pie and a pint of cask ale later, I was ready to tackle the first proper climb of the route over Whinlatter Pass. But though I managed to inch my way up the slope to begin with, it wasn't long before I had to hop off and push my heavily-laden bicycle (with one pannier bag full of clothes and the other full of camping gear, as a rest run for a longer ride that I hope to tackle next year). Soon enough the gradient eased, and I was able to hop back in the saddle to finish the job of cresting my first pass of the route, before enjoying a high-speed descent that was somewhat nerve-wracking due to the wetness of the road.

After a brief flat stretch beside a busy road I entered Keswick, where the hordes of people crowding the streets on a gloomy October afternoon were nothing short of staggering! It was as if someone had gathered up all of the people from London's busiest tube stations, trucked them north to the Lake District, and then dumped them in the centre of Keswick! I immediately abandoned my idea of taking an exploratory tour of the town, in favour of fleeing the fashionable fleshpot as fast as possible - and thankfully I soon encountered the perfect means of doing so in the form of the Keswick to Threlkeld Rail Trail, which coasted along beside the turbulent River Greta through shaded woodlands, with an 80-metre-long tunnel thrown in for good measure.

Due to a lack of budget options in the vicinity of Keswick I had decided it was time to try out my new tent at one of the many campgrounds in the area, only to be turned away from the first campground I stopped at due to the copious amount of recent rainfall causing them to close their grass tent area! The next campground I tried allowed me to camp there despite the wetness of the ground, but charged me a truly extortionate £24 for the privilege... which was more than I'd paid for a bed at most of the hostels I'd stayed in! Still, at least my tent had finally gotten some use, and I could be satisfied that it would do the job when called upon next year. And the chicken jalfrezi followed by Belgian waffles I enjoyed at the Horse & Farrier Inn in the centre of town certainly offered adequate compensation, even if it meant that my daily budget had been well and truly blown out of the water!

So with my plan for a rest day on the Sunday having been thwarted by the overpriced campground - where the grassed tent area was being closed down for the season that day anyway - I packed up and continued on a further ten miles down the C2C route, before turning off and taking a ten mile detour to the small village of Patterdale, which led me alongside another of the Lake District's namesake lakes, Ullswater. And after stopping for lunch at the Patterdale Hotel (my third pub of the ride) I was even greeted by a most unexpected blue sky as I made my way to the local Youth Hostel, before heading back into the village to watch the Premier League football at another pub, the White Lion.

Leaving Patterdale on the third day of my cycle trip entailed retracing my pedal strokes for the first ten miles to rejoin the recognised route, before continuing on to the largest town in the region, Penrith. It was here that I made the mistake of following the signs for Route 71 instead of Route 7 and ended up heading nearly five miles in the wrong direction (southeast instead of northeast), before realising the error of my ways and having to double back to Penrith and start again! This added an hour of cycling to my day, and meant that I was in an even greater need of sustenance (and beer) by the time I reached the excellent Shepherd's Inn in the small town of Langwathby another five miles down the road. And with all of the tables inside already having been taken - most of them for a wake - I was left to sit outside by the main road, where astonishingly the sun was soon beating down as I played 'count the tractors'... never in my life have I seen so many tractors driven through the centre of a town!

From Langwathby the route meandered for the next hour or so, before the biggest climb of the entire route (climbing 380m to the pass of Hartside Top at 575m) started in earnest. Having read about the numerous climbs necessary to cross the Pennines - which would be a significant step up in difficulty from anything encountered on Hadrian's Cycleway, where the highest point was just 255m above sea level - I had no qualms whatsoever about hopping off and pushing my bike whenever necessary, and had assumed that this would be the case on the steeper sections of every climb I encountered. But the road to Hartside Top was so well engineered that, with the climb spread out over 6km, the gradient never seemed to exceed around 7%. And as I would discover over the course of the next 24 hours, with my fully-laden, back-heavy bicycle, 7% was about the maximum gradient that I could tackle for any length of time.

I only know all of this because of the offline map on my phone, which I have often used to gauge my progress on hiking trails but had never before turned to for reassurance on a cycling route. Assuming that I would inevitably have to hop off and push at some point, I stopped for a break about ten minutes into the climb and noticed to my surprise that I was already almost a third of the way to the pass. And just as importantly the gradient looked as though it would remain virtually the same all the way to the top. 'Well, if I could make it this far without having to hop off, then maybe I could make it the rest of the way if I stop for breaks whenever I start to get tired?' I thought. And so, despite expectations to the contrary, I found myself slowly but surely working my way up that slope in the saddle rather than down on the pavement. Stopping to rest every ten minutes or so to allow the lactic acid building up in my legs to subside, I knocked off one small section of the climb after another, until eventually I reached the final tight switchback from where I could see a group of motorcyclists huddled atop the pass just a couple of hundred metres away. By now nothing was going to stop me from 'knocking the bastard off', and I knew it.

Summoning the last of my strength, I started pedalling more and more quickly - even changing up to third gear at one point - as a surge of adrenaline went through me that had me holding the handlebars with one hand while pumping my other first and shouting with joy... much to the bemusement of the resident sheep, who had presumably seen this all before! And then about an hour after I started out, with low cloud descending upon the mountains and a frigid wind springing up from below, I crested the pass to reach the summit of Hartside Top, having cycled every metre of the way! The sense of relief was almost as overwhelming as the sense of achievement, but the greatest reward was the exhilarating descent that I enjoyed on my way down from the pass, as I cruised along at what must have been five times the speed that I'd registered on the way up; yet because of the equally-steady gradient on the down-slope I didn't have to worry about picking up too much speed - I could just sit back and enjoy the ride!

The descent would bring me, via a 2-mile detour to the north, to the town of Alston - where the hostel was just as welcoming as the nearby pub, the Cumberland Hotel. Knocking back the pints in celebration, I couldn't help wondering how many (if any) of the following day's climbs I would be able to conquer, given that there were no less than SIX individual climbs of anywhere between 100m and 250m. Still, I wasn't getting too carried away, knowing from my guidebook that gradients of up to 1 in 4 (ie 25%) awaited me the next day. Still, the taste of victory was sweet... as was the delicious affogato washed down with a pint of Theakston's Chocolate Old Peculiar that rounded out my evening at the Cumberland!

After the usual cooked breakfast at the Alston YHA the next morning - a service that seems to be offered at all of the hostels up this way - I hopped back on the bike and made my way to Garrigil, before tackling the first (and quite possibly most intimidating) climb of the day over Flinty Fell. Immediately I was off the bike and pushing for all I was worth, as the slope started out at a truly brutal 1 in 4 gradient (ie at least three times steeper than anything I would even consider cycling up!) But after the first half-mile the slope gradually lessened, and I was able to hop back on and, with regular rest breaks to give my legs a chance to recover, managed to make it the rest of the way to the top (at 599m) without having to push again. Unfortunately after an initial speedy descent, the gradient steepened noticeably so that, with virtually no rear brake pads left, I had to strangle both my front and back brakes to avoid picking up too much speed and losing control. When the gradient on the final descent to Nenthead again reached 1 in 4, I had no choice but to hop off and walk my bike DOWNHILL, which would have to rank as one of the most frustrating things I have ever had to do!

According to my offline map the climb up out of Nenthead topped out at around an 8% gradient, which I was willing to have a go at. But when successive road signs warned of 14% and then 17% gradients, I had grave doubts about my ability to stay on the bike. But either the signs were inaccurate or the slopes in question were only brief, because once again, with leg muscles screaming, I managed to make it all the way to the top of the climb at the summit of Black Hill - which not only marked the county border between Cumbria and Northumberland, but also, at 609m, the highest point on the C2C. As with the climb up and over Hartside Top, the gentle gradients on the way up were mirrored on the way down, so that I could enjoy another sweeping descent without having to pedal OR ride the brakes.

But after just five minutes of downhill the route turned onto another road to immediately commence the third climb of the day, this time over Killhope Law at 586m. But given that I was starting out from almost 500m to begin with - and was able to gain plenty of momentum with which to start out - this would prove to be the easiest of the climbs I would face for the day; while the newly-surfaced road provided a gloriously smooth surface that was almost devoid of cars - in short, the perfect conditions for cycling! A brief stop at the top and I was soon making my way down the other side on one of the quietest roads I have ever encountered in England. With no traffic to look out for and no need for pedalling, I could simply sit back and watch the world fly by as I zoomed my way down to the town of Allenheads in the valley below.

Unfortunately, having covered the first half of the day's distance quicker than expected, I arrived in Allenheads to find the pub was closed. So I did the only sane thing under the circumstances - waited outside for midday to arrive! So imagine my surprise when midday came and went and there was STILL no sign of life coming from inside the pub!? By this point I could only assume they don't bother opening at all on Mondays, and it was with great disappointment that I trundled off to the local cafe to get a feed (if not a beer) there instead. This would serve as fuel for the next climb, up to the Shorngate Cross Currick at 530m, where a gigantic stone cairn well over two metres high marks the pass, as well as the entry into Durham County ('the Land of the Prince Bishops').

The descent from this pass will live long in the memory, for it was long (about 5 miles), sported an almost-perfect gradient (though I did have to turn the pedals a few times to keep momentum up) and was COMPLETELY devoid of cars. For the best part of fifteen minutes I coasted downhill through one of the wildest landscapes in England, and all without a single car to disturb the tranquility. If it hadn't been for the wind whistling in my ears there would have been no sound at all, and despite being able to see for miles in every direction the only movement came from the odd bird flying overhead or startled sheep grazing beside the road - it would surely have to rank as one of the loneliest roads in all of Great Britain! And though I couldn't quite put my finger on it then - nor can I now - there was something magical about that scene. In a country as crowded as England it came as a total shock to find myself in such a wild, lonely (and yet hauntingly beautiful) place - especially given that nothing on Hadrian's Cycleway had even come close to this feeling of remoteness. It was utterly unforgettable.

It was only as I entered the sleepy village of Rookhope that a car finally passed by, and after seeing just one other car and a lady standing outside her front door I left the village, having cycled from one end to the other, without spotting any further sign of life. But that was where my golden run came to an end, as the initial climb up towards the next high point of Coal Crow Hill was too steep to stay on the bike. Thankfully it was only a minor inconvenience, as was the rain that had started falling almost imperceptibly as I cycled through Rookhope, only to then fizzle out altogether just a few minutes later. After gaining just over a hundred metres I came to a rare flat stretch of road in these parts, which followed a contour high above the valley to my right, while offering a view of the sixth and final climb of the day crossing a slope dead ahead, just beyond the town of Stanhope.

A short detour through the town brought me to the Pack Horse Inn, where I was finally able to enjoy a beer while psyching myself up for the big finale. I needn't have bothered. Starting out with a ridiculously steep, and prolonged, climb to the top of Crawleyside Bank, there was no option other than to push my bike up the unrelenting slope. Eventually the gradient eased off and I had just enough strength left in my legs to pedal the rest of the way; though there was a sting in the tail as I reached the former Parkhead Station at what I THOUGHT was the highest point of the climb - at which point I would then be taking a 5-mile detour (all downhill) to return to the small village of Edmundbyers where I had stayed at the YHA the week before. Imagine my dismay when I reached Parkhead Station only to see the road continuing uphill for the next couple of hundred metres! But I wasn't going to resort to walking again, so I summoned the last of my energy reserves and pounded out those final painful metres, letting out an ear-splitting roar as I squeezed every last ounce of effort out of my exhausted legs. Reaching the top, I stopped to drain the last water from my bottle, and then set off on the long, rip-roaring descent down the other side. By the time I reached the bottom I had almost regained the capacity to use my legs.

Having climbed over a vertical kilometre on day four - surely the first time in my life I've ever done such a thing on a bicycle - there wasn't much energy left in the tank for the fifth and final day of my C2C adventure. Thankfully there didn't need to be, given that once I rejoined the route at Parkhead Station it would all be either downhill or flat (not to mention virtually traffic-free) for the remaining 35 miles to Tynemouth. Unfortunately getting back to Parkhead Station meant climbing back up the 250m that I'd whizzed down the previous afternoon - and under no circumstances was that going to happen with me in the saddle! So for the first twenty minutes I slowly trudged up that infernal hill while trying to keep my bicycle upright, as sheep gathered to mock me from the side of the road. "Aren't you supposed to go up first, so then you can fly back down?" I swore I heard one ask.

But one way or another I made it back up to Parkhead, from where I was rewarded with a lovely 9-mile stretch of cycle trail along a former railway line, now known as the Waskerley Way, which led me out of the Pennines once and for all. After passing the wonderful Terra Novalis sculpture just outside Consett, another traffic-free ride beside the River Derwent led me back to the Tyne River on the outskirts of Newcastle. And from there it was simply a matter of repeating the final dozen miles of Hadrian's Cycleway through the city, past Wallsend and out to the North Sea Coast at Tynemouth. And though I wasn't able to dip my front wheel in the North Sea, as tradition dictates, due to the closure of the path out to the lighthouse because of 'severe vandalism' - a classically English way to finish a cycle trip if ever there was one - I was able to stop at one last pub (the Gibraltar Rock) just up the hill, overlooking King Edward's Bay. Which, after all, was a much more fitting end to my C2C adventure anyway!

I might have even considered cycling all the way back into Newcastle, if I'd had any feeling left in my legs. But with a little bit of luck, I might be able to put my newfound cycle touring skills to work again next year...

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Photos

Lakeside Views
Pausing beside Ullswater on the way out of Patterdale

Ready for Action
Geared up and ready to go at Whitehaven Marina

Lost in the Fog
Cycling through the fog between Rowrah and Loweswater

A Touch of Colour
Pub number 1: The Wheatsheaf Inn in Low Lorton

The Light in the Middle of the Tunnel
Heading through the Bobbin Mill Tunnel outside Keswick

Picture Perfect
Reflections in Goldrill Beck

Tractor-spotting Hotspot
Pub number 5: the Shepherd's Inn in Langwathby

Into the Pennines
An early break on the climb from Renwick to Hartside Top

On the Summit
Starting to feel like a true cycle tourist at Hartside Top

Taking Flight
Starting out on the exhilarating descent towards Alston

Warning Sign
A sure sign that I would be pushing the bike for a while!

Switching Counties
Atop Black Hill (609m) - the highest point on the C2C

Impressive Pile of Stones
At Shorngate Cross Currick, after finishing my fourth climb of the day

The Loneliest Road
Descending from Shorngate Cross on the quietest road I have ever encountered in England - 15 minutes without a single car!

Austere Facade
Pub number 7: the Pack Horse Inn in Stanhope

High Amongst the Hills
On the climb from Stanhope to Parkhead Station

Home for the Night
Pub number 8: The Baa - a lovely little village pub located inside Edmundbyers YHA

Winding through the Woodlands
Quiet cycling near Rowlands Gill

The End of the Line
Beside King Edward's Bay in Tynemouth - the eastern end of the C2C

Nearing Sunset
Approaching dusk at the end of day three

Atmospheric Haven
Pub number 6: the Cumberland Hotel in Alston

Comments

[D MJ Binkley]

Cool photo
Beautiful bridge.

[D MJ Binkley]

Very cool tunnels
A beautiful country.