by Vernon Levy
Completing the C2C was the remarkable conclusion of my recovery
from a debilitating and still undiagnosed ailment best summarized
by a conversation held between
my daughter and my wife when I disappeared to buy a bicycle in late April on
a bank holiday Monday.
Mother: I can't imagine dad being able
to buy a bike today
Daughter: I can't imagine dad riding
one.
Clearly my daughter and if truth be known, myself, had no measure of
my residual fitness and at the time I had no notion that three months
later I'd be doing
the C2C. Not on the expensive mountain bike purchased from Halfords but on a
12 speed Raleigh Esprite racing bike, 'free to a good home' from the small ads,
bedecked with panniers and a 20 stone rider fresh from a fortnight's early morning
training runs in Dorset and Cornwall while on the family holiday. The weather
was perfect for the journey - sunny but not too hot with the cooling breeze blowing
in the right direction.
Arrived from Leeds at Whitehaven around 12:00 hrs having caught the
06:15 train to Blackpool and changed at Preston and Carlisle. Stocked
up with some essentials
at the Tesco supermarket conveniently near the station and then set off for the
start. Got my first puncture four miles into the ride.
Whinlatter Pass proved to be the first major push of the journey and
arrived in Keswick for fish and chips around 5:00. The 700 x 23c tyres
precluded me being
too adventurous with the alternative routes and the Old Coach Road was accordingly
shunned. Pushed on to Langwathby and enjoyed a twilight pint in the warm sultry
air before the final ride of the day to Ousby with the ideal combination of a
pub and campsite sharing the same grid reference. Nice beer and cheap camp site
fees. Slept well.
Woke up feeling smug which was a short lived emotion once I rejoined
the C2C
route at Hartside. Met three members of staff from the A&E dept from the
hospital at Workington at the Hartside Cafe, they were being told that there
was worse to come at Allenheads and they were dismayed. The advice was wrong
though, there was worse to come at Stanhope, more of that later. After a wonderful
bacon bap and mug of tea I set off thinking that Sunderland was a possibility
for the end of the day. Stanhope put paid to that!
Returning to the route...Garrigill saw me pushing the bike again before
I had a hairy descent into Nenthead to enjoy a beer and some crisps.
Looking at the
Sustrans map combined with local knowledge, I chose to push my bike further up
the hill past the Allenheads turn off and drop down into Weardale past the Killhope
Wheel and into Stanhope, I just couldn't face the push out of Allenheads knowing
there was a push to end all pushes out of Stanhope. Sustrans, why didn't you
mark Stanhope as an incline on the gradient profile? I bet it's lulled a lot
of folk into a false sense of security until they meet 'that bloody hill'. Half
way up the hill a very kind householder invited me in for a sit down and cold
lager. I declined his kind offer and pushed on. A superfit lean cyclist ratcheted
past me on the hill and amazingly, he had enough breath to hold a conversation
with me telling me that there was another mile to go and the pain was worth it
as I'd enjoy the descent. Several false summits later I reached the Waskerly
Way.
Hownsgill viaduct was amazingly high scaling trees down to bush size.
A couple of bouquets of flowers wedged into the ironwork commemorating
a 'Grandad' left
me wondering if this was a favourite spot of his or was the spot when his life
ended. The thought sent a shiver down my spine and I pushed on to Stanley after
repairing a puncture at Leadgate. The sculptures of the surveying instruments
at Consett were wonderful. They are masterpieces of sheet metal fabrication and
I hoped that they had been constructed by local craftsmen. Had the most wonderful
fish and chips at Stanley just off Clifford Street and they were consumed in
the rapidly vanishing light of the day.
I'd abandoned the notion of reaching Sunderland having suffered the
puncture and allowing myself to be distracted by the viaduct and Consett
sculptures. At
this point I discovered that LED front lamps emit a nominal amount of light and
the ride to the campsite at Beamish was a very sedate one along the cycle track.
It had been a long day and I was asleep within minutes of crawling inside the
sleeping bag liner despite the manic rantings of some late arrivals fresh from
the pub and their tents still to erect.
Early-ish set off at 8 o'clock having had a hot home cooked breakfast.
Was brought to a halt by 'King Coal' and as I was photographing him,
a local ex-miner stopped
to tell me the history of the railway and the local area. It was a fascinating
account culminating in the chilling account of the use of Hownsgill viaduct as
the 'place to end it all'.
The ride in towards Sunderland was otherwise non-eventful with the
exception of some ambiguous signposting giving the opportunity to take
some wrong turns
as confirmed by the Workington trio who caught up with me with around three miles
to go, they'd have caught up sooner but for some wrong turns. As we neared the
end of the journey together, a Douglas Dakota aircraft did some low passes adding
a sense of drama to the conclusion of a wonderful journey. We arrived at the
sea together around 11:45, swapped cameras, took each others' photographs to
'sign off' and then went or seperate ways. The Workington Three to the railway
station to head home, me onto the Sustrans Three Rivers Route to cycle south
to Middlesboro with the intention of joining the White Rose route from Middlesboro
to Hull to get as close to Leeds as possible.
The whole ride had been a buzz. According to my cycle computer I'd
spent just over 14 hours peddling or pushing the bike for 136 miles
at an average speed
of 9.4 miles per hour hitting a top speed of 42.9 miles per hour. I felt good.
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