At the frankly miraculous hour of 9:30 my brother and I
arrived in the small Hamlet of Mungrisdale in the North
Lakes for what promised to be a great days riding. The sun
was shining but there was a cool breeze and a light mist
which hinted at a threat of rain (did I mention we were in
the lakes?). After the habitual bouncing about on forks,
testing of brakes and clicking of gears we were set to
depart. Then the payphone rang. Looking around it was clear
we were the only people foolish to be about and so I picked
up the phone. 'Hello' came the voice of ol' dear number 1.
'Do you see a house opposite the phone, can you go and ask
the lady to phone me please' click. bzzzz. I knock on the
door, old dear number 2 answers and when I relay the message
she thanks me and hobbles over to the payphone. Nice.
Anyway...we set off and the surrounding hills soon erase
puzzling thoughts about my critical part in communications
technology. This area is not one I've visited often and
seems to have much to offer. There are many bridalways
leading off either side of the road we are following, each
winding off tantalisingly around a corner. However after two
or three miles on the albeit fairly pleasant road we start
to question the marital status of the route-guides father
and stop beside one of the more interesting looking
bridalways to examine the map further. It looks like another
4 or 5 frustrating miles on tarmac are ahead. Seems a bit
daft we mutter (well something like that). hmm, hey look we
could take this path and it takes us right near the start of
the route 'proper' I casually say. And so with the damning
comment 'Its shorter than the road bit, what could possibly
go wrong?' we decide to follow the bridalway. It winds
around the side of a hill, climbing past some old mine
workings on a fairly easy but loose path and eventually
flattens out to a fast flat section which we speed along
with self-congratulatory grins on our faces. The path
narrows and becomes grassy singletrack (a sheep track?) as
it heads back down to meet up with the road. Superb.
A short road section leads us into the biggest ascent of the
day, up to Skiddaw house. Its not a huge climb, gaining
around 700ft but it is fairly short and steep. Other day-
trippers are driving up the initial easy part of the climb
and parking a third of the way up. As we pass them they're
sat in their cars munching sandwiches, probably getting
ready to go home again. Calves burning we try and make it to
the top in one go but are beaten. I blame only having 24
gears. As we start to descend the ground is a perfect match
of technical rockiness, and steep enough to hammer along
bouncing over the top, with water bars every 100m or so
adding to the fun. A stream crossing helps to cool us off
before another short sharp climb up to Skiddaw house. The
path now heads back down the valley, mainly downhill at
first with the mixture of fairly boggy ground and fast rocky
sections proving to be great fun but tiring through constant
acceleration and deceleration to get the most out of the
terrain. The path then flattens to follow the river caldew
for a few rocky miles. I had been loving my hardtail all day
but felt it was hard to keep momentum going here, where I
would have sat down and been able to spin on my full-sus
bike I had to stand and hammer, very tiring!
We arrived back to the car after some 25 miles, a fantastic
ride and definitely worth coming back.
Steve.