A good nights sleep in a comfy bed. Bliss! And with a good breakfast to follow. What more could a cyclist ask for?
The morning proved fine and warm but with some cloud cover. The route today was a simple one – follow the A6. Unfortunately, on my cut up road atlas, the A^ followed a join in the pages which was stuck together with blue insulating tape. This meant that we were following a big blue motorway up the middle of the page.
Susan and Jackie came across for the day and we met at Milnthorpe where we lost the panniers to the back of the car for the day. Running light felt much easier and also like cheating as were real cyclists by now. The panniers seemed to get more credence from fellow bikers on the road, most of whom would have guessed where we were going.
The scenery started to change back from the urban environment that we had been riding through since Chester. Once again we were in a rural setting with wonderful scenery as we started the 1400 foot ascent of Shap Fell. In fairness, most of the climb was steady going, certainly nothing like the sharp climbs of Cornwall, although the last mile or so was getting on that way.
We played leap frog with Susan and Jackie who would drive in front and then wait for us to catch up. The climb up Shap was a bit unexpected as I had read on someone else’s blog that they had gone over the top without ever noticing a hill. I think my irony detector had not been working that day. Susan and Jackie were at the summit with the car complete with bananas and the like. Whilst there we got talking to a fellow cyclist from Holland who had come across to try a few hills, and also to a local chap who was out going off road on his new acquisition. We were also treated to a vintage aircraft suddenly appearing al low level. None of us were quick enough to get a camera out, but it looked truly spectacular as it climbed up the valley not more than half a mile from us. We think that the plane was a Dakota that had probably visited the Penrith Show.
Of course, what goes up must come down, so we had the pleasure of a good descent to Penrith. There we met with traffic from the Penrith Show and a slight brush with the law as a young lady PC pulled me for riding down the inside of the traffic. I was instructed to take a place in the queue, which, being a law abiding person, I did (for all of twenty yards anyway!).
After a break in Penrith for drinks etc, (and socks for me) we set off for Carlisle and our overnight stop at the YHA / halls of residence. We all had separate rooms here, but it was not that comfortable. I awoke early in the morning unable to make out what all the noise was and it turned out that the Council was doing some major resurfacing work nearby throughout the night. That, mixed with some other residents deciding to have a full scale row about a missing diary at 5 in the morning, made sure I was pretty tired next morning. However, before that, we went off for a posh meal at an Italian restaurant with Susan and Jackie. The food was good, but they had a bit of a problem getting the order right so overall we were less than pleased.
The morning proved fine and warm but with some cloud cover. The route today was a simple one – follow the A6. Unfortunately, on my cut up road atlas, the A^ followed a join in the pages which was stuck together with blue insulating tape. This meant that we were following a big blue motorway up the middle of the page.
Susan and Jackie came across for the day and we met at Milnthorpe where we lost the panniers to the back of the car for the day. Running light felt much easier and also like cheating as were real cyclists by now. The panniers seemed to get more credence from fellow bikers on the road, most of whom would have guessed where we were going.
The scenery started to change back from the urban environment that we had been riding through since Chester. Once again we were in a rural setting with wonderful scenery as we started the 1400 foot ascent of Shap Fell. In fairness, most of the climb was steady going, certainly nothing like the sharp climbs of Cornwall, although the last mile or so was getting on that way.
We played leap frog with Susan and Jackie who would drive in front and then wait for us to catch up. The climb up Shap was a bit unexpected as I had read on someone else’s blog that they had gone over the top without ever noticing a hill. I think my irony detector had not been working that day. Susan and Jackie were at the summit with the car complete with bananas and the like. Whilst there we got talking to a fellow cyclist from Holland who had come across to try a few hills, and also to a local chap who was out going off road on his new acquisition. We were also treated to a vintage aircraft suddenly appearing al low level. None of us were quick enough to get a camera out, but it looked truly spectacular as it climbed up the valley not more than half a mile from us. We think that the plane was a Dakota that had probably visited the Penrith Show.
Of course, what goes up must come down, so we had the pleasure of a good descent to Penrith. There we met with traffic from the Penrith Show and a slight brush with the law as a young lady PC pulled me for riding down the inside of the traffic. I was instructed to take a place in the queue, which, being a law abiding person, I did (for all of twenty yards anyway!).
After a break in Penrith for drinks etc, (and socks for me) we set off for Carlisle and our overnight stop at the YHA / halls of residence. We all had separate rooms here, but it was not that comfortable. I awoke early in the morning unable to make out what all the noise was and it turned out that the Council was doing some major resurfacing work nearby throughout the night. That, mixed with some other residents deciding to have a full scale row about a missing diary at 5 in the morning, made sure I was pretty tired next morning. However, before that, we went off for a posh meal at an Italian restaurant with Susan and Jackie. The food was good, but they had a bit of a problem getting the order right so overall we were less than pleased.
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