Walney 2 Wear Part 1
Posted: 8 June 2007
Words and Pics by Phil Ingham
Above: Walney departure – 150 miles to go!
Five riders and an assorted caravan of supporters and hangers on tackle the Walney to Wear road-based route, coast-to-coast across the North of England. Would they all make it to the finish? Find out in our three-part account of their adventures.
Day 1 – Early Morning
It’s an early start, loading bikes onto the roof-rack in the early light of a very overcast, wet and windy dawn. Breakfast is missed as we fill the car with luggage and are on the road before seven.
With me are my wife Julie, our daughter, Olivia, four, and our friend Suzanne. An hour’s run up the M6 followed by a short trip along the A6 brings us to Lancaster Railway station, with one minute to spare.
Julie and Suzanne don cycling waterproofs, helmets and bags as I unload the bikes, helped by Olivia. Julie and Suzanne jog-trot beside their bikes as they make their way to the north-bound platform, where they make a relieved rendez-vous with John, his wife Liz and Liz’s sister Laura. Along with Julie and Suzanne, they are about to board a train to Barrow in Furness and the start of a three day adventure – they are going to tackle the 150 miles W2W cycling route, which will take them from Walney Island on the West coast to Wearside on the East Coast.
Above: Julie and Suzanne cruising in the rain
Day 1 – Morning
There’s a strange sense of anti-climax as Olivia and I wave to the five cyclists as they settle themselves down for an hour on the train to Barrow. They are due to be in the saddle at 9.30am, but we won’t see them again till lunch-time.
We climb back into the car and, with rain bouncing off the roads, make our way to the nearby Leighton Moss RSPB bird reserve to grab some breakfast in the excellent café and kill some time before meeting the cyclists for lunch.
We are due to meet the five riders at Grange over Sands and provide them with lunch from the bags of food piled high in the boot. A recce of the route into Grange over Sands reveals a large hill just before the town and with noon come and gone and no sign of the riders, I make the decision to meet them in the pretty village of Cartmel, five miles short of Grange. Despite poor reception, I finally make contact with Liz by mobile and hear that she’s pushing her bike up a hill perhaps a mile away and that she John and Laura will be with us in a matter of minutes. Julie and Suzanne are perhaps ten minutes behind them.
Above: Hungry cyclists fall on lunch
Day 1 – Lunch
Rain continues to beat down and it’s not warm either as Liz, John and Laura finally hove into view and join us for lunch in the picturesque surroundings of the carpark of Cartmel’s tiny horse racing course. They are all wet but in good spirits and fall upon the food like only hungry cyclists can. Twenty minutes later Julie and Suzanne join us and they too seem to be enjoying the experience. After re-fuelling, the faster trio are soon on their way again with Julie and Suzanne following them soon afterwards.
Day 1 – Afternoon reflections
As Olivia (patiently reading in the back of the car) and I make our way towards the mid-afternoon rendez-vous, I reflect on the lunchtime discussions. All five riders had reported the route to be far hillier than the route profile had suggested and all were finding the constant rain a drag, but energy levels and motivation are high. We’d all hoped for good weather in the middle of August, but the forecast was as poor as the first morning’s weather had been.
Day -1 High Tea
More recce work led Olivia and I to choose the village green at Natland, just South of Kendal as the afternoon re-fuelling point for the riders. The rain finally stopped and we played on the green with a ball and read fairy tales on a bench as we awaited the riders. We’d been unable to make phone contact, but the route passed right by the green so we knew we’d not miss them.
Above: Support crew and riders meet mid-afternoon
Sure enough, pretty much on schedule the “fast” group rolled in, morale still high, though reporting the first aches and pains. Chocolate, flapjack and fizzy drinks suddenly seemed the most popular refreshments. All three were keen to be away again, with some fifteen miles still to go before the planned end of the first day, close to Sedburgh on the edge of the Pennines.
Above: Time for a brief rest before re-mounting
Julie and Suzanne arrived almost as soon as the faster trio had departed and also seemed in good spirits, though neither appeared to relish the prospect of getting back into the saddle, especially with more hilly terrain ahead.
We waved them off again and Olivia had on her “sad” face for the first time in the day – she clearly sensed the physical strain that I had also observed in her mother’s face. A pang of sympathy ran through me as I realised that at the current rate of progress it would be perhaps nearly two hours and late afternoon before their efforts came to an end: longer than we had planned and perhaps not good news only one day into the ride and with the longest, hardest day still to come.
Day 1 – afternoon
Back in the car, Olivia and I sped on our way to Sedburgh, where we were to meet up with Liz’s mum, Sue, who was looking after Liz’s children, Seth, two, and Freja, four. The three children played happily in Sedburgh’s large park in the day’s only half-hour of sunshine. Large drops of rain were beginning to fall when we received a call from Liz asking to be picked up – the first three had successfully reached the end of their ride. They were soon loaded into Sue’s car, bikes on the roof, and on their way happily to the night’s stop-over town of Kirkby Stephen.
Olivia and I watched them go through the worsening rain. Julie and Suzanne were still out on the road somewhere and with the light beginning to fail and the rain sluicing down, I felt another pang, this time of worry. Julie was in uncharted territory with her cycling and Suzanne, though renowned for her stamina as a walker, had cycled little in the past year. I knew that they would both now be very tired and just hanging on.
In the end, humanity and curiosity got the better of me and I turned the car down the lane along which the two would come and we began to work our way back West wards along the route. Mercifully we met the bedraggled pair at the bottom of a long hill and relief was written across their faces as they recognised the car. They dived for the warmth of the interior as I wrestled their bikes onto the roof – I had parked the car under one of the area’s amazing railway viaducts, but the rain was slanting in at an angle and the bridge offered no protection and the rain ran down my face as I made the bikes secure.
Day 1 – evening
It was a big relief to get settled into the Youth Hostel at Kirkby Stephen. An old Chapel, it offered few frills, but was big on warmth, hot water, relaxed atmosphere and room for the kids to let off steam. As the cyclists swilled away the grit, mud, oil and pain of a day in the saddle, I corralled the bikes in the Hostel’s secure bike shed and played with the children.
Above: Making contact – nearly there at the end of day 1
Soon we were all gathered outside the hostel for the short walk down the high street in search of a pub and grub. Thirty minutes later, all ten of us were gathered around a couple of tables stuffing down a range of typical pub meals – and the kids were having to battle to hang on to their chips as five hungry cyclists scavenged for more.
The chat was surprisingly boisterous and, with food inside them, it was clear that none of the cyclists was anything worse than tired and a little saddle-sore. There was a good deal of banter. The day had been harder than expected – the weather hadn’t helped, but the terrain a lot hillier than anticipated. Liz and John were confidently looking forward to the rest of the ride. With her student-like calm, Laura was oblivious to the travails ahead, but Suzanne and Julie were clearly concerned about the remaining two days. Both had been forced to dig deep to get themselves through the day and with a day of climbing across the spine of the Pennines in prospect tomorrow, they were both worried.
Above: The end of the day and the Pennines loom ahead...
More next week