Day 3 – Patterdale – Keld This morning we woke up and actually felt alright, a tad stiff but honestly didn’t think I’d be moving far today. Anyways we took a quick look at the map and seen some massive climbs ahead so decided to consult with Ian, the owner of the B&B. He informed us that a track did exist and was often used by walkers that skipped a 2,700 feet climb and instead offer a 600ft climb but you had to travel an additional 1 mile. Just head around the lake and turn right at the roundabout. Dead on 10 miles out the road and we get to said roundabout where we think we’ll just double check this. Asked a woman nearby if he could direct us to Shap, no problem just turn left at the roundabout…. OK… we’ll do that. 5 miles out the road, you know what; let’s check this again, asked some guy who says we’re well out of the way and Shap will now actually be another 18 miles. What! Said woman would have had us heading out to Penrith if we hadn’t stopped to check. We followed our revised directions and head out to Shap. All roads. Torturous roads, I’m here to mountain bike not train for the tour de France! By 11:10 we’d actually made it to Shrap, maybe we should just stuck to Wainwrights route despite the climbs, we’ll never know. Quick hot chocolate and a scone and we’re off again, next stop Kirkby Stephen! Now we’ve detoured off our route quite a bit at this point so we want to stick to the route and we do. Bogs and hills but this is mountain biking again, I’m happy! Despite those grassy wet climbs feeling like you’re pedalling on two flats it’s epic! Across fields, bogs and rivers we go! Just put of Shap and on the first decent we start picking up a bit of speed and I take the lead. There’s a patch of bog I wonder if I’ll sink in to that? Nah, full speed and keep the weight back, I’m sure I can aqua plane across that, it’s only about 2m. Yeah right, bike drops a good 1ft into the mud and stops dead while I take my second trip over the handle bars! Not on camera this time and yet again I’ve avoided injury and damage to the bike woot! There’s not a lot I can say about the landscapes today, after Shap we were out of the lakes and just traversing fields and bog till the Dales. Tough going when you spend half the day stuck in mud and every climb was followed by a technical decent so we had no real chance to make up time. Anyway we finally got in to Kirkby Stephen at 3:10, only 10 minutes behind schedule woot! To be fair we did have to take a slight cheat route, about 5 miles before the town we had to take a road but it was no easy route, actually it was a ballbuster of a climb, but a climb that we could actually cycle, no bikes on shoulders today! Had a short stop for another bite to eat and a hot chocolate before heading on to the half way pint of the trip, Keld! The trip to Keld was strange, the route took several varying headings depending on the time of year due to excessive wear over the Nine Standards. Now the September route took us straight up and over while the December route took the road. The road seemed a little more appealing as we didn’t believe there were any paths over the Nine Standards, just bog land. So the road it was and it had it’s fair share of climbs! But again thankfully we could cycle them (well I could)! The final 10 miles were pretty straight forwards and fairly bleak, pretty desolate area here and cycling roads doesn’t have the same epic feel as bog, fields and mountains, but hey it got us here in good time. Arrived in to Keld for 5:30, still daylight, thank god! This gave us time to patch the 3 burst tubes we’d suffered and get down for a quick pint before dinner. 7 O’clock, another great steak and some Americans and Aussies for company made for a very pleasant evening. Few more pints and we’re on to the Vodka and cokes, typing up our blog and we’ll be off to bed shortly. Third night in a row we’ve been the only two left at the bar. This is an extremely remote place to live, no phone signal for six miles we’ve been told and the wifi is pretty dodge. We’ve taken control of the living room while we finish our drinks and maybe chat a bit more to Tony the guy who runs the B&B. The Butt house, rightly named because by the time you get here you have a sore Butt. A long with shoulder and side from the rucksack, but that’s not too much to worry about, on to tomorrow where we travel across the dales and some more farmland in to Ingleby Cross.
Posted on: Tue, 24 Sep 2013 20:33:46 +0000
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