Another little Coast to Coast adventure has taken shape over the last year or so in my head... This time starting from Walney Island in South Cumbria, crossing the Pennines into Northumberland with a plan to loop out onto Holy Island before a return trip via the edge of Scotland. Some wild lands, some beautiful back roads, lots of river crossings and a tidal causeway just to add a bit of difference. A total of 550 miles door to door.
Enlisted into the trip is a good mate Gareth, on his lovely shiny and new KTM 300 TPI, and Lucy will join us for a couple of days if the weather is good. We have panniers packed, bikes serviced and a great sense of expectation and excitement about seeing and riding a lot of new lanes for us both!
The first thing thing to sort is the mammoth drive for Gareth as he is coming to Cumbria from near Portsmouth, so a mere 7+ hour drive on a Thursday night straight after work! And on Monday he has to reverse it all... Now that's commitment to ride!
We set off early Good Friday morning, plenty of roadwork mixed with few green lanes to get us started for the day. It was fresh, to say the least but dry and the day promised to be a beauty.
We got down to Ulverston in time for lunch so we stopped off a great little cafe to on the tip of Roa Island, which lies at the end of a long causeway. It's a nice area in some ways, remote and full of a different breed of people to the mountains in the Lakes. We had a little chat with a lady who took our photo for us, then a good gossip about bikes with a lad in the Bosuns Locker cafe. After some nice hot food, off we set northwards, with some fresh lanes in our sights!
Fuel turned out to be a priority for Gareth, so a quick detour brought us to a garage then we retraced some of our steps from the morning passing over some longer lanes in the southern Lakes. A chance encounter with a man and his wild boar had us laughing for a fair bit, it's not often you see an Aussie walking up the road with his pet wild boar!
Grisedale saw us stop at the Fox for a photo and then it was over to the Coach Road near Keswick to meet up with Lucy.
After a couple of lanes, the bag holding Gareth's tent and sleeping bag fell off and we had ridden a couple of lanes and some minor roads before this was noticed. Gareth needed fuel, so he set off to a nearby petrol station and Lucy & I backtracked, eventually finding the bag still on the Coach Road!
Lucy left us at Penrith to return home, so we rode on, eventually camping in a field overlooking the River Eden. We sat up drinking wine, eating pies and listening to the owls hunting before turning in for a good nights sleep.
7am the next morning dawned a little damp. I managed to spill my pan of water, leaving just enough for a coffee but no breakfast. So we packed up and set off, climbing up onto the Pennines where plenty of fun was to be found! Snow, we rode into a white out, then fresh soft snow on the surfaced roads which meant when we pulled into Alston for fuel, we also needed fuel for our bodies!
Sausage and bacon butties in the doorway under the heater with some hot chocolate, now that's a good way to start a day!
Our next couple of lanes saw us roll into more snow, the first lot turned us around so we back tracked to the surfaced roads and rode gingerly on. At the gateway to the next long lane, we met a gamekeeper who asked us to stick to the track as they were having some issues with lads riding illegally over their moorland.
We stuck to the track as much as we could, but on two occasions we ventured onto the edges which were above the deep soft snow as they were spoil heaps from gully clearance work done earlier in the year, recalling a bit of road law which states you can bypass an obstruction up to 15 yards so long as there is no damage or safety issue for others.
We met a second gamekeeper as we were nearing the end of the largest snow patch and had a good chat about things in general, really nice hard working folk, out in shite conditions because of some folk who think it's open season to ride on all open land...
We carried on our journey, with the snow getting thicker, then temperatures getting colder and us getting more and more soaked!
Gareth started to have problems with his tyre spinning on his rim, the rim lock was getting battered and had come loose, this had damaged his tyre and was in danger of wrecking his rim, so at another petrol station, we decided to beat a retreat back to mine. the forecast was for heavier snow and rain and we still had a whole load of unknown rivers to cross, we were now soaked and Gareth's bike needed some TLC.
Pub, log fire, beer and food was the ending to the day after a two hour tarmac road ride back to Cumbria!
Hey ho, try again in the summer when it's warmer and preferably after a dry spell so the rivers will be low...
Happy trails
Enlisted into the trip is a good mate Gareth, on his lovely shiny and new KTM 300 TPI, and Lucy will join us for a couple of days if the weather is good. We have panniers packed, bikes serviced and a great sense of expectation and excitement about seeing and riding a lot of new lanes for us both!
The first thing thing to sort is the mammoth drive for Gareth as he is coming to Cumbria from near Portsmouth, so a mere 7+ hour drive on a Thursday night straight after work! And on Monday he has to reverse it all... Now that's commitment to ride!
We set off early Good Friday morning, plenty of roadwork mixed with few green lanes to get us started for the day. It was fresh, to say the least but dry and the day promised to be a beauty.
We got down to Ulverston in time for lunch so we stopped off a great little cafe to on the tip of Roa Island, which lies at the end of a long causeway. It's a nice area in some ways, remote and full of a different breed of people to the mountains in the Lakes. We had a little chat with a lady who took our photo for us, then a good gossip about bikes with a lad in the Bosuns Locker cafe. After some nice hot food, off we set northwards, with some fresh lanes in our sights!
Fuel turned out to be a priority for Gareth, so a quick detour brought us to a garage then we retraced some of our steps from the morning passing over some longer lanes in the southern Lakes. A chance encounter with a man and his wild boar had us laughing for a fair bit, it's not often you see an Aussie walking up the road with his pet wild boar!
Grisedale saw us stop at the Fox for a photo and then it was over to the Coach Road near Keswick to meet up with Lucy.
After a couple of lanes, the bag holding Gareth's tent and sleeping bag fell off and we had ridden a couple of lanes and some minor roads before this was noticed. Gareth needed fuel, so he set off to a nearby petrol station and Lucy & I backtracked, eventually finding the bag still on the Coach Road!
Lucy left us at Penrith to return home, so we rode on, eventually camping in a field overlooking the River Eden. We sat up drinking wine, eating pies and listening to the owls hunting before turning in for a good nights sleep.
7am the next morning dawned a little damp. I managed to spill my pan of water, leaving just enough for a coffee but no breakfast. So we packed up and set off, climbing up onto the Pennines where plenty of fun was to be found! Snow, we rode into a white out, then fresh soft snow on the surfaced roads which meant when we pulled into Alston for fuel, we also needed fuel for our bodies!
Sausage and bacon butties in the doorway under the heater with some hot chocolate, now that's a good way to start a day!
Our next couple of lanes saw us roll into more snow, the first lot turned us around so we back tracked to the surfaced roads and rode gingerly on. At the gateway to the next long lane, we met a gamekeeper who asked us to stick to the track as they were having some issues with lads riding illegally over their moorland.
We stuck to the track as much as we could, but on two occasions we ventured onto the edges which were above the deep soft snow as they were spoil heaps from gully clearance work done earlier in the year, recalling a bit of road law which states you can bypass an obstruction up to 15 yards so long as there is no damage or safety issue for others.
We met a second gamekeeper as we were nearing the end of the largest snow patch and had a good chat about things in general, really nice hard working folk, out in shite conditions because of some folk who think it's open season to ride on all open land...
We carried on our journey, with the snow getting thicker, then temperatures getting colder and us getting more and more soaked!
Gareth started to have problems with his tyre spinning on his rim, the rim lock was getting battered and had come loose, this had damaged his tyre and was in danger of wrecking his rim, so at another petrol station, we decided to beat a retreat back to mine. the forecast was for heavier snow and rain and we still had a whole load of unknown rivers to cross, we were now soaked and Gareth's bike needed some TLC.
Pub, log fire, beer and food was the ending to the day after a two hour tarmac road ride back to Cumbria!
Hey ho, try again in the summer when it's warmer and preferably after a dry spell so the rivers will be low...
Happy trails
