Getting out of Lancaster was slightly cumbersome as Adrian had navigational issues and Geoff needed to stop every 500 meters to take a picture and talk to motorists in the "rush hour " traffic. Once out of town Bobbo hit the front and started the pull towards Kendal. Progress was slow as the wind was blowing an absolute gale. We were riding straight into a head wind of 25 kmph with gusts of up to 45 kmph. It was seriously hard work particularly the 8km climb out of Kendal to Shap straight into the teeth of the wind. The reason why one rides from Lands Ends north is because the prevailing winds are favourable, well clearly not today. Views were beautiful but the boys were in bits and could not really appreciate it.
There was no relief at the top of the pass as we had to pedal hard to make any progress down hill. Coffee in Shap was a chance to rest and to ensure that spirits were not broken as it was clearly going to be a long long day. One of the team required 2 sausage rolls, a fruit scone and a date slice before we could persuade him get into the saddle again.
The next stop would be lunch in Scotland, what a treat. The wind did not hold up and we eventually rolled into Gretna for lunch at 15h30 - more broken but happy to be in Scotland.
Only 57km to Moffat and a beer. The wind had taken its toll and the pace dropped, some tried to boost their pace by passing turbo charged wind. This clearly did not help and we needed an extra stop at the Lockerbie truck stop.
Sounds like a really tough but also beautiful day guys. Well done for getting through that and now I wish you plane sailing to JOG!
ReplyDeleteGreat stuff - and good to see that the cyclist's reputation for calorie refuelling is being maintained!
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