Wind, wind and more wind

Hello again.

Since I last posted I have been on holiday. We had booked the whole week off and went up to the Lake District on Friday - in an attempt to avoid all the royal wedding hype (although I have to admit, she did look rather lovely).

I haven't been on my bike (apart from testing the new chain I fitted) since my little accident - my thumb has been really sore and swollen - but we took the bikes with us just in case...

We stayed at Burns Farm, just outside Keswick, with views from the tent of Skiddaw and Blencathra. It was beautifully sunny, showing the hills at their best, but it was also very clear from putting the tent up that it was rather windy, but we persevered and decided that on Saturday we were going up Skiddaw - see below - if it wasn't raining.

The rain exclusion applies because every time we've been with the intention of going up high the weather has been crap and there have been no views - well what's the point in going up a hill if you can't se the scenery when you get up there??

After a scary windy (and cold) night we woke up to a beautiful view of wind-wrecked tents and glorious blue skies so after a hearty breakfast (of leftover chilli) we kitted up and headed off along the disused railway track to start our ascent. What an awful ascent - so windy we had to, on occasion, drop to the floor to stop getting blown over. No fun, but we figured we'd started so we'd finish. The summit was ridiculous, but it was worth it for the views out to sea and back inland - amazing:

The descent was a sketchy scree/shale slope that gave way underfoot and by the time we got back down to civilisation our nerves were shredded, not to mention our toes. We walked into Keswick for some grub and then back to the campsite.

15 miles in about 6 hours of walking - hard work, but worth it.

The next day we were fit for nothing, so we just kicked around Ambleside and looked at shiny things and walked to Castlerigg stone circle for the sunset. It appears lots of others did too, but we still got some beautiful pics - see gratuitous sunset pics below:

My version - I'm not too proud to lay in cow poo to get my shot.

Julian's version - way better technically, but I still think mine is prettier. :-)

 The next day we were STILL fit for nothing, but decided we'd brought the bikes so we were damn well going to use them, and got ourselves kitted up and headed to Whinlatter Forest where there are purpose built bike trails.

We got there and I taped my thumb very firmly so that it would not move, and off we went.

Well, it was amazing. Desolate and beautiful with some great singletrack climbs - turns out switchbacks ain't my thing but J rocks at them. He made up for it on a steep track cut into the hillside - a scottish chap had headed up in front of him and wobbled and stopped and wobbled and stopped and eventually reached the turn. J did similar about half way up and they were having a chat about how tough it was and J said to him "when I set off I tend to weeble a bit and obviously the consequences of that are pretty stiff". He then set off, weebled and fell down a 10 foot slope on the the trail below. Ooops. With nothing more than a scuffed visor on his helmet and lots of stones in his shoes, he picked himself up, dusted himself off and pushed back up the path.

He has learned to fall - rather than tensing up like us occasional fallers, he goes limp like a ragdoll and just goes with it. It seems to work...

More climbing until we reached the summit - well worth the grind.

The rest of the ride was fairly uneventful apart from one more fall where it appears he smashed his little camera up. Ooops.

We were both a bit wary on the way back down but got back to the car in tact, dusty and smiling.

As we left the trail there was a notice up for a guy we'd seen taking pics of riders, so I signed on when we got home and bought this photo of me. Not exciting, but I love it.

One last photo for this entry - the view from my thermarest. I think you will agree, as views go, it is pretty darned fine. <contented sigh>

You know my (and Julian's) poor attention span and so by Tuesday we'd had enough of the wind, so we packed up early and came home, still marvelling at the amazing blues skies and lack of rain. And bloodshed.

More later - I'm bored of writing, so you MUST be bored of reading...

Oh, just one last thing, the bike appears to have been named Big Red and following the running successes on my previous post, I got my local time trial route done in under 30 minutes! Well pleased. :-) But slightly worried, because the next target time is 25 minutes and I think that may just finish me off...