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Addiscombe Oop North
Porridge, Pints and Special Pies
For ages, Jason has been planning our
expedition to the Lake District; a well-orchestrated convergence of half a
dozen people from places as far apart as Cambridge, Croydon and Clapham.
Finally, the big day came, and I cycled over to Euston carrying a rucksack
that weighed slightly more than I did, only to find out that they'd run
out of trains, due to some signals-related silliness. Undaunted, I soon
found Jason and his banana coloured Bullit, and we got aboard the train to
Preston. After a nutritious lunch of some salt and vinegar crisps and a
Danish pastry, we got another train or two to Arnside.
Next morning, I felt terrible. Partly that
was to do with being presented with the scariest bowl of porridge that
I've seen in my life, and partly from the after effects of too many
microwaved mushrooms in the Ship the night before, but probably mostly to
do with drinking 8 pints of lager after that nutritious lunch. Still, no
time to be lost - straight into the car and then down to Lake Windermere,
where I completed my pre-ride preparations by vomiting into a bush.
We take the ferry across Windermere, and
then began by riding around the lake, before climbing up into the
surrounding hills, and then riding down to Hawkshead. By then I'd learnt
two things: riding is not very nice when you're hungover, and there are
lots of rocks in the Lake District. In Croydon, a rock is a rare
occurrence, a bit like a Ford Escort in New Addington that's got its
wheels and isn't on fire. Round Hawkshead, there's hardly anything that
isn't a rock. I was wondering why they didn't just call it the Rock
District. Everyone else was unfazed by this, and I pootled along very
slowly behind them. To encourage me, a man in a yellow cagoule came out
from behind a bush and said "you're not taking any chances, are
you?" as I negotiated a rock at three miles an hour. I showed him his
error by riding through a holly bush, and then rejoined the others at the
bottom of the hill.
Lunch was in Hawkshead; a delicious banana
and some chewing gum for me, and then off up another great big hill. This
seemed to drag on for ages, and the few flickers of energy were hardly
enough to get me to the top. A fast bit of fire road took us to the Stone
Fox. Now, Jason's friend Shaun had a B-17 "and a downhill bike."
I used to think Jason's B-17 was a downhill bike ... Thus intimations of
doom filled my mind - I was not disappointed by another steep rocky
descent, which the others rode twice - I stayed down at the bottom and
felt a bit ill. Great downhill though, with lots of rocks to jump off or
over, or to slither down nauseously.
Meanwhile, the sun was shining. I was
expecting the skies to open at any moment, but while the south-east of
England was being washed away by torrential rains, it was a fine clear day
in the Lakes. We rode past Beatrix Potter's cottage, and then up another
hill. I ended up pushing my bike so much that I began to worry that I'd
gone on a walking holiday by accident. However, the trail then went
downhill again, through a heap more rocks and down to the edge of the Lake
again. We rode back to the ferry, and returned to the cars.
At the youth hostel, the cheerful warden
told me I 'looked like ****.' Well, thank you very much. I resolved not to
make the mistake of the previous night. I'd have a quiet evening, recover
properly and be fresh on Saturday. Except we all ended up in Passions,
Kendal's premier nightspot, following one of Jason's friends on his stag
night, and staring in amazement at the army of no-necked, bow tie wearing
bouncers striding around. We got back to the hostel at 4.30 that morning,
having left Jason propping up a wall somewhere.
Meeting him the next day, he looked as bad
as I'd felt the day before. And it was chucking it down with rain. We
drove through to Elterwater, through heavy rain, and then tried to park
up, but the village was full of ramblers. Eventually we all found places
to park, and a little while later managed to rendezvous for the start of
the ride.
This involved more rocks, after a torturous
climb up on the road. Then we hit the rocks again: a short, steep start,
and then some fast singletrack along the hillside. I almost rode off the
side, looking at the beautiful view of the lake, which would have
impressed the ramblers no end. A quick dip of the wheels in the water, and
then up another rocky path before the descent to Ambleside.
We had a short interlude here, where I
spent half an hour fitting a mudguard (the work of five minutes if you're
not an utter incompetent) and Rob heard some strange voice telling him not
to buy anything in the bicycle shop. Then back to the trail; up a really
hard loose ascent; painful but really cheering to get up. I made sure I
held open as many gates as possible, in order to get a few moments rest,
and then found myself going slower downhill than uphill again. Luckily
Jason had given me a chance to catch up, by having one of the jockey
wheels from his rear derailleur fall out. The fastest thing to do was ride
down the hill and then go back round to Ambleside, so off we went, Jason
managing to stay up front by jogging along with his bike on the uphill
bits, and tearing off on the downhills. I skidded down after everyone as
best I could, careering through the climbing ramblers and always managing
to contact a dry stone wall whenever I saw any human beings.
Once Jason had a new jockey wheel, we set
off back through Elterwater, up through the slate quarry and another rooty,
rocky climb. Andy, Jo and I lost the others, and took the natural route
down, over a wide slate track with the odd drop off and rather too much
water and rocks for my comfort. It was, of course, the wrong route, so
then we had to ride back up again to get going in the right direction. I
was perturbed to find that I was indeed riding faster up the hill than
down it; this seemed spectacularly unfair, especially since I'd gone and
bought a tire with 'DH' written on the side, specially to go faster
downhill. Oh well. At least we'd had a bonus descent. Or a bonus climb.
The next bit of trail was fast, sweeping
down through some huge puddles (it was only drizzling all day, but the
rain from a few days ago hadn't dried out yet), and then the next thing I
remember was the river crossing. Like obedient Lakeland sheep, we all
followed Jason into the river, and then found we couldn't ride all the way
through. Tony took a spectacular early bath, submerging half his body in
the chilly water, while only Andy was smart enough to take the bridge over
instead. Still, at least we had clean bicycles for the next twenty yards.
All this we followed with a loose slate
climb, up to the road where a dog as big as a pony was eying us rather
suspiciously, and then a long road descent back to the valley. All these
changes in altitude were wearing me out; but we only had two big climbs
left; some horror on the road, and then following that a little later, a
long climb off road, to the top of the last hill. Here Rob dished out
Maltesers to keep us all going, and then it was downhill all the way back
to the cars.
More well-deserved beer followed, and then
we carried on at the Fighting Cocks, a pub that Jason assured us was named
after vicious chickens, rather than some perverted behaviour by the people
of Arnside, where we drank obscure German lager and stuffed ourselves with
food. Getting back to the youth hostel that night, we found ourselves
unable to open the door. After some banging and pressing the doorbell, an
enraged bald chap appeared, telling us that we knew the door was locked at
11.30, and the special door code didn't work after that. We could have
pointed out that the previous night we made it back in at 4, but that
would have been pressing the point a bit too far. Instead, we ran up
stairs and took cover, knowing in the morning the warden would be far more
distracted by the rabble of boy scouts overdosing on sugar.
To finish, we went down to the promenade,
for a celebratory pie. Rob strode confidently into the pie shop, and asked
for "one of your special pies". Well, Jason had said they were
pretty special. This seemed to startle the woman in the shop, but he ended
up with a pie eventually. We sat on the end of the pier, marvelling that
Jason could ride up any hill, let alone all of them, on a full-sus bike
with a 40-tooth front ring and unable to change down into bottom gear
(because the cable outer on his derailleur was frayed apart), and watching
a rather curious chap catch flatfish from the lake. Then all that was left
was to watch some man extricate himself from the quicksand on the beach,
and then drive home.
All in all, a great weekend: great weather
(even if it rained), great hills (even if we did have to ride down them as
well as up) and great nights out (even if I ended up drinking slightly
more lager than might be wise). I'm still grinning now, two days later,
even though I've got a wisdom tooth coming through my jaw and I've got to
clean the mud off my bike.
James Foreman
October 2001
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