Day seven

A landmark day in the ride.

Today we pushed past the 500 miles mark, 7 days of cycling, now up through Lancashire and into Cumbria. Tomorrow is our rest day, and Sunday we will have made it into Scotland.

After the fiasco of the morning and having to blaze through 20 miles of inner city urban rubbish-ness, we found 50 miles of quiet country lanes taking us up through the Lancashire cycle highway. We also found demanding hills and energy snapping wind and rain.

The scenery was quite outstanding. We zigzagged north, just west of the Yorkshire Dales, finishing up south east of the lake district, not far from Kendal. On many occasions we seemed to be out of sight of all humanity. The middle of nowhere, just the odd car coming from one side of nowhere to the other (or t'other as they say it up here).

The day before, we were debating whether to stick with the original hard going 85 miles, the short, easy but dull A-road route, or even a third middle-of-the-road route. We went for the 85 miler, it seemed noone wA thinking any different, even those carrying injuries. We all wanted to take in the views.

After a nasty rain shower we stopped for lunch where James set the world record for largest slice of cake ever (presumably making up for his previous banana disaster) and we pedalled on up into the moors. Here we had to tackle some significant climbs, 3 looming hills within a fifteen mile stretch, each progressively worse. The third climb was immense. Some of the riders rated it harder than Dartmoor. Some said the hardest day by far. I broke out from the front of the group, keen as always to make the summit at my own pace. It was a long twisty path, completely open and exposed. I was trying to foresee the road, map it out in my mind, work out where to kick for home. Kick to early and you kill yourself, don't kick at all and you always have that 'could have done it faster' feeling. I had to crane my neck just to see the top, I couldn't see the road at all, couldn't pinpoint the summit. Tom had told me the height at the bottom but I'd forgotten... then I saw a car that had been past me about a minute ago, winding its way far into the distance. The kick was still ages away, so I sat back and just kept the pedals turning. The wind seemed to be hitting me from all angles at the same time. Even on the flatter parts I was barely moving. I just remember the road twisting left, right, all over the place.... a small waterfall on the right, a pretty steep drop to the left. With my knee roaring with complaint and my lungs just about bursting, the time to kick came. I stood up on the pedals and mashed them as hard as I could, Bianca piercing me through the wind and soaring me over the cattle grid up to the summit.

The view from the top was incredible. My camera not good enough to capture the moment, but it felt pretty cool to be up there. The other riders soon followed, all of them equally jubilant at our achievement. The next few miles were quite glorious, along the top of the ridge we had just climbed. The sun even came to say hello and we made progress at a fair speed, dodging lambs, sheep and bunnies that seem to think its ok to cross the road without looking.

Eventually with 75 miles in our legs, the pace slowed. We knew there was one final climb. A final stop for tea was even mooted but the cafe was closed. Lots of tricky up and downs got us home, each of them seemed to start with a different rider yelling 'is this the last hill?' No one was broken, but exhaustion was setting in. The final 10 miles were rather uncomfortable for me. Let's just say I was carrying a full load and happy to find the bathroom vacant when I got to the cottage.

Tomorrow is our day of rest. I shall spend some of it feeling proud of how far we've come together and how well everyone has done. I shall spend the rest of it thinking that we're only half way there, and everything we have done this week we have to do again, starting with a trip to Gretna on Sunday. 92 miles....

It should be noted that Yorky broke off from the group after breakfast. Training for an ironman comp he wanted to smash it all the way to the end. He took the same route as the rest and got here ages before us, without stopping. Must have been an immense effort to keep the legs turning for so long, to keep motivated riding solo, to tackle the bad weather and the tough climbs. Very well done to him.