Lakeland Fells

With the rather dull and damp weather we've been having lately climbing has taken a back seat so on Sunday I headed over to the Lakes to do a bit of fell walking.

I'd done some checking in my records and other than the three tops of Skiddaw, Great Calva and Blencathra done whilst recceing or doing the Bob Graham Round I'd only done two fells that I'd not done before 1990! (And one of those, Rosthwaite Fell, was done during the Borrowdale fell race).

An area that I'd only been to twice before was Martindale: once after work for a run on the northern end of the High Street ridge and once to climb at Thrang Crags (so good I never went nor wanted to go back). An early start saw me get to a parking spot at the end of the ridge of Beda Fell. 

Steady walking soon led to the summit and from there a long broad ridge led to Angletarn Pikes. Mostly uninteresting ground, only livened by a kestrel and coming across a stag - unfortunately he saw me as I was getting my camera out. A quick drop down to the tarn and then round to Brock Crags, which to be honest isn't the most prominent of tops. In fact a lot of the "tops" in this area are really little more than bumps and in somewhere like Scotland the whole range would only be considered as one or two tops.

After some lunch alone on the summit of Brock Crags I had a choice, either head east and pick up a couple of tops but this would mean leaving Place Fell as a lone top to come back for so I headed west and down to the col and then up the graded path towards its summit.

There were a few people round the summit but once I began heading back north along the ridge there were only a few walkers. The ridge had a steep drop down at the end but soon I was back at the car having another four tops in the bag.

Christmas Cracker Sportive 2011

It's been a while since I posted anything which is as much because I haven't really being doing a great deal. 

We had a rather greasy day at Giggleswick South a couple of weeks ago, even doing a route or two that I'd not done before. It's not a particularly good crag, though there are some good routes if you look around, so it's best treated as an outdoor climbing wall.

Most weekend activity has been biking in preparation for yesterday's Christmas Cracker Sportive in the Lakes, brought forward as the last two have been affected by severe weather. As it happened, the weather was glorious with not a cloud in the sky and little or no wind.

An early start saw us in Grasmere with me doing battle with the car park's telephone payment system - seven minutes of "press this button", "Did you mean ... ?" only to be told right at the end that my card type wasn't accepted! Coins in the slot worked. Registration done and once the safety info had been given out we were away.

The first mile or so is easy pedalling. This can't be said for the next half mile, also known as Red Bank. Whether it was the cold morning air or me just being out of condition I'm not sure, but there was some serious gasping going on. Fortunately that's the hardest climb on the whole route and I didn't feel too bad once I'd got warmed up. Going alongside Coniston Water I was grabbing an energy bar when I was passed by a couple of riders who were just that little bit faster than I was going so I got on to their back wheel and soon we were at the A590 crossing.

The next section is the fastest of the route and we got to the food stop at Cartmel just on the 2hr mark. I didn't stop too long as I was starting to chill so left them to enjoy the log fire and set off on the return leg. The start is actually the second big climb on the route but it's a series of short climbs of varying gradients and you don't really notice that you climb as much as you actually do, it's only the big descent back down to Haverthwaite that gives it away. Back across the A590 and then up through Rusland to Grizedale (via a short detour because of bridge repairs). I get to Grizedale in exactly three hours and grab an energy gel before the last of the big climbs over to Hawkshead.

A quick check of the cracking views of the eastern fells from the top of the climb before the steep descent down to Hawkshead (quite a few cyclists were heading the other way) then it was just rolling terrain to Ambleside, some of the climbs just seemed wrong and felt hard work whereas others felt OK. Finally there was just a busy (and semi submersed) Loughrigg Terrace where I got my only mechanical - my chain came off - then the main road back to Grasmere.

I clocked 3:49 of actual cycling time but there's the added time of the food stop which took it just over the four hour mark at 4:06. (Results here ) Even so, my time for last year's event, held in Feb this year(!) was 4:47 so much quicker. A quick change and some food later I sat in the sun waiting for Cath. She was also an hour quicker than her previous time so obviously some of the LEJOG fitness is still there.

A quick look at some bike porn in Staveley on the way home and the day was complete. Definitely tired when we got in to the house. This morning was quite frosty so a gentle ride in was in order, I took nearly as long as going home can do! I think it's time to swap to the old bike for the winter commutes.

Curbar

A sunny day's climbing in the Peak District at Curbar Edge on Saturday. This is another of those crags that I visited a few times in the early 1980s but have  not been to since.

Despite delaying getting on to the crag by having a cup of tea in Haversage the sun still hadn't got on to all the crag when we arrived. A few easy warm ups then Mike had a go at Green Crack. I struggled on this but inverted laybacks aren't my forte!

My jamming skills seem to have deserted me and I struggled on the next route, Inch Crack, which is nearer to four inches wide. Another couple of routes and the "Cloggy of the Peak" was getting the better of me. Mike and Gaz did another route before we called it a day and headed home. We didn't do anything hard but it was nice to be out on the rock on such a lovely day.

Sunday we'd decided to get the garden in to shape for winter as there's unlikely to be another opportunity to work with dry soil.

Today was the first day of autumn when I've had to wear long leggins when biking in to work. In fact it was cool enough to need them on the way home as well. I've not biked much this week as the weather has been decidedly autumnal and wild. There's the Christmas Cracker sportive coming up in a few weeks so  I need to get some miles in on the bike before then.

BGR Club Dinner

Last night it was the biennial Bob Graham Club dinner and certificate presentation at the Shap Wells Hotel. The hotel is an old coaching inn located off the A6 which before the M6 was built was the main western road route in to Scotland. It's still used by coach parties but last night it was essentially taken over by around 360 club members, partners and guests.

Normally the dinner is a celebration but this year was the first following Fred Rogerson's death and the first at which he had never been present. An additional sad point was the recent news of the death of Bill Smith who had been out on the Bowland Fells and become stuck in a peat bog and died. It is believed that he had been there for three weeks before his body was discovered. It is perhaps a sad reflection on our times that if he had died at home or in an old people's home only the fell-running community would have taken note but the circumstances of his death led to the spotlight being cast on the somewhat out of sight world of fell-running and Bill's magnificent but understated contribution to it. Sizeable articles in national newspapers and mentions on national media are not something that Bill would have sought but decent men deserve recognition and Bill was definitely that.

The last two years have seen a lot of successes on the BGR and there were nearly 180 certificates to hand out. This meant that a bit of logistical jiggery-pokery and Selwyn Wright had Fred's three daughters along with the new ladies 24hr record holder, Nicky Spinks, to do the hand shaking. And so, two by two we managed to get through the presentations without taking too much time away from the evening's dancing and Ceilidh. Also noteworthy was the presentation, only the 17th ever, of an associate membership to Ian Roberts who has been supporting long distance rounds throughout the UK for many years. He didn't actually know it was him being talked about until perhaps a minute before his name was actually announced!

One of the reasons I was there was to see a couple of mates receive their certificates having been successful earlier this year -  Andy Kitts  and Steve Brock - both of whom had not long ago stated that they weren't interested in the BG along with Simon Cox who did a very quick time around the 19hr20 mark! I'm not sure of the figures but there did seem to be quite a few women among the recipients, certainly higher than the 6% or so of the existing membership, one of these was Nicky Jaquiery who I'd helped on leg three on a very hot day last year. By a quirk of chance the guy sat next to me, Andy Nicoll, was one of the contenders who went round on the same wild, wet day as Fred's Run and whose support team we'd met coming down Rossett Gill.

Formalities out of the way, copious amounts of beer was drunk(!) with Andy K providing me with suitably embarrassing introductions to various people - "This is Bob, you've used his website."! There were a few suggestions for extra content not all of which are feasible, someone suggested commercialising it with adverts which I have absolutely no intention of doing, my hosting costs aren't huge so there is no pressing need to recover them. Eventually after a lot of chat I dossed down in the car at about 2:30am. A good night!

The weather this morning was absolutely yukk, so just had a steady drive back through the Dales. It's yukk down here as well :-(

Water

Water is one of those utilities you take for granted unless, that is, your house is on a private supply as is ours. Three weeks ago we ran out of water - "but it's been horrible and wet" might be the response, yes it has but it hasn't actually put that much rain down, the wetness was usually a damp drizzle. Things weren't helped by the fact that the storage tank in the field is also the source for the water trough used by around twenty cows and you can't ask them to drink less.

We were helped to some extent by being away on holiday for one week which should have allowed the tank in the field to fill up which it did but we still had no water. It's no fun when you have to fetch all the water you need: every litre weighs one kilogram (they are SI units after all) so you really know just how much water you are using. Nipping out to the garden water butt to get a bucket of water every time you want to use the loo makes you think about each flush. Washing clothes meant nipping down to the nearest  lauderette, a bit of a cheat but you can't subject others to too much smell!

This last weekend was spent digging up the feed pipe trying to locate a joint where one of the neighbours had cut it with his spade when sorting out some drainage. I'd misremembered where this was so it took a bit of finding (read as more digging)

New stop valves and access sleeves on our water feed.

With the joint found we split the pipe and tried pushing water back through it - the neighbours are on a bore hole and can pump water around. With all sections clear we replaced the joint with stop valves so that we could access and push water up or down the pipe in either section independently. Except it didn't work! Water would get to our header tank if fed via the bore hole with its extra pressure but not if fed from the field tank. It seemed like there was an air lock that the pressure of the tank couldn't get past.

Got home this evening to find that the system seems to have corrected itself and the header tank is now filling from the field tank. Phew!!

On a slightly different note, one of our cats proudly brought in a fully grown rabbit on Sunday morning. Fortunately I managed to grab him before he got under the bed to begin dismembering it!

Mine! Give me back my rabbit!

Scottish sunshine and showers

I got back last night from a week's mountain biking in Scotland. The weather wasn't as bad as first predicted (booking holiday time off from work two months in advance has its disadvantages) but certainly wasn't wall to wall sunshine.

We started with a ride near Sanquhar which was very boggy and very windy, in fact we cut the ride short because of the wind and struggled to pedal down a 20% road from Wanlockhead (the highest village in Scotland) as it was that strong.

On the Sunday we watched the Tour of Britain bike race go over the Devil's Beeftub pass - I was surprised just how much noise 100 cycles on the road make - louder than the support vehicles though perhaps our ears are accustomed to that. We then headed north to Aviemore. This was fortunate since the main path of the remnants of hurricane Katia actually passed over southern Scotland and northern England and the weather further north wasn't too bad.

Our first ride was an easy one up Glen Einich. Mostly vehicle track with a short section of singletrack and a couple of fords.

We may not have been rained on but we still got wet feet! Glen Einich

The next day we rode around in Glen Feshie on some excellent singletrack.

Some of the lovely singletrack in Glen Feshie.

Riding through some rather deep heather above Glen Feshie

After some man-made attractions at Laggan Wolftrax we began heading south and did a great ride up Glen Tilt and round the Beinn a Ghlo massif - this ride but in reverse as the singletrack is better that way. For once the sun was out and we saw a huge herd of deer, maybe 100 animals, and a red squirrel - definitely a red letter day.

Nearing the head of Glen Tilt

Some remote path to the east of the Beinn a Ghlo massive.

Pretty well every day we got back to the car about ten minutes before a cloud burst. However pretty well every ride had a river crossing of some sort that meant wading! But then that's the nature of biking out in the wilds.

Skipton Sportive 2011

So the day finally dawned ( a dull grey as it happens) and I dutifully headed off to Aireville school in Skipton. It looked like I was going to be on my own as the two Andrews had decided to only do the short version even though they'd entered the longer ride.

Once registered and set up with the timing kit I was ready to go. The route was a bit different from that initially promoted with a teasing set of warm-up climbs on a loop through Stirton then it's a convoluted route to get to Malham and the first big climb of the day, the Cove Road. I've been down this but only gone up on a mountain bike. Fortunately the difficulties are short lived and soon I'm passing the photographers to hit the rolling section over to Arncliffe. Well it's rolling as far as Darnwood House, then there's a steep bit, a very steep bit that's about 800m long. (The OS map has the steep bit at the top but it's actually the bottom bend) Lungs bursting I head over to Arncliffe and down Littondale, getting to the food stop at Kettlewell four minutes later than my 2hr target.

Refreshed and restocked it was time for the big 'un - Fleet Moss. I'd done this a couple of months ago with Cath again on a mountain bike. Time to see what it was like on a roadster. Hard is the answer! It was  the first time I've used the lowest gear on this bike, even so it was just fifteen minutes from Oughtershaw to the summit. The descent was a blast, even holding back I got past 70Kph which is a bit scary on a road you haven't ridden before.

I was looking forward to a nice ride down Wensleydale but the organisers had other ideas taking us up to Semer Water via some nasty climbs. Then down to Bainbridge and across to the other side of the valley. I got caught by a couple of riders who asked if I wanted to join them. Cue a 3 man chain gang blast at between 45 & 48Kph down to Redmire and the second food stop. Time to here was just over 4 hours.

The other two soon left me behind on the next section and I just managed to catch them at the start of the climb over to Coverdale but at this point a general lack of biking fitness kicked in and I got left behind, this time for good. After a nasty little loop that seemed to serve no purpose other than to put more climbs in to the route it was time for the long drag up Coverdale. Not my finest hour! I ended up having to walk the two steepest sections on the final climb to the col. Then it was just the headlong rush down Park Rash to the final food stop in Kettlewell.

The final section down through Grassington and Burnsall then over Halton Heights is best characterised by my attempts, not always successful, to avoid cramp. Embarrassingly, I had to stop just 300m from the finish. A few stretches and I crossed the line in 7hrs20mins (though the official time will be a bit longer since that doesn't take in to account the stops).

Some food then the bike home. I managed the first hill but the big one I just got off and walked (thanks to the biker who stopped because he thought I was in trouble!!). The cramps nearly returned on the final slight incline.

Unfortunately rehydrating is going to be slightly hampered by the fact that our water ran out yesterday morning - bottled water and beer then!