"This is a great day in the saddle with many great views as you pass through the spectacular Cumbria scenery. A tough start will take you through the Forest of Bowland & up to the heights of the ‘Cross of Greet’ before the superb descent to High Bentham"
"A tough start" = 2.9 miles of climb after a 50m downhill before a short drop and a climb for the next 3.1 miles to "The Cross of Greet". At 3.5 miles rain started to fall and this would continue for most of the day, only easing as we road alongside Rydal Water.
It was a tough and miserable day but had many highlights, some sweeping down hills, a great lunch at "The Crooklands Hotel" voted by us all as one of the best carvery lunches ever, a lovely coffee stop at Windermere, actually tea and plum bread was consumed rather than coffee.
Overall we did around 69 miles and 4800 ft at 12.0 mph (I will confirm stats later as Garmin went flat)
Many of the riders were suffering from the cold and the wet, (Evans cycles in Kendal is likely to have done a good trade in waterproof equipment) and one dropped out at around 40 miles with "nothing left to give" he is now at hospital being checked over! Hopefully nothing will be wrong.
As yet (at 18:30) it appears that only 30% or so of the riders have made it into Keswick.
No comments:
Post a Comment