What Goes Up Must Come Down

I am currently sitting in my room at the Moorings Hotel in Chester Le Street, County Durham, UK. By this time tomorrow our UK ride will be completed but we will all be returning to Australia with a huge store of memories and impressions of the amazing experiences we have had.

The last two days have been the hardest of our entire trip and really stretched some of our riders mentally and physically. We all knew that riding across the UK from West to East would take us across the line of mountains that constitutes the backbone of the country. What we did not anticipate was that the roadmakers would run their roads directly into the face of a mountain, without making any deviation to reduce the gradient. This provides the aspiring cyclist with a series of gut busting climbs at gradients far higher than any you are likely to meet in Australia.

Our ride yesterday took us across 4 of these high and desolate mountain passes. Even with our lowest granny gears engaged the climbing is still tough, especially for those of us who aren’t built like toothpicks. It was hard going and certainly harder than the “moderate” rating this trip had been given. In fact for some it was the hardest riding they had ever done.

As we got higher and higher we entered a desolate realm of treeless barren hills that reminded me of the images we see of riders approaching the tops of the climbs in the Tour de France. Speaking of the Tour de France, it actually started yesterday, not all that far away from where we were riding. Quite a few of the locals apparently took the opportunity to ride down to watch the Tour riders pass by and it certainly got a lot coverage in the local media.

As we crossed over each successive summit we then enjoyed a period of wonderful downhill riding, but the enjoyment is always tinged with the fearful knowledge that every metre of vertical height we dropped would soon have to be clawed back with blood, sweat and tears when we reached the next climb.

Late in the afternoon our exhausted riders finally reached Allenheads and were dismayed to find that our accommodation was in one of the highest buildings in the village. No wonder that most of us pushed our bikes up the steep and winding driveway to the Old School House, which was to be our home for the evening. This was a no frills B &B that necessitated most of us to sleep in small dormitories. Fortunately we were all so tired that none of us could be kept awake by even the loudest of snoring and flatulence.

Although yesterday was always going to be the toughest single day of the ride we also knew that today was also going to be challenging as we still had two significant gut busters of climbs to complete before we could finally start the long descents into County Durham.

The first ascent began as soon as we left Allenheads and provided a real challenge for cold legs. We climbed into a barren but beautiful series of rolling moors. This region was once home to numerous lead mines and the ruins of numerous old mines and small, now uninhabited, villages were passed as we rode along the high roads. After morning tea at Stanhope we immediately began the final huge climb of the ride. This was tough but we were buoyed by the knowledge that the really hard work was nearly over.

Finally we turned from the main road and joined the “Waskerley Trail”. This provided us with some of the most delightful cycling I have ever done anywhere in the world. It began high in the moors and initially followed the path of a disused railway line. As we rode on for kilometre after kilometre the terrain gradually changed to shady tree lined paths interspersed with towering bridges, tunnels and viaducts. This really is cyclists’s heaven and I am surprised that it is not publicised more as I am sure that many would travel from around the world to enjoy the experience.

The bike path took us almost of the way to our destination at Chester le Street, but of course our hotel had to be perched on the highest mountain in the district, necessitating one final climb for the long day.

Tomorrow we have a relatively short ride to Sunderland where we will reach the east coast of the UK and the tradition is that we will have to dip our front wheels in the water, just as we dipped our rear wheels in the water at Ulverston. That will mark the end of our ride and the separation of our riders as they each make their own ways back to Australia. I am sure that this will be a ride that none of us will ever forget.Read more