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We took the opportunity to continue along the high street trail and it turns in to a blast of a descent. Notice we'd foolishly added another section, ah the innocence of youth! The solid rock surface had us flying along and sailing off every fade and launching pad, until we ran out of road at the monument and stopped to take in views as far as the coast, or was that a lake in the distance? We decided it was the sea for artistic reasons and turned around to beat a swift retreat up the magic trail of moments ago. After back-tracking for a mile or so you return down the now suspension-busting slope of stones and then cross the broken wall to your right.
Cold
Chocolate
We stopped to pay homage to another mind enhancing view of a steep sided valley and lake, then hit bottom cog for a leg searing lunge to the moor top. Bear left as the climb flattens and begin the slowly rolling plug across the foam rubber and chocolate fudge wasteland. We met a bunch of riders half way across who were following a similar route and pointed them in the right direction. They seemed a little aghast that they'd covered less of the crossing than they had imagined. We were a bit upset for ourselves too, but the GPS foretold our immediate future better than Cruella's crystal ball, 'miles to go before you sleep'.
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At length the final boggy hillock was passed over and we gathered speed on a wonderful grassy singletrack which drops and swerves in great style down towards the North end of the lake. Once this levels out we cut across left to join a trail headed back down towards the shore again. This is another terrific trail, although we were at the end of a very dry week there were too many
stream crossings to count. The feeling of flying along a natural path in the late afternoon sunshine with one of England's most captivating views enfolding in front of you just can't be beaten. We walked the short section of road according to the (bizarre?) wishes of the owners and headed up the last climb. I'd been dreading this as our position and loss of altitude left me with the sneaky suspicion we'd have an even steeper climb than on the road that morning... In the end we hadn't lost all our height and the climb wasn't as heinous as I'd feared.
We blasted down the last thirty foot drop to the car and gave thanks we'd made it. Funny how it felt at once like the day had flown by and at the same time an age since we had set off that morning. What a beautiful, brutal, soul satisfying, body-busting bike ride it had been.
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