Easy
Riders...
"Let's try one of the most excellent routes from our sister
site Offroad Adventures'' we said. We should find one of their one
day routes pretty easy. Ha. As we hadn't ridden much in the lakes we
chose the very promising looking 'High Street' route and took the
author's advice, starting from Sandwick Church rather than the More
accessible Pooley Bridge. The narrow lakeside road was busy on the
day and we had a few near misses, ending up scratching the side of
the car on the machine cut hedge, so if you do start along here be
warned. The last 500 yards to the church are up the steepest and
tightest tarmac turns we've ever driven on, park near the church and
gear up for a long day. The ride starts with a mile on tarmac then
goes left, straight up a just do-able, rock strewn grass bridleway.
This bridle has the feel of a lakeside footpath, the kind that you
would salivate about riding if only access laws were more liberal. A
twisted tale
With loads of
rocky steps and challenges it certainly gets the day off to a good
start. One or two of the numerous short climbs and drops will have
all but the best of you wrong footed. This tough CyB style trail has
the first of some of this rides exceptional lakeside views, don't
get too wrapped up in your technique to appreciate them! After
a mile or two of this the route includes a possible diversion for
the very keen riders, this must be us we reasoned, so we took the
crazy steep boulder slope climb off to the left. After a good deal
of pushing and shoving the optional detour reaches a small green
plateau before a lovely grassy descent. The twist in the
tail of this little trail is a narrow quarry style section and a
rock drop-off which caught me napping. I planted my front wheel on a
handy rock which tipped and sent me up and over to get properly
acquainted with the very attractive local stone, up close and
personal. No damage done. I set off after Tom and Matt
for a short drop down to our first road section and a quick diversion to a fantastically well stocked village post office which seemed to have everything from Kendal Mint Cake to mp3 players, useful. A bit more road brings you to a farm track with a steady start followed by a 1 in 4 section which would make Tinker Juarez sweat. At the top of this, all of which is ride-able unfortunately, is a small lake flanked by impossibly steep grass 'cliffs'. A quick check on the map and it's clear the route hacks pretty much straight up one of them. Ouch. After a good old climb things start to get even tougher with the addition of some 'mini' peat bogs and a fair bit of diverting and bog-hopping. Sherpa! are we
nearly there yet?
There pretty
much isn't a path at this point, but it doesn't matter, just bear
right up the steep section and a trail develops once more. Following
the trail East soon brings you to another climb this time up a very
loose and stony double-track. Have we given you the impression
there's a lot of climbing yet? Good. When you do reach the top of
this final pitch, apart from light-headedness and a sense of
euphoria we put down to the early signs of altitude sickness, you
really do feel on top of the world. The view down to the lake below
alone is worth the effort you've expended. The trail continues to
challenge you with numerous embedded Slabs and holes, no chance of
spinning away the miles on this loop. 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'.
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 streams crossing 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.