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I
fought the law...
Retracing our wheeltracks, we go back down the track and over to no 8 in a small wood above West Cocklake. We think we're on a roll now, but get overtaken by a couple on a fully rigid tandem on a steep and slippery downhill, they only have rim brakes! We find later when we returned the following day that the road was so slippery that we could hardly walk on it! We then hit the road up to no 6 at Moscow (no, not THE Moscow) and do a bit of a sneaky shortcut back to the A686 to nab No. 11 up a long and heart-rending BOAT over Ouston Fell into a 25mph headwind, we then return and get back on the main road, heaving with badly-ridden motorbikes.
We left the road after a while to bag no 12, then a mad downhill to Whitfield, Matt has already (surprise!) broken 2 spokes! We fix them in a pub garden and partake of a welcome Kronenbourg apiece.
I
fought the law...
Onward to checkpoint 16, then a mean climb and sickening loss of altitude back down to no 17 at Oakpool bridge (2 chevrons), getting really tired now, we ascend the other side of the valley, and with fading legs reach the start of the bridleway that parallels 'Old Flue' - an industrial archaeologists dream. Unfortunately a pack of bozos on horses want to ride up at their own pace, so we have to keep overtaking them, then pushing the pace to keep ahead, then wait for them to gallop past etc, we were completely knackered at the top! We take a breather and eat more hateful energy bars after we've clicked in at no 18 then continue the evil climb to rejoin the road. Chest pains and gallons of surging lactic acid are forgotten and we rejoice at the lovely downhill, and after this it's all a downward, slightly undulating road to the overnight camp at Knockburn. We arrive in with a few minutes to spare and rapidly establish camp on a flat pitch. Our diddy little MSR pocket rocket stove is soon on boiling yukky river water for a cup-a-soup each, which warms us up and puts some much-needed fluid and salts back into us.
And
the law won
To our surprise, we have gained 170 points and have done as well as we could, we can't be bothered to check the interim results later, as we are too cosy in our sleeping bags. We checked them at one event and found we were placed 10th, so overdid the celebrations too much and cocked up the following day! Matt gets a 4-pack of beer from the organizers tent and we retire for a couple of hours of rest. Our neighbours, Dan and Dave are a skinny, whippetty and chatty couple of young lads from Shrewsbury so we have a great time bragging and joking with them. We feel great because they think they've done well with 100 points! Both are a bit sick when we let it slip that a couple of old fatties have done better! We have our first Marks & Spencer Jalfrezi curry, rice and naan's and start to chill out with the gin & tonic premixes we have lugged about all day. Whatever anyone says, we think that a man rides on his stomach, and if you have lush grub and lux' drinks to look forward to, you ride better. As its now dark, we can pee on other people bikes instead of queuing for the traumatically over-used portable toilets.
Feel
that real mountain?
We spend most of the evening telling tall tales and pissing about with the Shrewsbury boys, they are our new best mates! We have our last M&S curry, a particularly good Balti at 9PM and retire to our sleeping bags contented, with a full phone signal as well. Even I manage to sleep for once instead of rotating all night in discomfort like a chicken on a rotisserie! Something large is heard in our bin bag nibbling in the night so I chuck the whole lot over to Dans tent for them to deal with.
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We wake in alarm at about 5AM to the chilling sound of a pack of wolves howling, a quick peek out of the tent porch is inconclusive, but we reason that it must be dogs! The rest of the camp has woken up at all this and very soon a dismal queue of cold and achy bikers is forming for the horrendous toilets in a spiteful light rain, oh well. Just the despised energy bars for brekky, if it ain't bacon and eggs its worthless! The water is straight from the river and tastes disgustingly of leaves, 3 puritabs make it slightly safer but even worse tasting! We set out again up to the start, we don't stop at the giveout but shoot straight up to no 19, where we decide on our route, remove a layer now we are warmed up and figure we have saved 10 minutes of mucking about. We head back in a reverse of yesterdays route, but pick up no 22 and find a low level attack point to the old flue again. We retrace our wheeltracks to 17 and then 16. We also make a quick stop at a post office for some better tasting drinks and some cakes. Matt isn't eating, which is a silly thing to do!
For a while we follow a couple of other competitors, an attractive oriental girl riding very well and her hubby. Matt and I make up some private dirty jokes and my all-in-the mind-MP3 player inexplicably changes from tracks of Joy Division 'Unknown Pleasures' to an eternal loop of Bowies 'China Girl' which I grunt out occasionally when the pain gets to baaaad up the hill of torment to no 12. The pain doesn't end as we struggle against a 20mph headwind along the road to the head of the track above no 6. Matt decides to change inner tubes on the front, as he has a slow puncture. A ruinously slippery and muddy track down to nab 6 and then a quick rumble up a bridleway to cross the main road again to do 11. A competitor on other side of road tut-tuts at me and says 'naughty, naughty, that's an illegal one!' I say 'Oh no it isn't you silly sod, read your map!' what a prat, I bet he felt really stupid!
Green and spongy
Back into the eternal headwind again, the slog to 11 strips both of us of energy and will, but we dig deep, and are soon zooming back towards the next and last objective of our day 2 five hours at no 8, the one with the slippery road - how we stayed upright coming down it so fast, and that tandem!!! I examine the map and find a lovely bridleway back down to Alston, which avoids a single chevron 1km hill up to the main road, and is very relaxing after the stresses of the 2 days. With a respectable 135 points in the bag, which is phenomenal for us, and 5 minutes to spare (but very little energy left!) we've done about 150km plus in 7+5hrs.
Fool on a hill
We check out and roll back to the car, stinky weasel-smelling clothing double-wrapped in bin liners and loads of FCUK spray and clean clothes on. Bikes dismantled and put in bags, addresses swapped with Dave & Dan and along comes Hannah to make our day. 5 hours later we are home, courtesy of the inexplicable traffic on the M6.
What a weekend, and what a team. We checked the results later and were pleasantly surprised with our overall placing for once. Choose your partner carefully if you ever do it, but don't nick Matt, he's mine!
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