December bike ride

It was epic. Totally. I got out of the house at 9am (already an hour behind schedule, but I didnt really reckon I'd get out at 8 anyway!) and by the time I'd done the first half mile, along the canal, my hands were frozen. I was wearing thin cotton gloves under my cycling gloves, and it wasn't enough. But I'd brought my ski gloves along so I put them on over my cotton gloves. Eventually I got my feeling back.

Then I went along the riverside path for a couple of miles, to a bridge that has been closed for repairs for the past year. It'll be another year until it opens apparently, the council are useless at footpath and cycle path repair. If it was a road nobody would stand for it. The option is a long carry through some woods, up and down steps, over tree trunks. I did a bit of it, and got to the road where I carried on.

This took me to a little village called Caton, and from there I headed west into the hills. By this time the sun had risen over the mountains and was shining brightly. It was a beautiful clear day, no wind, even though the wind farm on Caton Moor was spinning wildly. I wonder if, when there's excess energy being created by the electrical grid elsewhere, they send it back to the windfarm to spin the blades?

I could see for miles. Off to the north-west, snow on the lake district hills. To the north, the yorkshire dales with a snowcap on each peak. To the south, a clear view all the way to Blackpool. To the west, the coastline and the blue horizon beyond.

After a steep climb up the side of the moor, I reached the first bit of off-road track. This took me down to the valley, and across a raging river via a bridge. There was black ice on the track, it was a bit tricky to avoid it in places. From the valley bottom a road led up through a farmhouse and then the real adventure was to begin.

I'd been on this track about 8 years ago with my friend Dave who now lives in Seattle. We biked up it with the intention of going right over the pass to the village of Slaidburn on the other side, and then back to Lancaster. In reality we were a bit late setting off, made it to the top of the pass where it was muddy and rutted, thought better of it, and bombed down the way we'd came. Dave got a very nice 'snakebite' puncture on the way down. Well, we were hurtling.

Since then, a friend of mine had told me that they'd surfaced the track with blacktop all the way to Slaidburn. That upset me, since it was such a good mountain biking track, and there's few enough of them round here. So it was quite a surprise to get to the last farmhouse on the road, and discover beyond the final gate was gravel. And mud. And rocks. And puddles. It was as I'd remembered it!

But this time, there was ice. Lots of it. An inch thick on most of the puddles. I crashed through them, the ice breaking with a sound something between that of plastic and glass. Sometimes large icebergs would cause my front wheel to slip, and I'd almost lose it. But I stayed upright. There were steeper sections where water had flowed down ruts and frozen into silver streaks, picked out in the sun which was right ahead of me. My front suspension meant I could avoid these bits, and ride on the centre of the track, over the bumps and rocks.

By now I was well into the valley. It is so isolated. You can see no roads, no habitations, no people. In two directions, up and down the valley, you get a long view, but otherwise you are enclosed in the valley. You could be anywhere, like Mongolia or somewhere. There's no sense of where you are in the wild moorland, tussocks of moss and heather amongst the short grass, icicles hanging from the peat as the water trickles over. Small amounts of snow from last night blown up against rocks and mounds. It felt like wilderness.

I only saw two other people on this track - on one motorbike, heading back down. The track is a legal route for motorbikes, and I had feared seeing lots of them. On my way through Caton I saw lots of trail bikes on trailers and white trucks heading up, and I worried that there would be a track full of them, but they all turned off at a farm house well away from where I was going.
By now I'd been on this track for a couple of hours, smashing through the ice-covered puddles, grinding my way over the rocks and boulders, sliding over the ice. I was now past the point where Dave and I had got to, and it was decision time on the route from here.

I could have carried on on the main track to Slaidburn, but that meant a long ride back to Lancaster. By taking a footpath from the main track I could cut off a large corner of the route. Although I felt I had plenty of time, I knew it would start getting cold once the sun started to descend, and it was now about 1pm. The problem with the footpath is that you aren't allowed to ride a bike on a footpath, but you are allowed to carry or push one. I took a look at the path which descended the hill from the track I was on and headed for a small side valley and decided it was worth it.

So now I got some upper-body training, as I virtually hauled my bike two miles over moorland. It was icy, snowy, and wet. I wasn't wearing boots. Before long my trainers were pretty soaked and my feet were getting cold. The bike kept slipping down the hill, and I just had to hang on and haul it back up. I carried it over several streams. Sometimes its an advantage, making you almost quadripedal. Push the bike out to see how soggy the ground is, and then jump the gap using the bike as a pivot. Or push the bike up a slope, stick the brakes on, and pull yourself up using the bike as an anchor.

On this path I saw a few walkers, it was definitely lunchtime, they were all sitting on large boulders, soaking up the weak winter sun. After a chat I carried on, aware that my feet were starting to get numb. I really needed to get pedalling again. A mile or so after that, I trudged into a farmyard, and passed a large snake of brightly-coloured hikers. From here a farm road led back down to civilisation, so I could finally get pedalling again, get some blood back into my feet, and remember where top gear was again.

I got to the village of Dunsop Bridge. This village is famous for two things - firstly its been decided that it is the geographical centre of Great Britain. And its also the site of British Telecom's 100,000th telephone box. The two events are commemorated together, with four pillars at the cardinal points of the compass around the box, with the grid reference written on another. There's also a very pretty village green populated by many ducks, and a little tea shop. I sat on a bench by the green and had some food and drink, and watched some very strange motorbike riders. It was the motorbikes that were strange, not the riders, they were clearly enthusiasts for this particular model, or an owners club ride or something.

Now I had a road ride home, with one particular obstacle in the way. The Trough Of Bowland. This is a pass that rises up into the hills, steep and winding. I tackled it in bottom gear nearly all the way, 3mph, occasionally picking up into second gear, 6mph, legs burning, heart pounding. When I thought I'd got to the top I discovered there was another section to go. I was nearly all out of energy, but made the top without having to walk any of it. There then followed a long, speedy coast down.

Now it was an easy ride home. I took a road that skirted some moorland, headed down a valley and then went past the place I first lived in when I came to Lancaster, 17 years ago. Its a big old house in the country, divided up into flats. I was now on roads full of memories. I nearly stopped in the village pub, it was tempting. Instead I popped into campus, where I had a few bottles of beer, picked up a couple, and carried on home for a hot bath and a cold beer.