Coast to Coast Bike Ride Reflections

 

A couple of weeks ago  I did a coast to coast bike ride with three friends (Stewart Ridley, Nick Marshall and David Taylor) to raise money for the Evolving All Saints project at our church. I have done coast to coast rides before but this time I had the changed the route in some places to compensate for the fact that I’m getting older and can’t get up the hills as well as I used to.

We started off from Happy Mount Park in Morecambe on the west coast. This brought back very happy memories for me as I was living in Morecambe at the time that my eldest son was born and I can remember pushing him around Happy Mount Park in his pushchair. I have a great affection for Morecambe and I think that it’s one of those really underrated places. It is of course a long time since Morecambe was one of England’s premier seaside resorts and these days it has an air of faded former glories. It is famous for its art deco Midland Hotel which has recently been restored and is now once again a top flight hotel. There are beautiful views from the promenade across the bay towards the mountains of the Lake District and the views are particularly nice in winter when there is snow on the mountains. It’s a place with real soul and I love it.

From Morecambe we headed off through the Lancashire countryside towards Kirby Lonsdale. The first hills came after about four miles and were quite hard going, a lot harder than they looked when we had driven the route in the car! We stopped for lunch in a lovely spot by the river in Kirby Lonsdale and from there we headed across through Sedbergh to Hawes. I had forgotten how stunning the countryside is in that area and the beauty of the countryside offset some of the pain in my legs as we climbed up to Gardale Head before having a fantastically fast downhill run into Hawes. After Hawes it was just a few miles across to Askrigg where we spent the night having covered 50 miles on our first day. 

Askrigg is a lovely village and it's famous as the village used for Darrowby in the TV series All Creatures Great and Small. We stayed at a really good B&B (Thornleigh House) and had a great evening at the pub next door (The Crown) where I had a very welcome steak pie and chips. 

The next morning we set out on the second leg of our journey and almost immediately encountered a steep hill up out of Askrigg. Nick and I decided that as we were not warmed up yet discretion was the better part of valour and we decided to walk up the hill (see picture). David however breezed up the hill as though it wasn’t there. After that we had a beautiful ride along Wensleydale past Bolton Castle and through Redmire before a brief stop in Leyburn which is one of my favourite market towns.  From there we headed across through some more beautiful villages before lunching outside Bedale church. Lunch was provided by Stewart’s wife Sally from the back of their camper van for which we were all very grateful.

After lunch we had a gentle run across to Northallerton and, after stopping briefly at our home church of All Saints, we headed back out into the country lanes. This leg was a lot hillier with some difficult climbs including one up to the appropriately names village of Upsall. Towards the end of the afternoon we went through the lovely village of Coxwold and passed the majestic ruins of the old Cistercian monastery of Byland Abbey before arriving at our final climb of the day Wass Bank. Wass Bank is an incredibly steep hill (about 25%) and I have only ever once succeeded in climbing it on a bike and that was twenty years ago when I was much younger and fitter. Stewart wisely abandoned his bike in favour of the camper van before the start of the climb but David, Nick and myself valiantly set off to try and conquer it. I only managed about to get about a third of the way up it, Nick got a bit further and David rescued our collective honour by getting to the top.

Our overnight halt for the second night was at the top of Wass Bank in some delightful pine lodges in the grounds of Stanbrook Abbey. The Abbey is home to an order of Benedictine nuns who moved to Wass in 2009 from their previous home in Worcestershire. So far only a small part of their new monastery has been completed but they have ambitious plans for the site. It really is a very beautiful and peaceful spot.

In the evening we enjoyed a good meal at a pub in Helmsley and the following morning we set off on our final leg to Scarborough. It was another beautiful day and if anything it was a bit too hot as we headed out towards the coast. The day started with a lovely long and fast downhill section into Helmsley and from there we passed through Kirbymoorside and Pickering before lunching, courtesy of Sally again, in the picturesque village of Thornton le Dale. One of the great attractions of Thornton le Dale for me is a garage that sells classic cars. I can never resist stopping and looking at what they have got in and it’s a good job that I haven’t got any spare cash or I would spend a fortune there whenever I visit!

After lunch we tackled the last 20 miles across to Scarborough and it was when we stopped for a regroup in a layby 2 miles outside Scarborough that we had our only injury of the ride. We were just about to set off and I had clipped my right foot back into my pedal when I suddenly felt myself falling to the right. I couldn’t get myself out of my pedal and I put a hand out to try and stop myself falling which promptly grasped the door of Sally and Stewart’s campervan which I then fell onto crushing my fingers in the door. To put it mildly it was rather painful not helped by the fact that Sally then plunged my fingers into a bowl of freezing cold water which she assured me was for my own good. Fortunately nothing was broken and I was able to complete the last two miles to the finish at the north bay in Scarborough. It was a lovely afternoon in Scarborough and the promenade and the beach were packed.

So we had made it! The four of us with an average age of 60 had completed the 145 mile three day journey from coast to coast. And, as is always the case with events like these, it is not the pain of the hills that I will remember but the beautiful countryside that we passed through and the wonderful camaraderie I enjoyed with my fellow riders. And the really good news is that our ride raised over £900 for our Evolving All Saints appeal.

To see a full selection of photoes from the ride visit the All Saints Flickr pages at:
All Saints Flickr pages