Enthusiasm for leaving the van was in short supply in Whitehaven, waves crashed on to the sea defences, the air was heavy with sea spray and in all directions; grey. A hundred shades of British maritime grey colouring the sea, the harbour, the houses and the hills.
Instagrams snapped and we were off towards the town centre through the thick mizzle. Soon we were eastbound on narrow roads, impatient Saturday morning traffic backed up behind and pace pushed beyond sensible. The greenways toward Cleator Moor were a haven of tranquility by comparison and we were soon well on our way towards Whinlatter Forest. We enjoyed lunch at Whinlatter trail centre with a dessert of smooth road descent into Keswick. The old railway line to Threlkeld from Keswick had unfortunately been terminated by bridges washed out in the storms of 2016 so we retraced our tyre tracks back toward Keswick and climbed up to Castlerigg Stone Circle. From here we stuck to the road and became progressively wetter and colder until we were forced to find a cafe in Penrith, somewhere to coax dangerously cold digits back to mobility. Arran sat on my back wheel along gently meandering lanes for the last 15 miles to Kings Meaburn. Day 1 was done.
We both slept the sleep of the dead before rising for a cooked breakfast and a tail wind assisted spin to Kirby Stephen on quiet back lanes. The climb to the head of Swaledale tested Arran but was worth it for the miles of undulating tarmac that followed, threading down the valley towards Muker. An off road diversion had our G-One tyres fighting for grip as we climbing on saturated close cropped grass. From Muker we struck gravel bike gold, a limestone coloured ribbon of fast, winding trail following the River Swale to Reeth. Smiles all round.
Lunch at The Dales Bike Centre refuelled energy reserves for the road climb to Richmond and subsequent meander towards Northallerton. We followed the river Swale intermittently, skirting deep gravel pits, fighting our way across muddy fields with fully laden bikes. Komoot had come up with some great trails and lanes for this section (excepting the section after Northallerton where we were routed through a graveyard and in to an unrideable quagmire). Late afternoon sun lit up autumn leaves in a fiesta of red, orange and yellow as we cruised towards Osmotherley. Arran agreed, definitely a better day than yesterday.
The Osmotherley Youth Hostel was quiet and had a drying room; result! We enjoyed dry boots and socks the following morning. Coupled with blue sky and quiet trails our final day was shaping up pretty well. We opted to avoid some of the lanes and head up over the moors instead, navigation app Komoot suggested a good trail but it never materialised. After a steep climb we threaded our way between thick tussocks of grass and heather under a canopy of contorted trees. A woody twig of heather caught in Arran’s rear mech and the mech was ripped round the cassette. The mech hanger snapped in half. I knew exactly where the spare hanger was; on my desk at work. DOH!!
We climbed the blue trail from the car park at Dalby. Unsurprisingly we were the only gravel bikes with luggage on the climb and we soon diverted west to follow the ‘Moor to Sea’ route towards Scarborough. After several miles of forest track we dropped out of the forest to pick up the road into Scarborough where we headed straight down to the sea for photos before dusk. It was just after 5pm and somehow we had arrived ahead of schedule leaving us plenty of time to reflect on Arran’s first C2C whilst watching the sky turn from red and yellow to purple and eventually night.
