Tips for cyclists from the book, Planet Backpacker
The C2C Trail runs 190 miles or so across northern England.
Biking the C2C Trail across England -- a 3-day ride through the Lake Country, the moors, and the Pennine Mountains
By Robert Downes Copyright Planet Backpacker
Whitehaven is a sleepy seaside town that’s not quite making it as a resort, located up near the Scottish border in northwestern England. The town marks the start of the C2C Trail, a bike path which runs across the country to the North Sea. It was here in 1778 that commander John Paul Jones attempted to seize the harbor and burn a British fleet during the American Revolution. But some of his crew got a bit tipsy while reconnoitering the town and the raid was something of a flop. Jones was a Scotsman who apprenticed as a seaman in Whitehaven before moving on to America and the Revolution. His raid was the only successful invasion of Britain since 1066, and though the English pooh-pooh it now, apparently it gave them a pretty good scare back in the day. Last night was a bit of hell, arriving here after 10 p.m. from Carlisle with my bike broken down in order to stuff it into the cargo hold of a bus (which served as the final link of the train trip from Wales). I assembled it in the dark and rode up and down the waterfront along the Irish Sea in the cold rain, looking for a campsite. No go, Joe -- so I had to resort to paying the big bucks (about $40) for an old hotel. I feel like a traitor to the spirit of roughing it for staying in a hotel instead of a campsite or a park bench. But not enough to hazard a night in the chill sheets of rain by the sea. Today I will pedal through the Lake District, which inspired poets such as William ‘Lonely as a Cloud’ Wordsworth. These romantic brooders on the heath invented a form of poetry which has been a mainstay of high school poets ever since.
The Mountains of Cumbria Sept. 18, 2007 Keswick, England
Keswick, the world-famed home of the Cumberland Pencil Factory, has the look of a town you might expect to find in Switzerland. Quaint shops overlook a broad pedestrian mall that’s packed with tourists visiting the Lake District. At a campground on the lake outside town, I meet a swarthy long-haired Scotsman who is backpacking across Britain with a huge army pack that dwarfs his five-foot-tall body. Since my tent is next to his, I give him a shout-out and am then completely mystified by his cartoon language, which doesn’t sound a lick like English. “Kerflugely blooey bodola pooty snade,” he says, or something on that order, nodding with animation. “Yar flagel berf snagger ma jockle.” At first, I think he’s spoofing me, but manage to understand every ninth word or so and deduce that he is indeed speaking our shared tongue. Later, I learn that the Scots from the northern end of the country speak an English dialect with an accent as thick as axle grease that is incomprehensible to the untrained ear. This is probably why I didn’t understand a word of the hit film, Trainspotting, starring Ewan McGregor, and would also appreciate subtitles on British films such as Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. The Brits just don’t know how to speak English. The C2C Trail is luvly, as we say here in England -- no cars for much of it -- it runs mostly along bike paths through storybook scenery that conjures thoughts of Robin Hood, knights and highwaymen. It’s like riding through a fairy tale. On the other hand, it’s quite cold here -- in the 30s at night, and I had to get up at 4 a.m. to put all my clothes on. Not that it helps much, with my shivering knees banging together. One stretch, through Britain’s only mountain forest, was very much like the trails of dark, rainy Alaska. Pooped in the Pennines Sept. 18, 2007 Northern Pennines, Britain
So there I was on my bike, chasing a large pink sheep lumbering down a mountain path -- just a typical sight on the way across England and around the world. Other interesting stuff today: I rode past the castle of the REAL Lord Greystoke. If you grew up reading Tarzan books like I did, you realize this is a very big deal. Who could forget Tarzan’s visit to Pelucidar in Tarzan at the Earth’s Core, or his hellish night of temptation by the super sexy Queen of Opar in her peekaboo gown in which the Lord of the Jungle remained as chaste as a daisy? Or what about that bizarre entomological encounter in Tarzan and the Antmen? Anyway, only got a glimpse of m’lord’s castle, which is hidden behind high walls and rows of trees. Didn’t see Cheetah anywhere... probably a butler now. Four American women fly by me on touring bikes -- a group of friends from Florida who are cycling across England with day packs. They’re not a very friendly bunch, but they are on a ‘ladies only’ trip, after all. Other sights along the way include quizzical squirrels as big as cats with tufted ears and scarlet coats, like something out of Narnia; also shaggy cows with long curling horns that look to be relics of the Ice Age. Crossing the bike path are faint trails through the heather, with small, weathered wooden signs marking the Coast to Coast hiking trail. It looks like it would be a very wet mash indeed, wading through those knee-deep weeds, which are soaked with dew. The 190-mile Coast to Coast Trail was charted in 1972 by Alfred Wainwright, a “fellwalker” who mapped the route from St. Bees in Cumbria to Robin Hood Bay on the Yorkshire coast. The script of his hand-written manuscript was published as one of his seven Pictorial Guides, which are still used to steer hikers across England today. The Coast to Coast is one of 15 national trails which crisscross England, including the Yorkshire Dales Trail, The Pennine Way, and Hadrian’s Walk. Happily, an outfit called SUSTRANS (Sustainable Transportation) got the idea to create bicycle routes paralleling the foot trails, making it possible to journey the same route on two wheels. I’ve taken the easy way out by biking the alternative C2C.
Misty Mountain Hop
Oops, forgot I have to climb Britain’s highest mountain range -- the Pennines. I spend more time walking than riding and reach the top of the highest pass at the limit of my strength. Several times I remind myself that a number of people my age have dropped dead back home recently, and that I should take it easy riding on the uphills. No worries there, though, because it’s all I can do to wrestle my bike and heavy gear on foot over these passes. After one particularly long struggle, I find darkness descending on the moors and the closest town still far away. I ride seven miles down a mountain pass in the darkness and pouring rain, gripping my brakes to the limit the entire way as the pads slide ineffectually on the slick hubs of my wheels. In Alston, I find a hostel at the pricey rate of $40 -- more than twice what I expected to pay out in the sticks of northern England. Apparently, the days of the $10 hostel are long gone. But it has free internet, friendly folks, and it’s good to be out of the rain. Sharing the place are a group of English cyclists who looked to be in their 60s and 70s. They’re riding with daypacks, with their gear trucked on ahead. “Did you enjoy your ride over the passes?” asks a woman rider who appears to be in her mid 60s. “I would have, but I had to walk over most of them,” I reply. “Didn’t you?” “Oh no, although I did have to put my bike in an easier gear.” Great, after an intense summer of long rides and weight-training to prepare for this trip, I’m being skunked by septuagenarians. Back in my “used-to-be” days as a triathlete, cycling was my best event in the race and I prided myself as being pretty strong in the saddle. I console myself that the oldies aren’t lugging 50 lbs. of camping gear on a heavy 15-speed antique of a mountain bike, but it’s small comfort.
Across the Moors Sept. 20, 2007 Sunderland, Britain
It’s raining when I set out the next day, but fortunately, I have an expensive, high-tech rain suit that ‘wicks’ the water away. Needless to say, within an hour I’m drenched to the bone inside and out. Never have seen any of this ‘breathable’ rain gear that works, especially when you’re sweating buckets, pushing 90 lbs. of bike and gear up a mountain. At least it keeps the wind off... Pedaling on through the dreary moors, I can see why English literature is so in awe of these wastelands. They are a mix of Alaska’s tundra and the western prairie -- a sea of marshland that’s covered in fog and swept by high winds. I ride past the forlorn rock outposts of Roman legionnaires from 1,500 years ago, and the ruins of a ghastly old lead-mining operation from the 19th century. The miners used to send kids down into the flue of the lead delivery pipes to scrape at the metal which built up on the walls. The children breathed in those toxic fumes all day for who knows what horrible fate. To get lost on the moors in the old days was most likely a death sentence, and everyone knows they are home to ghosts and goblins. The Hound of the Baskervilles lived out on the moors -- a big brute who loved to get the jump on lost souls. Plus, you could stumble onto one of the invisible fairy roads that criss-cross England and wind up in the Kingdom of Faery, never to return. This is also the land of the reivers (raiders), bandit families who raided farms on both sides of the Scottish border for several hundred years. Those who lived in this lonely wasteland turned their homes into miniature castles, complete with towers which served both as a lookouts and as sanctuaries to hide in if the reivers showed up at your door, bent on rape, pillage, murder and fire. I get a taste of the moors by taking an alternate, off-road track for 10 miles or so, pushing my bike up a steep mountain path on a rocky trail. At the top, the wind nearly blows me off the bike several times, but the sun begins to shine and I get a big grin thinking about how much fun it is bumping along a rocky trail high up on the moors. Then I get to thinking it wouldn’t be too cool to break a leg out here in this chilly wasteland, and pedal on more cautiously. Once over the mountains, it’s 30 miles downhill, and I speed across the rest of England like a rocket. I camp in a public park outside Tynemouth -- strollers give me funny looks as the sun goes down, but there’s nowhere else to pitch my tent. My ride across England ends with a three-mile walk to a cycle shop -- I blow a tire out the side of the rim of my bike and it’s impossible to fix, even with duct tape, that indispensable cure-all which belongs in every traveler’s kit. I dip my front tire in the North Sea, just as I did in the Irish Sea, to formally complete the C2C Trail. Damn! I forgot to register for my official ‘I did it’ certificate, drummed up for bike weenies to be signed at the end of the trail, suitable for framing. Oh well, at least Dulcinea knows we made it.
GETTING THERE: Ship your bike by train and bus to Whitehaven in northern England and start ridin'. You can obtain a map of the trail from SUSTRANS in Britain and order guidebooks via the British version of amazon.com. Count on it taking three days or so to reach Tynemouth or Newcastle on the east coast, about 190 miles.
GEAR: Various companies can rent you bikes and transport your gear on ahead by sagwagon. Expect to pay dearly.
DON'T MISS: Long Meg and Her Daughters, a Druid ring of 65 boulders just outside the village of Little Salkeld. Long Meg is a 12-foot-tall monolith presiding over a 4,500-year-old site. For the full story, read the book, "Planet Backpacker."
For more biking & backpacking adventures, read 'Planet Backpacker' by Robert Downes, available at planetbackpacker.net, amazon.com, or order via your website.
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Copyright 2011 - Robert Downes - The Wandering Press - write me: bob@planetbackpacker.net
