It seems like a long time since we decided that we should organise a club cost-2-coast ride, but that’s due to the popularity of the route over the long days in June requiring early booking. So in Sept 2016 there was a flurry of emails, some deposits paid, transport and hotels booked and then we all forgot about it for a while……until last weekend.

Hopefully during the winter months everyone was getting some early miles on the legs to ensure that they were ready for the C2C. We’d always planned to ride in two seperate groups, the boys and the girls, although given places were secured on a first come first served basis the girls nabbed 9 places and the boys only got 7 (we’ll fix that next year).

Early Saturday morning saw us all congregate at either the Strouds or the leisure center for the bus ride to whitehaven.  Once we’d had coffee (and comfort breaks) at the little chef on route we dipped our wheels in the sea and headed off to what I’d described to all as the quickest route out of whitehaven….. It did have a gradient but I hadn’t mentioned that too much.  There were some comments as the boys hit the top of that first “warm-up” about “Are the girls going the same way???!!!??!?” to which I replied yes so lets move on before they get here as I maybe in trouble now.

The weather was being kind with a warm morning and a nice westerly breeze helping us along the way. We met the watbus a couple of times through the morning so didn’t have to carry much along the way.

Day1 of the trip can be seen on the virtual video here posted by Mr Levison, great to see where you’ve been. After a lunch in Threkeld we headed across to Penrith and then up to hartside for a fantastic blast down into Alston and the promise of refreshments at the hotel. I suppose I should mention Honister Pass, especially to Mr Kelly with a 34-25 to climb with instead of the dinner plates some of the others were spinning. The girls took the much more sensible Whinlater pass.

Much like Day1 the second day started with a climb out of Alston up the cobbles. Then some undulations before we headed down into Allendale for a coffee. More miles and lunch at Brockbushes and then the whole group came together for a run all the way to Ponteland. We did have some fun on Limestone Lane with a number of PR’s on strava for some club members, I’m sure your allowed to draft for PR’s……

The groups split again for  the final few miles to the coast and the second dip in the water for the bike wheels. Alan from watbus turned into the wrong car park so we have to manually turn the trailer round, ably supervised by Mr L…..

Great weekend and company, but probably most important was that westerly breeze for the whole two days.  Lets see who’s up for the challenge next year. Mr Levison has promised a video so hopefully we can enhance this event report shortly.