Today's cycling was mostly in Cumbria! The lakes are glorious and scenery has to be seen to be believed. Thankfully the weather today has held off and we have had a reasonably warm, sunny day.

The ride today started by a massive shock to the system; climbing. Over the past few days we have not had too much of it, but as a result, have become accustomed to that. Well we were in for a shock. For almost the first 10 miles we had the mother of all mountains to climb. No time to warm up the muscles as it was literally only 2 miles from the b&b. We were both still sporting knee issues too which is also not really what you need. We found out after a while it is known as Kirkstone Pass. After the very slow start to the day, the one thing that has been consistent throughout this challenge became very apparent on Kirkstone, we now had a mammoth decent! Well boys will be boys and neither of us hesitated although after the thought had crossed our minds that we could have very easily died! The drops were amazing, a 20%, then a 13%, another 20% then another 13%. It was out of this world and although the views were still unbelievable, eyes were fixed on the road. We started the drop with cars behind us and left them well behind by the time we got to where the road started to flatten out at the bottom. I have to say this marked THE most exhilarating and exciting part of the trip so far for me and we were both grinning and laughing when we reached the bottom. I'd of done it all again if we didn't have another 50 miles to go. I am pleased to report that a new top speed was reached, 42.4 mph! That on a bike with panniers and 20lbs of extra weight is some achievement. Well chuffed.

The majority of the rest of the day was made up of lots of straight roads. Now these roads went on and on and on. I have never seen roads that went on for SO long. It became boring after a while (FH ain't much of a conversationist and if you do talk to him you have to make sure you're on the right side as he is mutten in one ear!). The other thing that wound us both up was the road surface. If anyone from the Cumbrian road services is reading this sort it out, this is enough to put anyone off cycling.

Just when we thought the weather was on our side, the thing that really got us today which we hadn't thought about was the head winds. At one point we were on flat straight roads in one of the easiest gears. It felt like we were towing a caravan!

Finally, at around 59 miles today we reached Scotland! The feeling of this as an achievement in itself was spectacular. We shook hands at the first welcome to Scotland sign and got some pictures to celebrate the occasion. See piccies.

We checked into our b&b tonight and are pleasantly surprised. Our host Susan, even offered to wash the clothes so FH got out of it again! It also means that won't have to panic as much about drying everything. What to do now...
 


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