Our day today started like any other we have had during our trip. Except this time there is no Peter or Paul to accompany us. This was the start of another expected 81 mile trip. After the poor experience of bike paths and canal paths we immediately made changes to our intended route for the day. Cutting these routes out and replacing with a road has saved us around 4 miles of cycling as well as time.
We took to the A6 and followed it all he way to Penrith before veering off to join a cycle route to help avoid the busy time of day on the A6. We established a good steady rate early on and maintained that until the outskirts of Kendal. It quite hard to get to Kendal if you want to avoid busy A roads. But carefully we picked our way through to find a sleepy Kendal.
Taking the opportunity we stopped to stock up with food for lunch and the other pit-stop needs before pushing on the Shap Fell. This has been something I've been trying not to think about. With a climb of 1400ft over something like 5 miles it's a hill that simply does not want to end. Just before setting off from Kendal I felt a twinge in my left calf muscle. Yep, I was getting cramp just before one of our bigget climbs. And it was getting worse. Holly on the other hand was like some spring chicken and getting faster and faster. While going into panic mode I remembered something my wife said, that bananas were good for cramp. And fortunately when Peter helped us out the other day he also bought us bananas and there were 2 left ripening nicely in my bag. A quick stop, 2 bananas, pain killers and rub in pain cream later we were off again. It took another 30 minutes but the pain finally went. Phew.
Shap fell is popular with motor bike fanatics. There were a seemingly endless line of them driving along the old A6 at high speed. After a while we started to recognise the same bikes going back and forth. I suspect fist to check for cameras and then to open it up. These guys were fast. Our journey up was slow. The weather was doing it's best to fry us and it felt hotter today than it had been the whole journey. We were burning fast and increased our frequency of applying sun protection. Our fluid consumption also increased significantly. With no support car we had to carry everything and water is very heavy especially up Shap fell. Once reaching the top the views were magnificent. Made better knowing we rode our bikes all the way to the top declining to push.
Heading down the other side was just as tough with a very rough road surface. You feel everything on a roadbike. Nearing Shap village we stopped for a quick lunch. Holly was feeling a little downhearted at this point. We had only covered half distance for today and the hill and heat had taken all our energy. In reality, We just got faster and faster. Our last 10 miles into Carlisle were very fast for us, riding in our top few gears most of the way. What a fantastic day yet again, we arrived at the hotel around 6pm with one of our best times. We were buzzing but very tired. We are planning to have a lie in tomorrow getting up at 6am due to a shorter 60 miles ish to Abington.
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