Wednesday 26 June 2013

The Pendle 600km June 22nd 2013


The Pendle 600:
AA10 1’150ms climbing.


The Pendle, as an Audax, sits in the centre of a Ven diagram linking three distinct challenges -  1) 619km of riding, 2) 10,000+ of climbing along the route and 3) a weather forecast for 40hrs of wind and rain. This was never going to be an easy ride. Starting from Pendleton, Lancashire it passes through Ripon, Robin Hood's Bay, Stokesley, Eggleston, Hexham, Langwathby, Seascale and Carnforth before returning to Pendleton. The amount of climbing and distance is equal to riding three mountain stages of the Tour De France back to back… (albeit a lot slower and with more sleeping in bus stops) and as it is a cylindrical route we are effectively riding the Coast to Coast twice in one go.

The route heads out of Lancashire in a north-easterly direction following a mixture of A + B roads before climbing over the North Yorkshire Moors to the east coast. The next 100km or so are rolling before the route turns north into the northern Pennines, where a food/sleep station has been arranged at about 390km. The final 220km visit the west coast before climbing over the southern Lakeland passes and the Trough of Bowland before the final run into the finish.

I was riding this Audax, as with 90% of all other Audax’s I have done, with Audax Club Hackney: ACH is a long distance cycling club based in East London, formed late 2012 in the darkened corner of an east London pub and now fielding 10 of East London’s most hardened Grimpeurs, Roulers and Randonneurs.  We were fielding 5 riders into The Pendle - Myself, Joel ‘Yossarian’ Bromley, Justin ‘The Deer Hunter’ Jones, Chris ‘Gadge’ Breed, Adam ‘Sharpy’ Sharp and Jordan ‘The Kid’ Carroll.

Prior to the start this Audax was being discussed at great length on the forums, the sheer scale of the task appeared to be putting the fear of god into a number of people and there was a lot of talk of how many space blankets we would require to survive, let alone finish, the ride… ACH on the other hand were sat in the pub, discussing the quality of the beers at the pub local to the start and finish of the event, and it was apparent that if we were going to get anywhere near trying all the local ales we would need to be making good time, and that would inevitably require us to do away with the sleep stop altogether.

Anyway, it was 5am, I was freezing cold, it was raining, I was tired, and that could only mean one thing. I was about to ride The Pendle, let’s ride…

Stage 1: Pendle to Ripon.
During the first section of the ride I completed the now traditional risk evaluation of not finishing the ride; I felt comfortable on the bike having returned to riding The Iron Butterfly, my trusty Audax Machine and it was all working well, this was worrying, I usually distraction of having a mechanical issue really distracts from thinking about whether my legs are up to the ride.

There were a number of conspiring factors that also threatened the ride, in the week up to the event life just seemed to be getting in the way, a stressful week at work, illness, lack of sleep were all waiting to catch up with me, I was worried that it was going to be a long 40hrs…

 (Chris 'Gadge' Breed in yellow closest to the camera)

(Billy 'Hillbilly' Weir on the left and Justin Jones on the right)

 (Gadge falls off...)

Stage 2: Ripon to Robin Hoods Bay.
Stage two took us into the wild desolation of moor land around Rosedale Chimney, this section was littered with climbs bearing the warnings “unsuitable for vehicles… cyclists dismount” and a series of numerical threats  - 20%… "oh dear"… 25%… "dear god"… 30%… "DOCTOR"! And 33%… "Call me an ambulance"!!… needless to say, arriving at the control I was fucked. I felt like I had ridden a difficult 400km, not 160km… This section was the hardest of the entire ride, still, nice to get the first of two views of the sea. Whilst at the Control, which, for context was on a massive hill I overheard a young child point out that Justin ‘The Deer Hunter’ was riding a fixed gear bike… “of course not” said his father, “it will have an internal hub…no one in their right mind would possibly ride a fixed gear bike around here”… I had to admit, he probably had a point.

 (Justin Jones)


 (Justin Jones)



Stage 3: Robin Hoods Bay to Stokesley.
Turning from the sea we headed back inland, to face the full horror of the remainder of this ride. We were a long way from Hackney…

 (Jordan 'The Kid' Carroll takes shelter from the rain)

 (Jordan and Justin)

Stage 4: Stokesley to Eggleston.
Stage four was pretty much a slog down the A67, necessary to get us to the next section of desolate moor land and endless climbing, but a little dull none the less. Yawn.

Stage 5: Eggleston to Hexham.
The evening was upon us, and night was setting in. Riding over the moorland in the slowly setting sun and rising dark was a pretty amazing experience. Audax will take you to roads that you could ride anytime, which does not set it apart form any other distance of cycling, though what it does set it apart is that it gives you the opportunity to ride these desolate places at all times of day, from the rising sun in the morning to the setting sun of the evening, and riding over moonlit moorland was an experience that makes the suffering worthwhile.

Anyway, enough of that rubbish, we were heading to Hexham, the last stop before the dead of night sets in and the route sheet indicated that our control was at a Pizza place. Coming from London I imagined a quaint Italian Pizzeria where we would drink carafes of wine whilst our waitress,the attractive Mariariaria Trappappatoni, who for the sake of the illusion has a ‘thing’ about cyclists, serves us homemade pizza and pasta to get us back on the road.

However… we are heading to Hexham, and it’s kicking out time, so it turns out to be another story. The control is actually a kebab shop, and we arrive at 1am, having spent an hour or so in the rain, we are soaking wet. The kebab shop, and it’s surrounding area is full of drunk locals - girls sobbing into mobile phones whilst waiting for taxi’s and the male glitterati of Hexham are inside flaunting their attainable wealth to whichever drunk ‘bang tidy lass’ will listen. A group of locals youths whom I assume probably have behavioural problems look suspiciously like they fancy a ride on the Iron Butterfly.

Still, it was warm and dry, and despite feeling physically sick at the thought of consuming a ’Meat Bastard’ they did sell reasonable pizza’s to lubricate the stomach. 



Stage 6: Hexham to Langwathby.
Its was night time, I was fucked. Myslef, Justin and Jordan ‘The Kid’ sought respite from a particularly heavy rain shower under a small tree. It was sat huddled between the roots when I first realised that things were getting depraved… staring at Justins GPS I noticed that the screen was breathing… then looking at me. I was wondering when this would happen - I was never going to get away with starting a ride sleep deprived then turning my body inside out all day.

We pressed on, knowing we would not make the ‘sleep stop’ at 400km before first light, and knowing that we had a moor to cross we took shelter in a bus stop and lay down in hope of sleeping.

30 minutes later I woke up, dazed, confused.

Where was I…
Why was there a man dressed head to toe in lycra lying next to me…
Why does my head hurt so much…
Why does my arse hurt so much…
Why am I all wet…

I came around… It wasn’t a flashback to my partying days, I’m riding The Pendle and I still have 250km to go. Let’s ride…

We pressed on into the early morning, passing over misty and foggy moor land. We picked up Adam and Gadge a few miles down the road also sleeping in a bus stop. 

 (Gadge in the mist)


Stage 7: Langwathby to Seascale.
The night was done and I just had to contend with the usual Sunday morning slump that seems to be another feature of 600’s (based on my extensive research of having done three 600’s in my life…), my motivation declined rapidly on this section, fatigue was really getting to me and I felt physically sick.

Still, Whinlatter Pass was rather nice.


Reaching Seascale the Coast to Coast was complete, and so was I.

Stage 8: Seascale to Carnforth.
I hallucinated into a plate of full English Breakfast and carried on, ignoring the fact that my mind was slowly imploding.

Immediately into this stage we entered the wilds around the Hardknott Pass and Wynrose Pass, this was amazing, the scenery was incredible, more desolation and wilderness, passing through valleys along the valley floor and climbing up over these incredible passes.

Climbing Hardknott Pass with 500 odd kilometres in the legs was not easy, though no harder than riding up a set of stairs. I felt my mood lift, I felt great, standing at the top of Hardknott and staring into the abyss that was the countryside for miles around felt like a significant milestone of the ride.

Descending down towards Wynrose on the other hand I felt like my head had been hollowed out, I felt sick, exhausted. Further downwards I noticed that It had started raining, until I realised that in fact the rain was just tears being blown across my face. This was the closest I got to abandoning the ride, though trying to abandon a ride in the middle of nowhere would be like saying you were sick of driving and throwing yourself out the moving vehicle. 



 (Adam Sharp on the left)

 (The top of Hardknot Pass)

 (Wynrose Pass)

Stage 9: Carnforth to Pendle. Arrivee.
This stage was essentially the sprint finish, the slowest sprint finish imaginable. The Trough of Bowland was some of the nicest countryside I have ever cycled through, and with the end in sight I was able to take my mind off the difficulties and suffering and focus purely on the enjoyment of cycling, the enjoyment of the challenge of Audax riding and allow myself to realise that I had finished the Pendle 600...

5 Audax Club Hackney Riders started the Pendle together, 5 finished together.


The Pendle was some serious suffering, not only did we encounter some of the most amazing countryside and scenery that I have eve ridden we also faced very difficult climbing and difficult weather. The ride is reported to be the hardest Audax in the calendar and I’d certainly agree.

I’m not going to riding any Audax’s for a month or so, in favour of a bit of very lightweight touring around Europe - I'm aiming for the Swiss and Austrian Alps.

I’ll then return to normal service with the Old 240 400km on the 17th August, which, will finally complete my AAA SR for this year.

1 comment:

  1. Great write-up, Joel. Sounds terrible. But some amazing scenery. Chapeau, and enjoy the european touring. Try not to sleep in any bus shelters/toilets...

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