OK, back to ebiking.
nipped up to the Lakes, the Lake district as its called, about 1 hour 40 mins door to car park, most of it quiet motorway with actual amazing views, so pretty relaxing.
The plan was the Walna Scar bridleway loop, as usual it didnt go to plan, in hindsight I rode it the wrong way and spent a lot of time navigating through pleasant but not exciting forest paths.
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Bumped into a couple of southerners, cockneys, Landan types, with the full 'awight mhate' accent, they had got lost in their bmw on tiny tracks that really reqd 4x4, they were very pleased to see me and I navigated them out using my viewranger app.
Not before they grilled me about brexit, asked if I 'd taken the vaccine, the started lecturing me with a full spread of conspiracy theories about covid, some with possible legitimacy, most were full on lizard people stuff.
Anyway it was all very jovial, just I would have bet my pension on not meeting two cockney anti vaxxers around the next corner, tbh they strayed into revolution against the state and I'll have to say this is becoming a thing, certainly there is a very strong anti BBC rhetoric everywhere you go in the UK now, who are seen by many as simply the propaganda arm of the government...I'm straying again.
Ended up back on the roads, very twisty and steep with 6ft high stone walls lining the entire route, but broken up constantly with all kinds of style of old bridges in various states of disrepair.
Eventually led to a bridleway that took me towards the high ground, simply incredible that people would put so much effort into building these stone walls, and I have no clue why this double walled path extends so far up the hill.
This is where it all went wrong, I recognised the area from a previous ride and convinced my self of a short cut to the top, a few false starts and I headed up a farmers quad path that just led me to boggy ground, lungs screaming for air and sucked a good 25% out of the battery.
Then I was lost and having the route on an app wasnt helping because every way to it was boggy land, so I soldiered on and ended up descending towards a rather concerning sheer drop, no chance of going back up so I picked my way down zig zagging to safety.
Thats probably the first time I've ever been genuinely concerned and actually considered leaving the bike and climbing down, all was forgotten once I found myself safely back in the valley and a super cute little stone bridge over a stream helped my frazzled nerves, the weather was simply perfect, cloud and sun, around 15 degrees, warm on the face but not enough to overheat you.
I'd replaced all the brake pads before this trip and kept thanking yesterday me for that one.
The otherside of the bridge led to a magical trail through the woods and past an abandoned slate village, that has mostly collapsed and been taken back by nature, what an incredible place to have lived, its probably not that old, maybe less than a hundred years, but crossing the tiny slate bridge and walking around the ruins in complete solitude is probably a cure for half of the mental health issues a person can have.
I returned to the van and drove to the other end of the trail in little village called Torver, that trail gives a much clearer path to the summit and I should have started that way, will return and hope to each the Old man of coniston, which is a diversion of this bridle path, no doubt a footpath, but I'm going to nip up there anyway, because it looks pretty wide and non confrontational.
Sorry if Ive overloaded the forum with large pics, it was still a great day out, was on the bike for three hours and only met that London couple all day, which is OK in my book, when I want it to be a ride that is basically escapism.
Coniston is famous for its lake that was used by Donald Campbell to break many water speed records, until is his death in 1967 after a crash at the lake during a series of runs that peaked at 310mph.
en.wikipedia.org
www.pasu.com
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It starts at around 200ft and climbs sharply to just over 1000ft, once you reach the top you get amazing views on a clear day! It wasn't very clear today though but I wasn't complaining!
