Ride to Bashal Eaves via Dunsop Bridge, Thursday 19th April, 2018
/Eleven riders turned up for my sojourn to Bashall Barn via Dunsop Bridge, on a day so nice that I thought I had actually got the date wrong & picked someone else’s! Indeed so good was the forecast that instead of as usual packing all the wet & thermal gear I possess I actually had arm & knee warmers on with a cut off bidon in the bottle cage to deposit them when it got TOO WARM for me to continue wearing them, bizarre! We set off through the Uni’ & along the usual lanes to Marshaw & thus through the Trough to Puddleducks, which as I remarked upon arrival was “full of bloody cyclists”, do these people have no gainful occupation to occupy them on a Thursday other than filling up cafes throughout the county? Then upon leaving we selected low gears to turn right over the steep canal bridge, which was a complete waste of time as we weren’t going that way, so instead we selected higher gears & then turned right towards Newton, this subsequently required considerable concentration as we negotiated numerous pot holes on the way, some so capacious that they might swallow an entire bike & rider should one fail to negotiate them. Once in Newton we turned to climb the mighty Waddington Fell, you always know a big hill is big when they stick a communications mast on top which you have climb to in order to reach the other side. At the summit, so called as it is summit you have to climb to to get to the top, I warned my group of the dangers they would face on the plummit from the summit, the descent being long, fast & resembling crazy paving in parts, I being leader went first, the spirit of Brits in the trenches continues on! After the downhill slalom I waited for the others at the church who appeared in various states of distress but much time elapsed & no sign was there of Norman on his electric bike, this caused some anxiety for this leader as if he had crashed on the descent I might have to climb back up the bloody thing to retrieve his bike & it probably weighed more than I do! Anyway, thankfully he finally appeared, explaining that like we who had to pedal up the Fell road & were drained by the top, he was all right but it had drained his battery, hence the time required to change the thing before he too joined us at base camp. All together again we made our way to Bashall Barn & refreshed & refuelled prior to climbing yet another sodding hill in the form of Chaigley, then home via Chipping, Garstang, Scorton & Lancaster, by which time I had to put the arm warmers back on, still I enjoyed summer while it lasted!
Ken Roberts
