Doncaster to Carlisle - 215 miles overnighter Fri 8th Nov

rodgers73

I'm heading north on Friday up to Carlisle via York, North Yorks Moors, Whitby, Middlesbrough, Sunderland, Newcastle and then directly West along Hadrian's Wall. Going to leave late afternoon on the Friday and hopefully arrive around lunch on Saturday.

Will be keeping an eye on the weather though - I can cope with wind and rain but not necessarily together over terrain like that!

elderone

Sounds epic,good luck to you.

rodgers73

Bricking it to be honest!

marcusjb

You'll be fine.

Weather's looking okay ish.

Not an easy time of the year for 300km+

I'm supposed to ride up to York next Friday night -(roughly 210 miles) keeping an eye on the weather at the moment.

Best of luck - ride well.

rodgers73

Just going to keep it steady. If I can get the N Yorks Moors out of the way OK I'll be a lot happier.

Looking forward to Sunderland and Newcastle around dawn on Sat.

rodgers73

Made it OK - not sure how I clocked up 230 miles on a ride plotted at 215 but that's what the computer said. Set off at 4pm on Friday and arrived at the same time on Saturday.

Crossed the Moors between 10 and midnight. Never ever been that cold on a bike before. Thought I was in some real trouble before I stumbled on a pub still open after 12 - landlord made me coffee and they had a log fire going. Bloody lifesaver!

Slept at McDonalds in Middlesborough around 3.00 and again at a Subway near Newcastle at 8.00. Missed out the Hadrian's Wall route due to exhaustion - I assumed it was quicker so I took the A69 instead, which was quite dull. To be honest though, I could have been riding through Tuscany and I wouldn't have noticed the scenery. Had another short nap on the floor of a disabled toilet (lovely!) at a garage with about 15 miles to go as my eyes wouldn't stay open any longer.

Then it was Carlisle and I was in a hot shower and bed. Top ride, mainly hellishly cold and miserable but an experience none the less!

Mr Bunbury

Excellent stuff! I reckon you need an Audax UK membership for Christmas

marcusjb

Indeed - sleeping on the floor of a disabled toilet is fairly high on the audaciousness scale!

Well done though - not a distance to be sniffed at for this time of the year for sure. Particularly on a Friday night following the working week - I always find that very tough (there are a number of 300km events that start on Friday evenings and I do struggle on them).

My enthusiasm for my own ride up to York next weekend (for the Audax AGM) is not high - the train may be taking the strain!

rodgers73

Ha! In my defense(?) it was a pretty clean toilet...

The run up from Doncaster to York is dead easy - flat and straight roads mainly - so the last 30ish miles of that trip would be simple enough.

ex-pat scot

I was riding York to N York moors last Friday night around 10 also. It was rather nippy and a bit slidey! I only had 30 miles to do though. Well done

rodgers73

ex-pat scot wrote:

I was riding York to N York moors last Friday night around 10 also. It was rather nippy and a bit slidey! I only had 30 miles to do though. Well done

You probably don't know it but the place with the pub was Liverton Mines up near Loftus. I'm going to send them a postcard to say I made it and thanks for their hospitality. There were about ten people in there and they treated me like Bradley Wiggins had walked in the door! A real morale boost.

rodgers73

I put together an audio diary last night - recordings I made on the ride and a mix of internet images of where I went and my own photos (14 of the 24 hours of riding were in darkness!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FRS0peCgvo

ForumNewbie

rodgers73 wrote:

I put together an audio diary last night - recordings I made on the ride and a mix of internet images of where I went and my own photos (14 of the 24 hours of riding were in darkness!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FRS0peCgvo

Well done - that's some amount of miles in 24 hours at any time, but especially at this time of year.

pollys_bott

Amen to that - I don't know much of the route you took, but I do know the Pickering-Whitby road. That's a decent challenge in daylight, let alone silly o'clock at night in November.

Just out of interest, what lights did you use to get you through 15-ish hours of darkness?

rodgers73

I used a front hub dynamo and a B&M Cyo light for the main illumination on the front with a couple of Smart Lunar battery lights for the flashing effect and as emergency backups.

On the back I had a Cateye Reflex on the rack.

Last of all I had a couple of small flashing lights on my helmet (front and rear) - the sort you get in a blister pack for a fiver.

All worked well - never short of light!