Rob Borek

10/11/2021 – 18:02 Sam: ‘are you still interested in doing a long weekend somewhere? 4-5th Dec is my preference. I just want to be out in the daylight, and ideally sitting in a pub by a fire for the rest of the time’

10/11/2021 – 20:33 – Rob: ‘Have you heard of the Lakeland 200?‘

10/11/2021 – 20:35 – Sam: Hehehe yes. We’ve talked about it before.

Messages like these are where the fun begins. As long as you have more than one person willing to try something a bit silly, it’s easy to make it happen. it’s much harder to back out when you’ve got a similarly foolhardy friend you’ve committed with. I had been thinking about the Lakeland 200km route for a little while after considering it for a trip in early 2020… What better time to have a crack at it than in early December when daylight hours are short and the weather is challenging.

So, we roped in another local rider Will, the sort of guy who says yes to things without realizing what he’s getting himself into and doesn’t top up his tubeless sealant until half an hour after you were planning on leaving, and booked up a couple of B&B’s along the route. I’ve got to point out at this stage that none of us are super experienced endurance bikepacking legends of the sort you’ve probably read about elsewhere, I’m sure booking a B&B is ‘cheating’ in some circles, but having never bitten off a challenge like this in the cold and dark before, the promise of a warm bed on an evening was definitely needed! A quick look at the self-supported UK page HERE will show that some riders have managed to cover this 200km route in mind-bending times of under 18 hours, whereas Bikepacking.com advise allowing 4-5 days to complete it at a more leisurely pace. We opted for what we hoped was a sensible but challenging middle ground of three days.

Day #1 – Staveley to Eskdale Green 55.4 Miles, 7331ft

6:30am: We set off from Staveley Mill Yard. It’s dark, and misty, and the ground is wet and puddled from heavy rain overnight. We have a break in the weather as we set off into the hills, full of excitement and anticipation.

The first 10 miles of this route were good going. a nice mix of easy road miles and well maintained bridleways made for quick progress. hands were warm and spirits were high. aside from a few scrambles around some fallen trees, it seemed like pretty straightforward stuff. today was going to be a breeze, right?

It wasn’t long before the rain set in, and with the ground already waterlogged we were taking a drenching on the descents, but enjoying blasting through the puddles too much to hit them slower. I’d chosen to wear a pair of merino tights with some light weight MTB trousers over the top, and it wasn’t long before these were soaked through. Wool is remarkable for staying warm when wet, but I was definitely testing the limits of this and wished for some waterproof trousers and a mudguard.

We dropped down a fast and loose descent into Ambleside and headed straight for the coffee shop. one of my favorite things about ‘outdoorsy’ towns is that people don’t bat an eyelid or turn their noses up at the thought of you leaving muddy wet bum prints on their chairs, even if you feel like its the worst thing ever and they will definitely not want to let you in. We got coffee and breakfast, looking out at the rain hammering down and Sam appreciating the local good dogs. I was damp and chilly at this point and quietly concerned about the day to come. we’d barely even gotten started.

A slight break in the weather and we climbed up out of town. The route from this point does a lot of zig-zagging on its way to Coniston and there are multiple opportunities to cut corners if necessary. we had this in mind, but it was quality riding with a mix of short hikes and fast fun descents, and it would have been a shame to skip any! One of the benefits of doing this in winter was a minimum of other trail users. I imagine in the summer months it would be much busier with other hikers and bikers.

It was plain sailing until the descent through Spicka Coppice. A large bramble snatched at Sam’s bars and sent him flying shoulder first into a big puddle, it was a big slam, and he led in the puddle for a moment severely winded. My first thought was ‘collarbone, fuck.’ but fortunately this wasn’t the case. it turns out Sam is pretty solid, and if the ground had a collarbone it would have broken it’s own before he broke his. It was at this point we thought yeah, maybe we should cut one of the zig zags off and make a line for Coniston. Much to our amusement on checking the route we had made our way to the furthest point of the ‘zag’ and there was no route shortening on the cards. We took a moment to compose ourselves and cracked on through the forest past Scale Head. this section should have been easy, but Storm Arwen had taken its toll on the trees, and we lost a significant chunk of time climbing over, under, through, and around the tree fall, before hitting the road.

The rain was still hammering down, and I had real concerns about allowing enough time to stop and get warm and dry in Coniston before tackling the climb over Brown Pike and getting down the other side before dark. We opted to skip the climb over and through Grizedale Forest fearing more tree fall, and instead nailing it down the road in search of some easy mileage and a warm pub. This bit was pretty savage. That kind of rain that bounces off the ground, no words spoken between us, just full gas ’til the pub. wetter than an otters pocket.

We reached the pub, got warm, rang our socks out in the loo, and sat in the shadow of Coniston Old Man, no escaping the hike we were about to take on. It was still raining outside and the climb was capped in snow. We boshed down some food, Sam got sort of naked at the pub table for some reason I don’t quite recall, and we headed on up. As far as climbs go it’s actually pretty nice, you can ride quite a lot of the way, just hiking the last section right over the top, but the wind was savage and an ill timed zip failure on my frame bag resulted in some inconvenient faffing, struggling to loop Voile straps together with cold hands was not the one.

The descent was ridiculous, riding over (or into, with zero finesse) rocks the size beach balls, eyes squinting, head turned away from the savage wind and sleet, hands going numb. On safely reaching the bottom there were hugs and high fives. Proper elation of the sort you don’t often get without doing questionable bike trips at the wrong time of year. At this point we were losing daylight, and opted to take another short cut by skirting around Harter Fell on the road rather than hiking over it.

Sam was carrying a heavy burden at this point, as day#1 Route master he (and only he) knew that the ‘valley road to Eskdale‘ was in fact Hardknott Pass. He had made the (wise) tactical decision to keep this quiet until we rounded the turn and spotted the road sign. My memory of this is vague but I’m sure I heard Will say ‘Are you fucking kidding?’ or similar. I had hit that sort of point where I could have laughed or cried, or done both at once. It was dark, cold, wet, we we’re tried and hungry, and we’d hit the bottom of one of what’s considered one of the harder road climbs in the UK. Fortunately I have a pretty good relationship with steep road climbs, I’m not sure if it’s a mindset thing from doing a lot of uphill racing, but settling the brain into that mode of accepting the pain and dealing with it later seems to work out ok, and I sometimes find myself feeling like shit on a 5% climb, only to dig in and relish it when it gets to 20%.

With Hardknott out of the way, we knew there wasn’t a whole lot more to go before we reached our bed for the night, but my hands were really starting to suffer. I couldn’t shift gear properly and was worried the next pothole would result in bouncing off the handlebars. we passed one pub and I thought of stopping, but the others seemed content to crack on, so we did, and I was instantly filled with regret… a few miles later we spotted another pub and I pulled in. It was a weird vibe, opening the door to a warm cosy pub having just spent several hours in the cold and dark. everyone looking around as if to say ‘What the hell are you playing at riding your bikes in the hills in December’ (some of the locals may have actually said words to that effect). We sat by the fire with warm drinks for half an hour, before launching a full gas TTT mega smash for the last few miles. Reaching our B&B absolutely cooked. We showered, got dry, and headed to the local for dinner and a pint. At this point the conversation turned to tomorrow. It had been a seriously hard day in its own right, and we were contemplating calling time on the rest of the trip in favor of sitting in a warm pub for two days. We decided to sleep on it and make a plan in the morning. but not before we’d got a lift back to the B&B with a Taxi driver who seemed to have a real fondness for the works of James Blunt. I can’t really stand the guy but apparently he is easy listening. Maybe he thought we looked a bit like him, in the video for ‘You’re Beautiful‘… cold, windswept, a bit soggy.

Day #2 – Eskdale Green to Motherby – 38.5 Miles, 5103ft

We woke to drastically different scenes to the night before. Looking out the window to the beauty of the lake district was a real morale boost. The skies were blue, and our hosts at the B&B had washed and dried our trousers. (less ideal when we were going to the pub in our tights the night before!) For all of the last nights chat of bailing on the ride, there was no way we were going to skip it now.

Day two was easier on paper, but still a big one, with the hikes of Black Sail Pass and Scarth Gap followed by Honister Pass on the road. our main challenge on day #1 had been staying dry (and therefore warm). With blue skies and a good forecast we knew that whilst today would be hard, we wouldn’t be reaching the same levels of discomfort. We kitted up and headed out over Burnmoor Tarn and towards Wasdale Head. Burnmoor was a bit of a bogfest, but didn’t hold us up too much. I got my feet wet early on, tripping into a bog, and Will did his best MVDP over the bars impression, but we made it over in one piece.

Next up was the hike of Black Sail Pass, This was hard going and steep, quickly getting beyond the point where you can roll the bike. I struggle a bit with back pain and try to avoid shouldering the bike for any length of time if I can help it, but this was definitely the time to pick it up. A word of warning for anyone thinking of attempting this loop, It’s brilliant, and the views are incredible, but you really have to earn them. Definitely pack light.

The Descent from Black Sail was naughty, for lack of a better word. Plenty of big jagged rocks and steps, it would be very easy to get bits wrong and get yourself into big trouble. I kept having to remind myself, ‘you’re a long way from home, and you’re not on an Enduro bike’ This didn’t stop me puncturing after a few minutes of rock pinging fun. Another lesson learned: Don’t bring 120tpi XC tyres to the lake district. you’ll gain a tiny bit of roll speed on the roads and then cut your tyres to bits when you actually need them.

From there it was straightforward, we hauled ourselves up and over Honister Pass, blasted down the other side, and chipped along past Derwent water to Keswick where we stopped for pizza, I guarantee if there was a ’26” Mountainbike road time trialling world championships’ Sam would have won it. We then followed the national cycle route to our bed for the night in Motherby. Again we had cut the day short, taking out a few of the off road sections after Honister, but we were satisfied with the days riding, and didn’t feel the need for any heroics to try and keep to the plan.

Day #3 – The Bailout – To Penrith and onto the train

I was excited about day 3 – The planned route had been around 35 miles, 6100ft of climbing, up and over High Street at 828m before dropping back into Staveley. Unfortunately the weather was against us for the second time. We woke to heavy snow, and significant rain forecast. Maybe on a dry day we could have handled the snowy hike up high, but getting soaked through before hiking up a mountain would have been plain dangerous. We opted to pedal down to Penrith and hop on a train to Staveley, viewing the hills from the train we knew we’d made the right call and on arriving in Staveley a local told us there’d have been foot deep snow all along the ridge, and we’d have found it entirely unridable.

Thoughts for the future:

In total we completed maybe half of the ‘legit’ Lakeland 200 loop, throwing in a few road diversions and skipping the final day. What we did ride was very rewarding, there is something to love about putting yourself right out of your comfort zone and having a crack at a tough challenge, especially at a time of year when its so easy to sit on the sofa doing not a lot.

Big thanks go to Sam, Will, Ayoob, Forest How Guest House, Richard Hammond, the cranberry topped pork pie I bought in Kendal Morrisons, and the Defeet Woolie Boolie.

I’m hoping to have another attempt at this route some time in spring/summer 2022. aiming to do approximately the same three day split, but bivvying rather than B&B. I’m also going to run sensible tyres. I’m not out to break any records, but would love to get round the whole thing in once piece!