Tuesday's Ride

Having had a lift to the camp site, I was honour bound to retrace my steps to the point that I was picked up to be able to claim that I'd ridden the entire length. I called in at a bike shop and bought a ccouple of spare tubes and surprisingly for a place claiming to be a bike shop, they didn't have any rear lights. There was a farmers' market on at Penrith and I filled up on venison steak and kidney pies and Chillie bean and cheese wraps.

I rang George, a chap that I'd met last year on my Lejog ride and who'd rescued me in Preston when my frame snapped. He didn't think that I'd get to him in a day's ride over Shap and on to Preston. He proved to be right. Shap Summit should be renamed 'Nowhere Near Shap, Summit'. The weather was grim and showery and having climbed to Shap thinking that I'd reached the top I found that there was another 4-5 miles of climbs left. Shap itself seemed to have its metaphorical shoulders haunched agains the wind driven drizzle. I met a pair of Coast to Coast walkers at the Co-Op. They were doing the walk because their flight to France and a walking holiday in the Pyrenees has been cancelled because of the terrorist problems the previous week.

I was having serious energy or head problems on the clim on from Shap village. Every minor climb was too much and surprisingly I found myself yawning and nodding off. There were several false summits and only after a mile of descending did I realise that I'd passed the summit. There ought to be a marker like there is on the motorway.

I stayed at the campsite 1.5 miles outside of Kendal. Nice and quite and closish to a chip shop - bliss, I didn't have the energy to cook.