The unusual bikes consisted of 1 tandem, 1 single speed recumbent trike, 1 hand cycle and 1 trandem. The hand cycle is best described as a wheel chair with a single front wheel on a steering column with pedals instead of handlebars! The trandem is similar, but with an additional rider behind (with foot pedals). The 9 participants swapped around bikes – so it was an all over body work out for all.

All of the unusual bikes were great fun to ride – though a whole lot tougher to ride up the hills of the Lake District than a normal bike – hence why the trip was a 24 hour event! (we did have 2 hours sleep in a tent) For the serious hills like Birker Fell, Cold Fell, Matterdale End, Whinlatter Pass and Kirkstone Pass we employed various strategies to get these bikes up them. These included others helping to push and pull – both mounted on normal bikes, and for the steepest – walking.

The event was to raise money for the Bethesda project – which will be setting up an outdoor activities centre specialising in people with disabilities in Burundi, Africa. Find out more about the Bethesda Project and support it if you can.

The night was spent in a B&B in Port Talbot – a town that although not blessed with beauty or wealth was nonetheless worth a visit for the experience (£9 for 7 drinks). The B&B also provided sherry in our room!

Day 2 was pure adrenaline on the White’s Level trail up the road with an hour and a half of technical climbing, followed by enough downhill that we were struggling to hold on to our bars by the end (I have blisters on my thumbs). Everyone came off the bike except me – I’m the cautious one (and therefore not that fast!) but all walked away without injury and a big grin on their face. We can’t wait to go back!

I’d been up Scafell once before via the shortest (and supposedly least scenic) Wasdale Head route so this time Liz and I fancied the Borrowdale via Sty Head route starting at Seathwaite farm. As you can see from the photos we had amazingly good weather and all of my additional layers stayed firmly in the ruck sack.

We also decided to use the famous Wainwright book for route finding which we found fun and certainly adequate (we backed it up with the OS Explorer 6 map).

I’d recommend the Borrowdale route – it was varied in terms of view and type of walking. Wainwright does give an alternative route from the summit via Broad Crag Col which we followed on our descent. However, though this is a shorter distance we found the scree very loose and found progress descending it slow and difficult so we’d probably have preferred to descend the way we we came up – via Lingmell col. If you are looking for a different route for the whole way back (and a slightly tougher challenge) try the following circular route and let me know how you get on!

This ride gave me the motivation to get out my road bike, which has been mostly sat in the shed the last 2 years as I have been concentrating on mountain biking. I got it out a few weeks before-hand and did some training rides on it – it was like a dream to ride again – so quick! I think Mark is pretty tempted to get one for next years London to Brighton.

I’d never taken part in a ride anywhere near this big before and it was awesome seeing so many cyclists.

Tim’s London to Brighton survival tips:

• No need to carry much in the way of drink or food – there are official and unofficial stops all over the place – even people giving away biscuits!
• If you are riding a mountain bike, get some slick tyres and get your bike checked over first.
• If you’ve not ridden this kind of distance before do some training, building up to at least a 30 mile training ride. Rest the few days before though.
• Don’t try to set any time records – with so many riders, getting out of London does take some time and it only take a few riders to get off and walk up a narrow hill to force everyone to walk.
• Save something for Ditchling beacon – it’s tough but do have a go at riding it – it really is all down hill after that and it’s pretty satisying overtaking all those people walking up.

Day 1 took us from Reading to Froxfield, near Hungerford – a total of 35 miles and a lovely day of riding, despite some surprise hills on the road section towards the end. We rounded up the evening playing quick scrabble and drinking Belgian beer.

Day 2 had Tim B join us with the national cycle route taking us off the towpath for 27 miles of road to Devizes. It might have been possible to ride the towpath for this section (as two girls on folding bikes were doing) but with a group this large we stuck to the designated route. The evening brought huge quantities of curry (and prawn cocktail and chips for Craig!), plenty of beer and killer pool in the local version of “Reflex”. There were some quite hilly sections, especially that one towards the end – but all coped very well – have you all been out secretly training or something?

Day 3 had us back on the towpath for 22 nice flat miles, a stop for some big cakes and an eventual race (for some reason) into Bath city centre led by Liz including overtaking the local cyclists and fending off the double decker tourist bus!

Nick names for the trip: Tim C: Maintenance Man, Liz: My Pet My Responsibility, Alison H: Queen of the Hills (again!), Tim B: Tight Chain, Craig: Prawn Cocktail, Andy W: Where is my food?,  Michelle: Pool Queen, Chris: Egg, Ursula: More Tea!, Andrew M: Marathon Crossover and Alison S: Team Z (drove to meet us at the pub!).

A great trip –  and importantly one in which everyone who started finished, and not only that finished together and with a smile on their face. Well done everyone!

This ride had day long sea views, countless opportunities for ice cream and snack breaks, a brief spell of riding along a 15th century fortification, us crossing the path of the worlds longest running commercial hovercraft and even some clambering around a kiddies pirate ship. But the highlight for me was taking the bikes on the Hayling Ferry over to Eastney. There is something great about combining these two modes of transport – in this case not least because the total time to Southsea was less than it would have been to drive, but also – well it just looks cool having your bike on a ferry!

Next time – perhaps we’ll go a stage further and take the next ferry over to Gosport as well!

The weekend got off to a cold start arriving at the hut to find the storage heating off and no matches to light a fire. After toying with various fire starting ideas we ended up driving to the nearest shop to get some. Even with a good fire going – I still put full thermals on and didn’t take them off for the rest of the weekend! (I must be going soft) Mark then proceeded to give me the low down on all the climbing gear and at least one rope work related debate ensued.

I should add that I’m far from experienced at this climbing thing – I’ve been climbing for about a year, but only outdoors a couple of times and this was my first time seconding (taking out the gear placements that the leader has put in on the way up). Mark however has been climbing for years and recently got his SPA (climbing instructor qualification) so I was in good hands.

We got in a range of climbing over the weekend – some very succesfull climbing at Stanage, some bouldering at Millstone, some aborted climbing at Froggatt due to a sudden onset of rain and snow (I got 3/4 of the way up a route without being able to feel my hands) and finally some great indoor bouldering at the Works in Sheffield to make sure we totally tired ourselves out!

All in all a great weekend, and I’m looking forward to the next trip with the ULGMC!

The novice course begins with a gravel track quickly followed by all the climbing for the route in one go. The descent is then on wide tracks with some brief spots of singletrack. The advanced course however has much more variety with climbing sections, singletrack sections and a technical downhill switchback section. My favourite part of it though is the last section which is of the flowing downhill singletrack variety. 

In terms of effort I find the novice course almost as tough as the advanced one with the advanced one being a lot more fun so I invariably plump for advanced. Anyway, despite it being only a few degrees above 0, it was a beautiful day and got me inspired to get out there more often in the coming months.

As for the West Highland Way, the official route is 95 miles – we added on 10 miles from Glasgow to the start at Milngavie, an ascent of Ben Loman and an ascent of Ben Nevis. Our longest day was a 20 mile walk. Including travel to and from London the whole trip took 12 days. 

Note: My blog posts are mostly interesting anecdotes and pictures from the trip. If you want actual information about walking the West Highland Way, try the official site.