But I digress.
We started off yesterday quite early for us: we got up at 8 to look for a place to eat so we could hit the road. We walked around for a while, and eventually ran into a little storefront with one guy in it, and we both got egg sandwiches. They were great, but our only complaint is that the yolks were hard, not soft (they don't seem to have over-easy here). Then we got some coffee, knowing it would be a hard day. We said farewell to Julie, noting how crazy most of the local restaurant and cafe hours are--at best, 9:00-21:00--and how inconvenient that is. At the very least, we got our food.
The morning ride was typical, just a little up-and-down on our way towards the lake district. All there is to say is that we found ourselves back on the National Bicycle Network route 7 again, and then later on NBN route 71. 71, however, was called the C2C road, as we soon found out.
Around 1, in Greystoke, we ran into a place that literally could not be more perfect. As we approached a three-way intersection, we slowed down; to our right, on the grass, we saw what looked like a disfigured corpse-like cyclist. Upon closer inspection, we saw that this "biker" was actually made of wire, and was an ornament advertising for the Greystoke Cycle Cafe Tea Garden, aka Annie's. We biked up the gravel driveway and parked our bikes in the shed labelled "Keep you bikes dry here!" It wasn't raining at the time, but we left our pannier rain covers on anyways.
We heard men's laughter from behind the house, so I approached it and found 7 men dressed in road bike gear sitting around a table under a tin roof on wooden poles, which in turn was in what I assumed was the large "Garden" portion of Annie's title. I introduced myself, and they asked if we were doing the "C2C" trail. I asked what that was, and they responded that it is a trail that goes from the coast to coast of England, including through the lake district. I responded no, we were going from north to south: Glasgow to London. One of them commented that that's a real trip.
The men were the only people there, though there were a few other tables and a couple canvas water-resisting structures. The house itself where the owner presumably lived was in the shape of an wide L, with the outer corner on the road and the Garden filling that L out into a parallelagram. From the garden, you could see a castle in the distance that we found out is Greystoke Castle (sadly no visitors, though they do weddings...). A single waitress walked out of the inner corner of the house carrying a tray with 7 glasses a clear green liquid with mint leaves on the top. After placing the glasses in front of each biker, she turned to us and said that we could sit under the canvas tent since it looks like it might rain soon.
We sit down, and she brings us our menus, and after we say that we have a few questions for her, she says, "Go easy on me. Today's my first day here." She tells us that the soup of the day is nettle and the drink special is sage and mint. We immediately order the drinks, and then look over the menu again. "The pasta looks good," I say. "Wait. Shit. How much money do we have?" Jacob looks in his pockets, then goes out to the bikes and gets his wallet. "15 quid," he says. "Did you really just use British slang?" "I've been watching a lot of British Television. Weeds, The Inbetweeners, you know." "Anyways, I have two. That should be enough." We order the pasta with pesto and the soup in addition to two forks and two spoons as the other cyclists head off. While we wait, Jacob checks his bag again and finds a few more pounds. While he was gone, the waitress came out with two piping hot bowls; the pasta filled past the brim and the soup almost. "Careful, they're very hot. I don't feel the heat because I have [insert disease here], but I assure you they're quite hot." The soup is green and reminds me of my dad's leeky potato (leek and potato) soup in colour, but not scent. The pasta is off-white, and has some yellow peppers and leafy spices on it, the pesto giving it a distinct, yet subtle smell. I carefully move the bowl towards me and take a bite of the pasta. "mmm! That's delish!" I say as Jacob sits next to me. He takes a bite of the soup, and after I ask him about it, he too praises its flavour. We gobble down half of each dish, then switch, repeating our praises for the new taste. Shortly after, we count up the money we have and the money we've spent, and decide we have enough to get dessert. We walk into the house and ask about the desserts they have, and they look around and find a peach crumble, and offer to heat it up for us. We accept and sit down.
A few minutes later, they bring it out in a large bowl; they added custard on top "to make it a proper English dish." Again, we gobble it up, and agree that it was the best lunch we'd had in the UK, and probably the most appropriate and perfect one in a long while, if not ever. Jacob refused to compare it to the Thin White Duke, as that was dinner and this was lunch. "Are you sure this isn't dinner and that wasn't supper?" I joked.
We left happy and full as it started to drizzle.
Let's see...what else did we do that day...
Well, we went down to visit Ullswater Lake, a lake which two guidebooks have called the most beautiful lakes in the lake district. Then again, this morning at Daisy's Cafe, the co-owner pointed out a valley that many call the most beautiful in the Lake District; however the people there would say theirs is the best and those in that valley claim superiority, so we could likely just go anywhere and enjoy it. During the ride down into it, I squeezed both handbrakes so much my arms and hands got tired from having to hold up my weight and fight gravity.
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And we saw this really dangerous-looking wire setup that was kinda like a poorly designed spider web.
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Huh. I'm really at a loss as to what else we did. I mean, it's been a whole day and my legs feel quite sore still. Oh, that's right. I can't believe I almost forgot this. As we were biking along Ullswater, my chain came off. Unfortunately, I was in the middle of the road, on the middle of a hill. I walked it up to the nearest flat spot, and with plenty of Jacob's help, managed to reattatch it. It was very strange, as I was simply switching from 1-2 to 1-3.
I feel like I'm missing something. Wait. Fuck. Right. We biked up that.
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See those hazy mountains in the center of the picture? We biked on the left side of that. Kirkstone pass is what it's called. The sign at the bottom said that it's three miles long and has a 1,500 foot change in altitude.
Near the base, it wasn't so bad. I'd say the average grade for the first half mile was about 5%. I kept telling myself for that first part, "Ok, this is the easy part." Looking up the pass, Everclear's version of "She's So High" played in my head. However, that stopped soon after I decided it would be a good idea to go into gears 1-1 and stay there for a good 1200 vertical feet. From there, we could only bike up streches of about 100 feet before having to stop. Each time we'd stop, we'd switch off between drinking water for hydration, eating chocolate for motivation, or just breathing for respiration. In every case, we looked ahead to see where we might srop next. Usually we could go around two bends in the road, but when it got especially steep we only went around one. As I rode and cars passed, I could almost hear the conversation that we'd have were our positions swapped: "Oh my god, are they biking up this hill?" "Yeah, it looks like it." "What do you think the grade is?" "Well, this sign coming up says 13%, but I imagine it's a bit more at parts." "Crazies." "Agreed."
ADDITION: Near the top, when it got really steep (likely up to 25%), Jacob and I could feel our respective centers of weight shift to near the axle of our back wheels. Jacob mentioned this, and using our reasoning and knowledge of how torque works, I work out and say, "If you feel the front wheel coming up, don't brake or pedal forward." "I know." I take a deep breath. "Shall we, then?" I ask. "Yeah." "Lezgo."
Once we finally reached the peak, we couldn't help ourselves: we finished the chocolate bar I had and took a crapload of pictures. Here are just a couple.The morning ride was typical, just a little up-and-down on our way towards the lake district. All there is to say is that we found ourselves back on the National Bicycle Network route 7 again, and then later on NBN route 71. 71, however, was called the C2C road, as we soon found out.
Around 1, in Greystoke, we ran into a place that literally could not be more perfect. As we approached a three-way intersection, we slowed down; to our right, on the grass, we saw what looked like a disfigured corpse-like cyclist. Upon closer inspection, we saw that this "biker" was actually made of wire, and was an ornament advertising for the Greystoke Cycle Cafe Tea Garden, aka Annie's. We biked up the gravel driveway and parked our bikes in the shed labelled "Keep you bikes dry here!" It wasn't raining at the time, but we left our pannier rain covers on anyways.
We heard men's laughter from behind the house, so I approached it and found 7 men dressed in road bike gear sitting around a table under a tin roof on wooden poles, which in turn was in what I assumed was the large "Garden" portion of Annie's title. I introduced myself, and they asked if we were doing the "C2C" trail. I asked what that was, and they responded that it is a trail that goes from the coast to coast of England, including through the lake district. I responded no, we were going from north to south: Glasgow to London. One of them commented that that's a real trip.
The men were the only people there, though there were a few other tables and a couple canvas water-resisting structures. The house itself where the owner presumably lived was in the shape of an wide L, with the outer corner on the road and the Garden filling that L out into a parallelagram. From the garden, you could see a castle in the distance that we found out is Greystoke Castle (sadly no visitors, though they do weddings...). A single waitress walked out of the inner corner of the house carrying a tray with 7 glasses a clear green liquid with mint leaves on the top. After placing the glasses in front of each biker, she turned to us and said that we could sit under the canvas tent since it looks like it might rain soon.
We sit down, and she brings us our menus, and after we say that we have a few questions for her, she says, "Go easy on me. Today's my first day here." She tells us that the soup of the day is nettle and the drink special is sage and mint. We immediately order the drinks, and then look over the menu again. "The pasta looks good," I say. "Wait. Shit. How much money do we have?" Jacob looks in his pockets, then goes out to the bikes and gets his wallet. "15 quid," he says. "Did you really just use British slang?" "I've been watching a lot of British Television. Weeds, The Inbetweeners, you know." "Anyways, I have two. That should be enough." We order the pasta with pesto and the soup in addition to two forks and two spoons as the other cyclists head off. While we wait, Jacob checks his bag again and finds a few more pounds. While he was gone, the waitress came out with two piping hot bowls; the pasta filled past the brim and the soup almost. "Careful, they're very hot. I don't feel the heat because I have [insert disease here], but I assure you they're quite hot." The soup is green and reminds me of my dad's leeky potato (leek and potato) soup in colour, but not scent. The pasta is off-white, and has some yellow peppers and leafy spices on it, the pesto giving it a distinct, yet subtle smell. I carefully move the bowl towards me and take a bite of the pasta. "mmm! That's delish!" I say as Jacob sits next to me. He takes a bite of the soup, and after I ask him about it, he too praises its flavour. We gobble down half of each dish, then switch, repeating our praises for the new taste. Shortly after, we count up the money we have and the money we've spent, and decide we have enough to get dessert. We walk into the house and ask about the desserts they have, and they look around and find a peach crumble, and offer to heat it up for us. We accept and sit down.
A few minutes later, they bring it out in a large bowl; they added custard on top "to make it a proper English dish." Again, we gobble it up, and agree that it was the best lunch we'd had in the UK, and probably the most appropriate and perfect one in a long while, if not ever. Jacob refused to compare it to the Thin White Duke, as that was dinner and this was lunch. "Are you sure this isn't dinner and that wasn't supper?" I joked.
We left happy and full as it started to drizzle.
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| One side of the L |
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| The other side of the L, and part of the garden |
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| The view of the Greystoke Castle from the garden |
Let's see...what else did we do that day...
Well, we went down to visit Ullswater Lake, a lake which two guidebooks have called the most beautiful lakes in the lake district. Then again, this morning at Daisy's Cafe, the co-owner pointed out a valley that many call the most beautiful in the Lake District; however the people there would say theirs is the best and those in that valley claim superiority, so we could likely just go anywhere and enjoy it. During the ride down into it, I squeezed both handbrakes so much my arms and hands got tired from having to hold up my weight and fight gravity.
And we saw this really dangerous-looking wire setup that was kinda like a poorly designed spider web.
Huh. I'm really at a loss as to what else we did. I mean, it's been a whole day and my legs feel quite sore still. Oh, that's right. I can't believe I almost forgot this. As we were biking along Ullswater, my chain came off. Unfortunately, I was in the middle of the road, on the middle of a hill. I walked it up to the nearest flat spot, and with plenty of Jacob's help, managed to reattatch it. It was very strange, as I was simply switching from 1-2 to 1-3.
I feel like I'm missing something. Wait. Fuck. Right. We biked up that.
See those hazy mountains in the center of the picture? We biked on the left side of that. Kirkstone pass is what it's called. The sign at the bottom said that it's three miles long and has a 1,500 foot change in altitude.
Near the base, it wasn't so bad. I'd say the average grade for the first half mile was about 5%. I kept telling myself for that first part, "Ok, this is the easy part." Looking up the pass, Everclear's version of "She's So High" played in my head. However, that stopped soon after I decided it would be a good idea to go into gears 1-1 and stay there for a good 1200 vertical feet. From there, we could only bike up streches of about 100 feet before having to stop. Each time we'd stop, we'd switch off between drinking water for hydration, eating chocolate for motivation, or just breathing for respiration. In every case, we looked ahead to see where we might srop next. Usually we could go around two bends in the road, but when it got especially steep we only went around one. As I rode and cars passed, I could almost hear the conversation that we'd have were our positions swapped: "Oh my god, are they biking up this hill?" "Yeah, it looks like it." "What do you think the grade is?" "Well, this sign coming up says 13%, but I imagine it's a bit more at parts." "Crazies." "Agreed."
ADDITION: Near the top, when it got really steep (likely up to 25%), Jacob and I could feel our respective centers of weight shift to near the axle of our back wheels. Jacob mentioned this, and using our reasoning and knowledge of how torque works, I work out and say, "If you feel the front wheel coming up, don't brake or pedal forward." "I know." I take a deep breath. "Shall we, then?" I ask. "Yeah." "Lezgo."
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You see, Mary and George supposedly biked this very same path on their way to Windermere. Granted, they probably weren't lugging 30-40 extra pounds of stuff on their bags, but still. We biked a quarter mile of vertical. At least the view coming out was amazing.
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