Coast to Coast – the route – day two

OK, hands up all those of you who saw yesterdays stroll in the park and thought “thats a stroll in the park is that, I could do that…”, well, what do you think now ?

46 miles to cover on day two, Saturday, Hell Day.

We climb to 2000 feet on Hell Day, but as you can see from the profiles above, its not all “just climb to 2000 feet and have done with it”, cycling is never like that, when you’re out cycling on a day like Hell Day you seem to be climbing all day.

In reality you’ll make, say, a four mile long climb and gain 500 feet or so, only to descend 400 of those feet around the next corner, the ascent may take you half an hour of hard flogging, the descent will last for thirty seconds of heart stopping, “these brakes don’t work”, 35 mph daredevil wind-in-your-face thrill – and then you start the next climb – repeat all day long.

I have of course avoided the off-road Old Coach Road route on the pretext that my bike is a tourer and not really best suited to off-road stuff, truth is that just looking at that profile of The Old Coach Road scares the pants off me, I don’t think we’d live to tell the tale if we took that option.

Greystoke – yes, its the real Greystoke, the one where Edgar Rice Burroughs Tarzan the Ape Man was supposed to have hailed from, and then the climb to Hartside sometime during the afternoon, or should I say the push to Hartside as I undoubtedly will be pushing the bike up most of that climb even though its actually harder to push a bike up a hill than it is to ride it.

The one good thing about the Hartside climb is the famous cafe at the very summit, I have heard that it has cake, that is enough motivation for me, I do anything for cake and a strong black coffee, it will be difficult to tear me away from any cafe during the weekend, strong black coffee and a wedge of cake, mmmmm.

Not that we will be partaking of such things en route of course, oh no, we’re doing this seriously, isotonic drinks only, specially designed isotonic drinks actually, specially designed sports isotonic drinks for cyclists, oh yes…

…and strong black coffee with a huge slab of cake – in every village.

And bananas, I was once partaking of some strong black coffee and a slab of cake in a well known cyclists cafe in Gargrave when I got chatting to an old geezer in the corner, an ancient cyclist he was, one of those ancient cyclists who rides an equally ancient fixed gear sports bike that he won a gold medal on in the 1948 Olympics, one of those ancient old cyclists who you instantly think “how the hell did he cycle this far up into the dales” and you leave the cafe ten minutes in front of him and five minutes later he zips past you with a wave and a “cheerio”.

So this ancient old cyclist with scrawny legs knotted with ancient muscles told me the secret of sports nutrition and the cure for a saddle sore arse whilst riding your one hundred mile a day training routine – a banana.

Not so much of a trade secret eh ?

You already knew how nutritionally beneficial a banana was didn’t you ?

But here was the secret – the old codger told me to select my banana very carefully, giving due regard to curvature, length and girth, due regard being made to how easily it would slip between your bum cheeks in order to prevent saddle soreness, yes, you stick it in your bum crack and sit on it all day.

He was being serious too, he demonstrated, fortunately without removing his pants, but the bulge in the back of his Lycra cycle shorts told it tale, there was at least one banana stuffed inside there, he assured me that all the old pros did that and that he had never had one incident of saddle sores since the war.

I daren’t ask him if he actually ate the banana when he had reached his destination but with hindsight I suppose you could, provided that the skin hadn’t split of course.

And provide that you enjoy a mushy warm banana of course.