24th May 2012 - Keswick for Borrowdale

5 turned up for a lap of Derwent water, locally known as the 'Borrowdale Bash', Grant, Jamie, George, CT and Max met up at the town centre car park, handy for chips later (maybe...). After a few days of sunshine the weather looked set fair, although there was s light shower over Ambleside earlier, so we set off for the clockwise route. Basically head towards Ashness Bridge, some very light cloud cover and mainly blue sky meant a great evening for a ride out, see photos near Watendlath tarn. Up and over to Watendlath, up a testing climb, but worth a go, a quick pit stop for snacks now descend and enjoy Birkett Leap, so Max did and got a front puncture for his efforts, it's a tricky rock section but doable with the right attitude and skill! Still a challenging rocky descent but worth it, this time we did not take the right hand turn for the route through the trees, but kept on down. Here you could now head up the Honister road, but we headed right and up to the track to Castle Crag, this was excellent (best if you have full sus, you have been warned) but my teeth are mostly intact! as time was pressing and so we tracked through Borrowdale to Grange and the climb up the side of Cat Bells and worked our way north and back to Keswick for chips, now this was the plan, Max headed home around 10.45 we headed for town, as it happens the chippy closes at 10.30 (bad planning) so we looked for some other hot food outlet open late....last place open was kebabs, nice 'n spicy and if your body is a temple just eat the veggie bits:) A great night for a circuit of Derwent water, Thanks Max for the route finding and encouragement. Next ride is Elterwater, meet on the common.