18th October 2012 - Hawkshead for Claiffe

It was a warm evening (for October anyway, although Charlie had her winter boots on!) and 4 met up at the school car park, Neil, CT, Charlie and her nephew, Graham, who was up for a few days from Norfolk; so Charlie dragged him out for a few hills, kindly lending him her old training Santa Cruz (the heavy one) whilst she gallantly rode her race bike (weighing nothing but a feather apparently ;)). So Claiffe it was, along the lanes and up the downhill, it is actually not bad at all and virtually all rideable in a oner, obviously we stayed together as a group to support Charlie in case her feather bike blew away. On the ride up CT mentioned that the international space station, ISS, may be visible in the south west at 7.05pm for 4 minutes, but alas the clouds were in the way, maybe next time. check out web site here http://spaceflight1.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/cities/view.cgi?country=United_Kingdom&region=England&city=Kendal

Grizedale in daylight (Saturday October 20th!) blue sky:)

Basically we did the guide posts, extra loop bit, up and over past the tarns, Far Sawrey down to the lake shore, and here the track along the lake is virtually tarmac like, so we shall see what the weather will do, but it looks like they have installed good water pipes for drainage, then up past base camp and back to the guide posts for the downhill finish. Neil was slowing at this point but he had already ridden a 20 mile warm up earlier in the day, bravo, we added about another 10 miles. Charlie was heading off to Ambleside in search of chips, curry or anything to eat. Next ride Ribblehead for a bit of the Cam high road.