22nd February 2018 - Clappersgate for Claife

3 met up, George, Jamie and CT, cold but dry, we headed up the track next to the road, then along to Wray Castle for a quick look and continued on along the shore route past Bell Grange and onto the climb up and over to Far Sawrey, this is a testing climb and JB nearly cleaned it, really good dry conditions for the most part, then right at the pub and right again and through the water crossing and up past moss eccles tarn, it was a cold climb for George as his heated gloves stopped working, why you ask? well he took a tumble at the water crossing and got a soaking:( the gloves did come back on and he was not electrocuted! Up through the woods, left and head to guide posts, left again and then a detour to Colthouse and back via the lanes. 25.7km with 547m climbing.
Next ride Gilpin bridge
No ride pics, but some from this week anyway;)

Nice viewpoint

Can you guess what it is yet...

15th February 2018 - Staveley

Charlie, George, Jamie and Ct met up in Staveley, it was a tad cold and we headed up the road to 3 rivers for a little tarmac hill to warm up with, instead of doing the steep tarmac lane climb we went along the bottom to the old pump works and along to Kentmere that way. Charlies brakes were rubbing due to different wheel set up and this slowed her down and she had studded tyres waiting for the ice and snow, so perhaps we should head higher up;) We made it to Kentmere but Charlies brakes were slowing her down ans so she headed back by the lanes. We decided to try Garburn as it was a dry if windy evening, steady climb up, but we met show soon enough and walked a far few sections, the top section between the top gates was windy, and wet underneath snow if you broke through, so a bit of a challenge and very windy! The first downhill was tricky too, snow not quite hard enough, then down to Dubbs and back.
Next ride is Clappersgate.

High viz bike is useful ;)

1st February 2018 - Troutbeck

The three amigos turned up, Grant Jamie and CT, it was a bit nippy so lets head up a hill to warm up, straight up from the bottom of Garburn then and we can check out the bridleway work going on as they are re-pitching the last section, using vertical slabs of stone, really interesting to see, just can't ride up yet so we walked up, along the way passed a walker who said if we were going to the top of Garburn there was ice, of course there would be 'cause JB has taken his ice spikes off ;) Onward and upward...at least to the next section where after a pause we realised Jamie's chain was not running right, turns out jockey wheel bearing was on the way out and playing up, so a bit of checking required. We carried on to the Dubbs lane intersection but due to JBs chain/jockey interface issue and the fact that the wind was really starting to pick up we decided not to do Garburn but head back to Robin lane for a lap of Ambleside. We paused at the seat on Robin lane as the moon was very bright, so a few phone snaps until the cold reduced the battery to low mode only! So we kept moving it was a nice clear night with a great moon (not quite super or blue;)
Now onto Jenkins crag for the descent into Ambleside, nice and steady with the moon coming through the trees, very atmospheric, down through town and onto the coffin route where someone has done some work to level the path for some of the way, there is still some technical singletrack and JB cleaned the rooty section and most of the next climb, really good going! Grant said he read in the Gazette that this path was in the top 30 walks in the country! We dropped down into Rydal and then up to the caves, down the limestone slab descent and under Loughrigg back to town and return via Jenkins crag, it's a stiff climb and we feasted on flapack, jaffa cakes and Grant added a Gel to make it 3 courses!, then climb on and back to Troutbeck.
So Strava had got cut off due to battery issues but the backup old Nokia I had going to compare the two systems recorded 26.3 km (16 odd miles) 550m climbing, started at 6.30 back for 10pm Nice!
Next ride Stavely

Is that just the moon....no Grant taking a breather

Big yellow....Moon

A cave en-route