I went away on to the Lakes at the start of the month with Jason (Wotsits), but work has been bonkers so it’s taken me weeks to get round to write something down. I still don’t really have enough time to do a good job on it, so I’ll just jot down my random thoughts and anecdotes of the trip

Didn’t start well, meant to get to Staveley for around 2pm on Friday, didn’t get there till after 5pm. Once I’d loaded up then found my tubeless front wasn’t working, valve was knackered and leaking air, and I’d only brought 1 tube with me, great! So new tube in and off we went. We left Staveley around 6pm, by which point it was completely pitch black!

I’d left home just after 9am loaded up with my wife, her friend and my 2 kids. I dropped them in Liverpool on the (vague) way up. I spent a lot of time in the car!

Temperature was amazingly mild, had to take my windshirt off not long into the ride which is pretty good going for Autumn in the North West

Another mechanical not long in (Jason broke his chain) but thankfully that was the last of the trip. I took an impressively short amount of time fixing that

Some of the sections were pretty technical (for a complete amateur like me), I’m not ashamed to say that I got off and walked a few of them, but in the most case the whole ride was very rideable and huge fun

Good ride from Staveley to Ambleside, on part of the Lakeland 200 route I think. But we were well behind schedule at this point, mainly due to me taking so long to get up. Dinner was booked for about 7.30 but there was no chance of us making that. Jase phoned ahead and as long as we turned up at 8.45pm we’d get served.

It was 8pm when we got to Ambleside, so we jumped on the road and made up time to Grasmere

Dropped bikes in the YHA bike store and went to Tweedies, arriving bang on 8.45pm – nice

Starter and main course later, (never finished my main, was stuffed!), plus a few follow up drinks and we headed back to the YHA

Hadn’t pitched up earlier so 1am was obviously the perfect time to do it, timed it perfectly for the rain. Came down once my tarp was up!

Camped in the grounds of the YHA, last official night that we could apparently. Actually I rigged my tarp off 2 picnic benches, thats obviously why they put them there...

It was nice to be able to have a shower before getting into bed. But it was drizzling when I got back to the tarp so went straight to bed

Fairly monumental rain over night – loud, heavy and lots of it!



Fry up in the canteen for brekkie, then Jase’s mate turned up to ride with us for the day

Was about mid morning by the time we’d faff’d around and packed. Then we were off!

Weather on the whole was fine. Mostly mild, rain just before lunch, lots of fog. Given it was early November I thought that was alright to be honest!

Unusually, and unfortunately, I was as heavy in the morning as I was the night before – no food eaten, no booze drunk, no fuel used

We had a cracking ride in the morning, but unfortunately don't know exactly where we went (without checking a map). There was an obligatory bit of hike a bike too







The main event of the morning was Cathedral Cave, which was pretty spectacular. I suspect we were among very few bikepackers to have gone through, this was my first ever climb a bike! The main cave is cool and would make a very cheeky Bivi spot. We then went through the back and climbed up to the top, passing the bikes up between us, there's no way of doing this solo without some serious risk (or unloading the bikes). A bloke, on foot, off STW saw us at this point and posted up a thread saying he'd met three MTBers in the Cave - crazy small world! After that more hike/climb a bike down some rocks to a tunnel, which was low enough to hit your head on. Was pretty special wheeling your bike through a surprisingly long tunnel, not something I’ve done before!













We met some greenlaners on the other side who'd had an incident, the front landy was now in a spot of bother. We spent a while chatting but it turned out they were doing some major faffing and speculating so we moved on. I was quite keen on seeing how they were going to rescue it but they were so slow we carried on, it was raining at this point so easy to get cold



Lunch in a nice little cafe in Hawkshead, while it continued to rain outside. Paninis each followed by cake (cracking ginger tiffin in my case)



I was cold getting back to the bike but that was soon remedied with a technical climb straight out of Hawkshead

The climb led us into Grizedale Forest for some trails, which were great fun but would have been nicer without all the weight. I didn’t relise it was a full on trail centre till we got there, was great fun

Said bye to Jase's mate at the bike shop who had a bit of a ride back to get back to Grasmere. We tried to blag a test ride on an e-bike but no luck as the batteries weren't plugged in. Shame, I've still not been on one!

Hike a bike up ‘Boulder alley’ and a couple of great descents, one particularly good one (my favourite of the whole weekend) called the Fox I think? It was wide enough to be forgiving with luggage, but rocky enough to have to think about it, and required lights on given the time which just made it more fun

From here it gets a bit sketchy, we headed to Newby Bridge to check out a pub for dinner, but it was absolutely rammed full, no chance. Plus it was quite posh and we were quite muddy! It was the rugby final weekend and the rugby was on so that might be have it even more popular than usual. Can't remember what time it was but I was hungry so chomped down some fudge for a quick boost

Onwards we went to our next stop, via a fire road climb that seemed endless. That was a real leg burner, on and on! Was really thankful I’d had something to eat as I’m sure I would have bonked on this. Was delighted when we got to the top! It was pretty dark so we had a quick moment with lights off to check out the view and the sky, but the conditions it was very cloudy with a touch of fog so there was nothing to see

Then more tracks and trails, some being very squelchy but rideable, till we got to a decision point. We arrived at a t junction, left up the hill to the campsite, or right down the hill to the pub for dinner and back up the hill afterwards. It was about 8-9ish at this point, my legs were tired, and we had dinner with us as back up. I’d have normally said straight to the campsite but we were low on water so pub was the obvious decision.

Down the hill we went, down and down and down. I was enjoying the speed but getting slightly concerned at how far down we were going. It was endless, in hindsight it would have made a great offroad descent and to do it on the road was a waste but at the time I wasn’t fussed at all, it was still pretty good on the road.

And the pub was worth the descent, a real gem, genuinely. We sat by an open fire rotating wet clothes so they'd dry out. And the food was great. I was so warm and content that I wasn't looking forward to getting back on the bike, if they'd offered us a floor to sleep on, or even the timber framed heated marquee outside, I'd have probably taken it.

There was no chance we were going back up the hill at this stage, so we rode to the back up Bivi spot, which was next to a small lake/tarn in a nature reserve

The Bivi spot was lovely, but the ground was rocky as hell. There was about an inch of topsoil and then it was solid. Four of my guy lines were attached to fence or rocky wall, not quite sure how the rest found a home, it took ages to wrestle them into the ground. They weren’t arrow straight when they came out!

It was very foggy but there was no wind at all and no rain. Once we'd pitched up it was well past midnight

At this point most sensible folk would have thought 'it's late, I'm tired and I've been on the bike all day, I'm going to bed', but having ridden for many hours we then thought I know, lets drink ALL the whiskey we had with us

I had 230ml of Glenlivet, and Jase had a similar amount of Laphroaig. I’m usually find Laphroaig too peaty but it tasted lovely on this occasion. We stood for about an hour and a half bantering randomly and finishing the booze. I’m not quite sure why we didn’t sit down near to the tarn, there were plenty of rocks. By the end of that I was feeling the whiskey, we knocked back about 2/3rds of a bottle in about 90 minutes

I slept well that night! It was so mild and still, I didn’t even need a tarp up. My tarp was fairly flappy anyway as I couldn’t find good rigging points so if there had been any wind it might have been a bit noisy

Nice view in the morning, the fog had cleared and we could see the tarn, really lovely little spot.











Coffee and light breakfast once we’d packed up, then off we went

The usual rule is to take a bivi spot when you see it, otherwise you could be searching forever. That rule held true, we didn’t see any suitable spots for a good 30 minutes or so after leaving the site so it was nice to know we’d picked right – or Jase had picked right anyway, I didn’t really do anything on that!

It was a pretty quick and easy ride back to the car.

The only event to speak of was the field of bulls we rode through, and the monster bull sitting smack bang on the corner of the field and the path. Jase was quite keen on jumping over the wall into a field and then jumping over the wall the other side, which would have been the safe and sensible thing to do. But my bike was fully loaded, I didn’t have anything on me (bumbag or rucksack) and didn’t fancy trying to get it over a (traditional Lake District) stone wall, twice. So with a rare streak of bravery, I wondered slowly around the bull, Hope hub helpfully clicking to let the big guy know where I was at all times. Part of me thought it was pretty stupid but my exit strategy was to drop the bike, which was between me and him, and try and vault the wall the other side. I’m pleased to say we made it through alive, he could probably smell the whiskey on us and didn’t fancy having a go. If I was on my own I’m not quite sure what I would have done!

Coffee and breakfast at Wilfs was a nice treat to end the trip.

We parted ways and I drove home (via Liverpool to pick everyone up, then to Manchester Hard Rock cafe for lunch, then home in the foggy foggy rain)

16 miles on the day 1 (night 1 really...)
40 miles on day 2
9 miles on day 3

This pic is for Whitestone, how to get 2 bottles and a half frame bag on a large Solaris



A few firsts for me this trip
- First time on a bike round the Lakes
- First time bikepacking in the Lakes (obviously given the above!)
- First time I’ve done a bikepacking trip with main meals procured from eating establishments, I usually take/cook my own food
- First time I’ve camped in a youth hostel. No different from a campsite but the showers were nicer and there was breakfast availability
- First time I've been to so many pubs/places with that romantic, stereotypical-movie, traditional country feel
- First time I did no planning at all, Jase did everything (bookings, route planning, navigation). I was a sheep all weekend, that was nice actually. Cheers Jase

So all in all it was a cracking trip, one of my favourite ever bikepacking trips in fact. I don’t know why I don’t read more trip reports in the Lakes, it’s such a special place. I’d like to go more but for me, being based in London, it’s a real slog. And I’ve never been up to that bit of the country and had a traffic free journey but I’m looking forward to going back at some point, I’ve even been looking at options for going by train! Big thanks to Jase for this weekend, cheers mate

About 10 days later I did another bikepacking trip to Wales, this time stayed in Nant Syddion and the route was kindly created by Stuart. RichardG and Blackhound from this parish were there for the ride too. Only a few pics so no point posting an additional thread for that. There was a fairly epic rainbow running over me on the drive up there – that was clearly an omen, it was bright on my drive there, i was clearly driving into the cloud – the weekend was very wet!

In summary a really good trip, 50 miles in just under 24 hours. The first night was very foggy with crazy wind and lots of tain. The next day was lots of rain with some rain, not much dense fog but enough to ensure there were no views! But considering it was a Stuart route it was amazingly rideable! Really nice to have company on a trip with such awful weather. There were a couple of fords that involved some surprisingly fast flowing water! We passed through where the WRC was running but the cars weren't out so we had a clear run. We met 3 guys in the bothy, one of whom had just got back from cycling his way all over Europe on a Triban 3 road bike - a damn fine effort












PS - I googled the difference between fog and mist following these trips, it was bad in the Lakes and even worse coming back in the car, then I had more in Wales – I got to pondering what the difference was. Mist is light, fog is the heavier version of the same thing. There you go, fact for the day

Nice write up. That cave looks amazing!

Nice report. A bit of it was round my home turf - I grew up a couple of miles from "the endless fire road" and your bivvy by the tarn. The pub sounds like either The Mason's Arms at Strawberry Bank which is halfway down a hill on a sharp bend or The Bowland Bridge which is at the bottom of the same hill.

Interesting picture of the water bottles - I've an XL Ocelot and I think it's a bit deeper than the Revelate Designs frame bag you have. I'm going to try some DMR clamps to see if I can mount a bottle lower down.

Nice write up, thanks. I liked the "cave a bike" bit
How on earth did that greenlaner manage to come off that track? Mind you, I have heard they deliberately get themselves stuck so they can play with their winches .

Richard G wrote:Nice write up. That cave looks amazing!

It was pretty damn cool. It’s not on the map so you’d only know about it in advance or by stumbling across it. There’s no chance I would have found it on my own, and even if I had I wouldn’t have made it up to the tunnel because you had to climb up a little rock face. Fine on foot but not safe carrying the bike loaded. The tunnel in particular was quite long and you couldn’t see the end when you went it. It was nice to have the option of lights! Quite a popular area with climbers apparently, you can see the pins they’ve put in the wall to attach to

whitestone wrote:Nice report. A bit of it was round my home turf - I grew up a couple of miles from "the endless fire road" and your bivvy by the tarn. The pub sounds like either The Mason's Arms at Strawberry Bank which is halfway down a hill on a sharp bend or The Bowland Bridge which is at the bottom of the same hill.

Interesting picture of the water bottles - I've an XL Ocelot and I think it's a bit deeper than the Revelate Designs frame bag you have. I'm going to try some DMR clamps to see if I can mount a bottle lower down.

The Mason’s Arms, that’s the one. A seriously impressive little pub, such a welcome relief from the misery of fog outside. It wasn’t that cold outside, but it bloomin felt like it leaving the fire! I’m very jealous that you’re so local to the area, it’s an amazing place. Really made me jealous of the people that live close enough to get there regularly. We saw a few other good candidates for bivy spots, I’d love to head back there

I’m using a mount skidmore adaptor to move one bottle mount down, and set of elite bottle cage mounts for the other. My El Mariachi has 2 bottle cage mounts but I still need a mount skidmore adaptor to create space for the frame bag.

This was definitely a trip for front suspension, a suggestion from Jase, so i’m pleased I took the Solaris and not the El Mariachi which is rigid

Ray Young wrote:Nice write up, thanks. I liked the "cave a bike" bit
How on earth did that greenlaner manage to come off that track? Mind you, I have heard they deliberately get themselves stuck so they can play with their winches .

It was impressive huh? It was actually a genuine mistake. 2 motocross bikes tried to get past so the lead car pulled over to the left. The road gave way and down he went. It’s not far off rolling, the angle in that picture makes it look better than in real life. The view from the back is worse, I did take a picture but it doesn’t show the drop well enough. The tried towing it backwards and it just kept sliding down, they need to tow it back and sideways at the same time but there’s no space to do it. They were faffing with winches and tow ropes/straps but there weren’t enough places to secure it to. There were about 6 cars behind, some very nice pieces of kit, but as it’s the lead car down they’re all stuck. They’d called in for help but I don’t know from whom. After about 10-15 minutes chatting to them, during which time they’d made zero progress, it was clear that they weren’t going anywhere fast.

It was a load of blokes looking for a good excuse for a faff, some toys, some banter and some fun. Not far off a group out on mountain bikes! At that point the byway was fairly tame but further on past the cars it became a bit of a climb and more technical in nature

Now I think about it I had a flat after that, on my rear tyre which is running tubeless and I had no more tubes. I pumped it off and span the rim a few times and that seemed to fix it thankfully!

Unfortunately I don't live in the area any more though a lot of my relatives do. I'm only just over an hour away these days so it's quite easy to nip over there for the day.

Didn’t start well, meant to get to Staveley for around 2pm on Friday, didn’t get there till after 5pm.

It's like a tag team

Was Jase later than Ben though, thats what we all want to know?

Taylor wrote:Was Jase later than Ben though, thats what we all want to know?

(yes)

But in his defence I did let him know at a few points during the trip, like when I had my handbrake on in the supposed fast lane of the M6, that I was running a touch late. I'm sure he would have been there bang on 2pm had I been running to schedule

I did have a cargo of 2 women and 2 children. I was impressed to even leave the house vaguely on time!

Erm, i'll have you know that my arrival time at Staveley had no bearing what so ever on our late arrival for dinner!
Seriously though Ben, i knew you had a long day travelling with the family etc so didn't want you to feel pressurised to get there at a certain 'must do' time, we had nearly all weekend & could have made the most of any time we were there, even if we only started the ride on Sat morn..

Was a beltin trip, glad you enjoyed it as much as i did. I'm also surprised how little Lakes bikepacking trips we see posted up on here, it's such a great area to ride, with so many options.

Anyway enough bleating, here's some pics, i like pics -



The cave & tunnel are ace, it's not my first time through there with the bike, but i must admit that it's the first time with a light! We normally have a no lights rule & you just have to feel your way along the left hand wall, which adds to the experience! I did for the first time see another chamber in there that i never knew about though













Whitestone you're right, it was the Masons Arms, great little pub..
We dropped on & managed to get a place next to the fire, don't know how we ever made it out of there we were so comfy..





This is the big boy we had to tippy-toe around. Must admit i did poo myself & may have even let a little bit of wee out.. I think Ben was still pissed (i know i was) as he just went 'I'm not lifting my bike over those walls..' & trudged past it



We then bumped into Aneela McKenna (Andy Mckenna's Mrs) & a couple of her mates when back at Staveley, who started to ask about riding up to Nan Bield.. Me thinks she's a feisty one as the look she gave me when i warned them about all the hike-a-bike- thought i was gonna get a wee 'Glasgee kiss', but she just looked at me & said 'We ride in Scotland ya know...'

Apart from still burping whisky 3 days later, it was a really great trip & will hopefully be doing plenty more like this in 2016

Yep, that's a bull The rest would be cows/coos/caws depending on your provenance - you don't get a field of bulls.

Glad to see that The Mason's is still up to standard - had heard rumours.

Wotsits wrote:Erm, i'll have you know that my arrival time at Staveley had no bearing what so ever on our late arrival for dinner!
Seriously though Ben, i knew you had a long day travelling with the family etc so didn't want you to feel pressurised to get there at a certain 'must do' time, we had nearly all weekend & could have made the most of any time we were there, even if we only started the ride on Sat morn..

Was a beltin trip, glad you enjoyed it as much as i did. I'm also surprised how little Lakes bikepacking trips we see posted up on here, it's such a great area to ride, with so many options.

Wild horses couldn't have stopped me from getting up there and heading out on the bike! The drive up wasn't great and back again was OK but not great, but it was without question worth it!

Love the photos, would you mind pinging me them via email? I can't download them from where they're hosted as I need a yahoo account. The grizedale one showing the trees and the mist is mint, good job!


Your photos have got me looking at train times again. Staveley is just over 3 hours from Euston, Oxenholme is even quicker, and Euston is about an hour's ride (loaded up and on knobblies) from home. If timing works out I can get the train from home to London too, has to be the train, no unfolded bikes allowed on the tube. If I get the right trains, and book early enough in advance, it's also quite good value - about £70 return, similar to diesel cost. I could get there in the morning on a Saturday and leaving on Sunday evening.

It has the makings of a trip... I don't think I'll be able to make the WRT this year, another wedding clash grrr, so I might be able to get a pass for a Lakes jaunt early in early spring

Looks a great trip, love that cave bit.

Notice the 1250 cycles top, I'm just down the road at Cyclehouse Cheshire Oaks

benp1 wrote: Love the photos, would you mind pinging me them via email? I can't download them from where they're hosted as I need a yahoo account. The grizedale one showing the trees and the mist is mint, good job!


Your photos have got me looking at train times again. Staveley is just over 3 hours from Euston, Oxenholme is even quicker, and Euston is about an hour's ride (loaded up and on knobblies) from home. If timing works out I can get the train from home to London too, has to be the train, no unfolded bikes allowed on the tube. If I get the right trains, and book early enough in advance, it's also quite good value - about £70 return, similar to diesel cost. I could get there in the morning on a Saturday and leaving on Sunday evening.

It has the makings of a trip... I don't think I'll be able to make the WRT this year, another wedding clash grrr, so I might be able to get a pass for a Lakes jaunt early in early spring

Email sent Ben, i'll send some more over later today..

You can actually cycle over from Oxenholme over to Staveley if it makes things any easier. Would take a lot of the strain off if you didn't have to drive..

voodoo_simon wrote:Looks a great trip, love that cave bit.

Notice the 1250 cycles top, I'm just down the road at Cyclehouse Cheshire Oaks

Simon, that's my mate Paul, he's in Widnes so rides in Cheshire & North Wales a lot.
I'll mention to him that you're at Cyclehouse, do you work there??

Yep, thats my place of work

voodoo_simon wrote:Yep, thats my place of work

That's handy to know Simon

I truly enjoyed reading that report, esoecially when you talked about the rally area around 'welsh lambs are sweeter' and Nant yr arian.
Btw what rear mudguard are you using?

Thanks Nathan

Thanks, if I'm honest I don't think I've done the rides justice, they were cracking

The routes were great

If anyone is interested, this is the Wales ride

https://www.strava.com/activities/433956755

And these are the lakes rides (thanks to Jaso for these, my gps never even got switched on!)

https://www.strava.com/activities/443079732
https://www.strava.com/activities/443079777
https://www.strava.com/activities/443079731


Mudguard is a Zefal RM29. It's a well priced, very stable and very effective mudguard for 29ers. I have one on both my mountain bikes. They fit on the seat stays so mean you can mount a seat pack easy. It's also prettier and cheaper than the mudhugger which seem to be very popular with the STW crowd

Thank you.
Ive had mudhuggers previously, they are a local company to me.
They work great on fs bikes but I wanted something different on the ht and that Zefal looks just right.

Nathan

Great write up Ben. I've walked your route from Chapel Stile over to Little Langdale and beyond lots of times but you have inspired me to do it on the bike next time. You are the second person this week to tell me about that cave but I've never found it so that is a mission for next time as well. I requested to follow you on strava and I might borrow the route from Staveley if you don't mind. I know what you mean about the drive up, Bournemouth to Chapel Stile is always a chore but worth it when you get there.

Just accepted the Strava message, of course I don't mind, it was a great route. I can't take any credit for any aspect of the route planning, it was all Jason

The cave was pretty special, if you go you should definitely check out the tunnel too. Take a torch when you go, it's dark in there and would take a fairly brave soul to try it without knowing what's in there!

Bournemouth is quite way! I'm guessing you'll have nicer riding than me close to your doorstep though

Can't really complain for riding opportunities in Dorset and Hampshire. You forget when it's on your doorstep sometimes