The story so far...

Last year, myself and James cooked up a plan for 2009, we were going to do a challenge in what would be our 40th year, James being only 4 days my junior. It was to be slightly different to the way we spent our 21st back in our student house. This time there would be wheels involved and probably less alcohol.


So what to do, there's a world of opportuinity out there, organised events you can opay the money and sign up for. none of them seemed quite right. I've wondered about doing the coast to coast (C2C) many times, and an article in What Mountain Bike last year reawakened that interest. I discussed it with James and he agreed it sounded interesting.


We then roped Paul, Roger and Ollie in to our not very sacred quest. Now at this point the details were a bit sketchy, about a week, about 200 miles, St Bees to Robin Hoods bay. Great, smashing super.


So I started doing some research, and poring over the maps, re-reading articles, buying Tim Woodcocks C2C booklet and realising there isn't a definative C2C mountain bike route. There are as many routes as there are people that have done it. So with the restriction of 1 week for ride and getting to and from the end points. I made one up, a hybrid (mongrel?) of the various inputs, then changed it, then changed it back again.


Now by this time Jacky and Karen had volunteered (?!) to be the support team, driving around the north of englands finest tea rooms occassionally fetching the odd inner tube, was their interpretation, more of this later no doubt.


So to set a date, near the end of May seemed like a good chance of reasonable weather (or is that a reasonable chance of good weather?), the week before Spring Bank Holiday and half term, so the touristy bits should be relatively quiet.


So the date is set, the route is set, everyone is signed up. As 2009 dawned, so did the realisation that the lake district, the pennines, the yorkshire moors all had a certain degree of altitude in places, that would have to be gained and lost repeatedly, although the net result of C2C is zero, I'm guessing it may feel different.


I started going out with the brightonmtb group on Thursday nights, Pilates on a Wednesday, and spending quality time on the downs or the turbo trainer in between as time and weather allows.

Roger and Ollie are doing circuit training every Tuesday, James is ramping up his commuting miles, and I know Paul is already as fit as a butchers dog, and with Glentress on his doorstep he should be getting the miles in too, although I've not heard anything from North of the border for a few weeks.


Next week 21st will see the first group training ride, with James down for the weekend, myself, Roger and Ollie all getting together for a hack over the downs, unfortunately it;s a bit far for Paul to make it. I've a fun route planned with lots of climbing to emulate a day in the lakes, although our hills are littler we'll have to go up and down a lot.