Day 7... Shap Fell

19:41: Shap Fell. Fairly legendary climb in bike circles - 7 miles of upward geographical silliness between Kendal and the village of Shap in Cumbria, at the edge of the Lake District.

We all beasted it.

But more of that later. The day started early-ish (7:30) and freezing-bloody-cold-ish, then the schedule immediately began to slide as we snubbed standing around eating cereal in the freezing cold in favour of getting a hot breakfast at the motorway services we'd stayed at. Eventually we got going at about 09:30. Becks decided (wisely, I reckon) to sit today out, however Eddie's determination meant he started off with us. However, it wasn't long before his knee started popping and he had to pull out again.

The road to Lancaster and then Kendal was very pleasant, and the weather improved and became quite warm & sunny. Unfortunately, it wasn't the right road, but never mind, we still got there eventually. A quick stop the other side of Kendal gave us time to prepare for Shap. Interestingly, Carl's preparation method involved heading back into town to a Halfords we'd passed a few minutes earlier, as he damaged a wheel yesterday and wanted to check the repair Lisa & I effected on it was adequate.

Being a team, the rest of us left him to it while we all cracked on. It was a bit of an odd climb, with an annoying amount of downhill bits which felt like they were undoing all the work we'd just done. Eventually though, Andy & I (being gluttons for punishment) made it to the peak where, just to be nasty, there was a final descent followed by a sharp final climb which left both of us looking like a portable Niagara Falls. I'd set a stopwatch when we left the previous stop point, and as soon as we reached the peak I immediately failed to stop it and carried on down the other side for a mile or so, then stopped for a chat with Becks & Jenny (who'd stopped in a layby), watched Andy go sailing past and not stopping, then set off after him before actually remembering the stopwatch. It stopped at 48m 55s, so I reckon we'd hit the peak at around 43/44 minutes. Not bad.

Next to arrive was Veljko, about 10 minutes later, and Mark about 5 minutes after that. Then we found out that Carl had just left Halfords so settled in for a nice long break. He arrived around 50 minutes later, and we were all chuffed that no-one walked at all - result!

Once Carl had rested a bit, we cracked on again. Interestingly, Lisa's cousin (who lives in the area) said he was gonna hop on his motorcycle and come along to toot his encouragement; we later found he couldn't catch us up!!

There were some superb views throughout Cumbria (Carl & Mark took a few photos which I'm sure they'll post at some point), and we eventually rocked up in Carlisle at a tad after six.

We're now in a Travelodge and ordering pizza. Good times.

Stats:
Distance: 79.69 miles
Ave moving speed: 14.38mph
Total riding time: 5h 32m 22s
Elevation gain: 5,061 ft

Keith