Amblekiller v3.0

Sunday saw my annual trip to ambleside to kick off the riding year proper. A very early start, parked up at rothay bridge and headed off, gorgeous day nippy but clear skys. Loughrigg was fun but they've sanitised the bottom half (booo!) Iron Keld was a bugger to climb, the grass was frozen solid so loads of grip until there suddenly wasn't and the rear spun wildy. Patches of ice I think, mind you my new rear tyre hasn't got quite as much bite so that wont have helped. Over to colthouse another big climb, more do-able but this is oh so much better as a downhill but claiffe wasn't a bad consolation. I skipped the bloody awful slack wood climb, I took the longer higher road around. Over to grizedale another lungbuster that I've never cleaned and a proper steep rocky track down to the visitors center. The day was warming up nicely the climb up to parkamoor had me steaming but when I rode into the trees it got all cold again. Anywhere in shade was freezing everywhere else was lovely. Parkamoor was ace as ever, as was bletherbarrow lane, rocky tracks my fave type of riding. Was tiring by the time I hit the visitors centre again just after lunch, titties track is a big old rocky climb, a loss of concentration had me dabbing halfway but I cleaned the mental rocky bit on the upper half so not bad and that lead to Lawson park, brilliant fun just too many gates! After hodge close I decided to take the quarry climb we did last month but instead of the singletrack descent I skipped over to the bridleway for more rocky goodness. Good job too as I rode passed the bottom of the cheeky track there were tonnes of walkers, I'd have run into them halfway down and they looked the militant type. By this point I was buzzing from a caffeine power gel, I went up langthwaite and bust a gut going up sawreys wood, a little worried I'd blown up. That just left loughrigg terrace, road climb wasn't too bad considering and not too many walkers about on the terrace. I even had enough energy to hammer the road back to the car. Brilliant day out and didn't end up in the world of pain I was in last year. 46miles 7800ft and lots of smiles.