Drizzledale

Monday me and Si hit the lakes, as the weather had taken a dramatic downturn from weekend I decided a known all weather route would be a good bet so the grizedale inaugural STW ride then. Parked up in grizedale and hit the northface climb and on to parkamoor, the view from the top was...well...white. Mist everywhere, visibility down to 15meters, ah well a great lakeland view denied. Moor lane was bloody brilliant as usual rocks drops whoops and turns, loved it. Up breasty haw and down the 4X track again another good 'un. Slack wood was slippy we both did the drop after eyeing it up then slithered our way down to the road. The drizzle ramped up a notch here, the climb up to claife was long but I was getting into the rythmn, letting the plush suspension soak up the bumps and spinning along, heckler might weigh a tonne but it does do some things very well. Bit of a mix up in the woods but we found some more singletrack and didn't go far off course at all. Colthouse was good, very wet in parts but still a right laugh, nearly lost the back end on a slippy grassy corner but managed to hold it and some nice ladies held the midway gate open for us. Into hawkshead and up vicarage road, this is a beast of a climb long, steep, relentless. Finally hit the fireroads and clipped along nicely, looking forward to "titties track". Unfortunatley I am rubbish at navigating in forests, I eventually twigged something was not right and sure enough not long later we came to the bottom of titties. Damn blast and buggeration! Si's legs were fried and he didn't fancy riding up it, so we went down "suicide" where I had a couple of goes to try and cheer myself up, no good tho, was kicking myself for the rest of the day.
I know my signature rides are "can't ride up it, can't ride down it" but this is a great normal ride just riding bikes up stuff and speeding down them again with grins plastered on faces. No hour long hikes and no pucker inducing, do or die, tech fest downs....just riding along. No suffering just fun.

and I now know where we went wrong and I absolutley positively won't do it again.

Oh yeah nearly forgot on the way home Si had a blowout in lane 4 of the M6. Of course people in lanes 1,2 and 3 didn't want to let a car on three tyres and one rim cut across to the hard shoulder but we made it eventually. Si consigned me to the grass verge while he changed it. I never realised how bloody loud motorway traffic is when you're right next to it. A traffic patrol came passed us and drove right on by, thanks guys. Soon sorted and back on the road. Phew!