There's definitely something satisfying about riding to work on a fully loaded bike. Taking your bed into the office and reloading it later, riding away.
My morning meeting was done from home then I finished packing and set off for the office in my lunch break. My bike has been cleaned but not ridden since the highland trail so I had to pump my tyres up. This meant my 1pm meeting was conducted leaning against someone's garden wall with my notebook on the pavement in the little housing estate at the back of the factory.
I worked till 5:30 to get my day done which meant my planned excursion over Cut Gate and down to the Ladybower Inn to meet boys for a pint probably wasn't going to work out. Still, as I left work, the thought of going the quick way was not appealing - retracing back to my house and riding the same way I ride all the time.
I turned right at Meadowhall and got myself on "the motorway" - a disused railway line bridleway that runs parallel to the M1 to Eckington, Chapeltown and beyond. Eckington was my stop. I turned through some road junctions then along country lanes to a bridleway in Wortley Woods and then my internal GPS ran out. After I'd climbed zig zags up the hill I followed the "cycle route" instead of following the "loop path" and it dropped me back downhill. I passed a gymkhana where young women rode horses and smaller children dressed in riding clothes and helmets ran around a field pretending to be horses while older women in vests and too-small shorts looked on. It all looked a bit warm.
The track dropped me back onto the busy road half a mile further along from where I left it. Rather than retrace I settled in for the long, uncomfortable ride around to Warncliffe, where I meant to be. I didn't get squashed by cars travelling at 50 mph, though how some people live with themselves is beyond me. It was a relief to turn off onto a minor road but of course the speeding Rangerover behind me also made the same turn so I stayed on tenterhooks until he'd squeezed by too. Finally I could relax and potter down to the TransPennine Trail on a mix of forest trail and country lanes.
No matter how fast my legs would carry me I still wasn't going to make it on time and I was also sure that they - if not I - would have any mobile reception to send or receive any messages.
By the time I reached Oxsprings and the tempting Wagon & Horses pub, I wasn't that hungry and a full carpark made me think twice about dropping downhill to see if they had a table. If I carried on to Penistone I could stop for chips or a supermarket dinner or keep going, sprint to our planned bivi spot and brew up an instant meal before bed time, spending some time with other people instead of eating alone.
By the time I got to Penistone I was starving. I couldn't remember exactly where the chippy was but in the end I followed my nose, leaving the TPT as soon as I smelled vinegar then dropping down the ramp to their open door. I threw a string lock through the rear wheel of the bike, stood in the doorway to order then pushed the bike and box of chips up the hill back to the TPT and found myself a bench in the park in the sun next to the skatepark for entertainment.
I text'd Landslide to let him know I was on my way and that I'd be late and arriving from Cut Gate direction. They'd found the pub shut and were inching up to our planned bivi spot.
Having checked my tracker, Chris text'd me back to remind me I'd have a long trek to get to them after Cut Gate which I needed as I'd forgotten a few details of my plan.
By the time I got to Langsett moor the sun was starting to set and the brown reeds and grass from winter stood out golden in the ocre sun against the foundation of green. Foolish lambs thundered around the track calling for their mummies.
I passed unhindered across the Woodhead Road, stopped at the river to check I didn't need a water top up, then climbed back up onto the moors where heather and juvenile bracken joined the explosion of colour as the sunset behind Emley Moor.
A mixture of pushing and riding followed. Pushing where I was forced off by lose stone and the occasional insurmountable boulder. Enduro bro's passed the other way picking up a pinch flat on said massive (sharp) boulder.
• • •
I stopped for a wee in the shelter of a bog, watching the orange glow disappear and thinking I had the place to myself and feeling too tired to push my bike further away to find more cover. 2 of the riders passed back the other way, waving at me. Friendly. Thankfully it was almost dark.
We had a chat later as we all added lights then I let them go on ahead for the descent.
I could see lights over at where I thought the bivi spot was. I flashed my hand over my light a few times in acknowledgement. Sadly their lights went out soon after as I was kind of using them as a marker. I was just about to try and pick out the distintive black lump of our spot against the other black lumps and identify the crease in the river where I'd climb out of the valley when their lights disappeared. I realised I'd set out with an ambitious plan but no actual means of making it pan out (ie a map). What seemed like an obvious lump on the horizon was one of many obvious lumps on the horizon.
 |
| Spots in the foreground are the lights of Sheffield |
My plan was to follow my track so far then pick up a sheep trod I'd ridden once then cross one of many streams which led to another track which led to the second track to where my friends were. In the cooling darkness it started to feel over ambitious and when I found myself on a good quad bike track I'd not been on before I decided to go with it. It's not like I'd be doing any more damage to sensitive environments on a fucking quad bike track. Owls and harriers wheeled out of the undergrowth in my light from time to time. The fat lambs, now big enough not to need their mummies, thundered along the quad bike track in front of me in flocks of four, buoyed into stupidity by eachothers' company until finally their nerve broke and they scattered in different directions then came back together again for solidarity.
I rode and walked some sketchy descents and slogged back up the other side. These valleys could make for nice cool respites on a hot day but weren't at all tempting stop spots for a bivi tonight, damp as they were. After the third river crossing I knew I was wildly off course and stopping for the night on my own started to appeal. At least the fun of being lost in the dark on a bivi ride is you can just go to bed and figure it all out in the morning when you can see better. Maybe our chosen spot would be busy tonight and I could get to sleep earlier and have the sunrise to myself in the morning. But I hadn't seen Chris since March so I decided to follow the track to its conclusion and see where I came out.
Eventually the gates became more mainstream, more solid. The kind where a sheep needs a science degree to un-latch them. Suddenly I knew where I was. The bad news: I'd lost all elevation and would need to climb all the way back up again. The good news: I'd always wanted to know where that went and how better to find out? Also: I didn't have to go much further to head back up again and this time I was on familiar territory. I still had to do a bit of from-memory / making-it-up navigation and largely that involved following a path along a fenceline then picking the line of least resistance up the side of a ridgeline rather than the direct, steeper route.
My choice brought me out by a familiar landmark only 200m from where the boys were camped. More through luck than skill but I was still smug.
There was a bit of a breeze up and I wanted a pleasant night so I'd happily camp anywhere out of the breeze, even if it was nowhere near the others. I went around to find them. 2 still bivi bags and bikes were exactly where I expected them - in "the usual spot". I continued past, riding as much as possible to silence my noisy freewheel.
The next bay housed a large boulder with a gap to the crag just large enough to fit a bike and a Trep. I parked my bike and changed into dry wool shorts and a dry wool baselayer a synthetic coal The bivi spot had a rock embedded in the sleeping spot but my air mattress would take care of that. I lay on it to check for slope and nearly fell asleep right there it was so warm a cosy.
• • •
I was glad of the rock wall between me and my sleeping friends as I rustled bags and breathed life into my mattress and celebrated finding my pillow. I had no idea whether or where I'd packed it but I couldn't find it in the house so had to assume...
It was playing out to be a perfect night's bivi so I threw in my sleeping bag liner just to make sure I'd be toasty then pinged my OK on my tracker at 00: 48 and got my phone out to text Chris There was an unread message from him,
"We can see you! "22:49
I replied,
"Came the long way round! I'm in the next bay behind a boulder. Wake me when you get up" 00:49.
After 4 months without contact I wasn't going to miss out on hill breakfast. I heard his phone buzz quietly "next door".
I lay on my back with my bi vi hoop around my belly, staring at the stars above. The light show that was the sunset had simmered into an orange line on the horizon with inky blue above and the 6 red lights of the Holme Moss transmitter station glowing in the night sky. It was dark enough for the stars to make an appearance in large quantities in spite of the vague glow of light pollution from Sheffield. From my broad wedge of rocks, I couldn't make out any constellations but watched a few satellites slew past and a couple of shooting stars flare then peter out just as my real vision caught up with my peripheral vision. I wondered if I'd ever sleep through this light display so zipped up my bug net to raise the hoop on the bivi over my face to get a bit of darkness. That all made me kinda shivery until I realised I was shivering from the sweat building up inside my sleeping bag liner. Once I ditched my bag liner and coat I was fine.
The next wake up call was the squeal of what Chris later concluded was a pair of her harriers, swooping above our heads sweeping up food as the sun started to announce its presence at 2:25 am.
I noticed my hip was cold and aching. Apparently my mattress has developed a slow leak and I spent the next 2 hours intermittently reinstating it - pleased to find it can be done without getting up - only to wake to do it again, however many minutes later.
Then there was the 3:30 grouse barking. I could hear one of the boys breathing loudly so put in my earplugs and settled in to part-snooze, part watch-the-light-show as the orange line on the horizon began to broaden again.
Eventually at 4:20 the light was too bright, even if the sun was mostlyobscured by a massive low cloud bank. I was bored of reinstating the mattress and the rocks were turning pink then golden. I went for a wee then got my camera out to capture the beautiful silence. Chris got up next, read my text and waved as I sat munching porridge while waiting for my coffee to brew.
I've been up there many times but never taken the time to really appreciate what can be seen - beyond the Lady bower into the Edale valley and Rushup Edge and beyond. In the distance valleys were full of fog yet we were perfectly clear and the temperature and breeze were just enough to keep the midges at bay. Nelson joined us to stare at the view a bit longer then I returned to my spot to polish off my coffee and pack up most of my kit before joining the boys camp to chat through their breakfasts and watch hares and cotton grass bobbing across the moorland.
Reluctantly it was time to get out of my wool boxer shorts and into bibs for the final pack-up.
• • •
It's an uncomfortable feeling that you've left something behind when everything packs down so well. Then I remembered I was still wearing my coat. I switched to my windproof for the descent and Chris andI turned left while Nelson turned right to get back to work in Hathersage.
Sprightly, Chris raced ahead while I pottered down more serenely, reluctant to hit the road, though by the time we reached Bradfield I could have done with the cafe being open at the pub. Hey ho. We weaved through the traffic in Hillsborough where my tyre picked up a copper tack which I shoulda known wouldn't seal but had too much faith in sealant but thankfully enough sense to stop.
Rather than fiddle with my own shitty repair, landslide stepped in with a plug that was much closer to hand and we were soon rolling again. Chris headed home to take his boys to school and I threaded through Kelham Island. It would have been early enough for me to stop for another breakfast before work but instead I foolishly took the dubious decision to save time by taking my trail food (rice pudding & cinnamon) into the office and catch up on work hours before I ran out of momentum.
(I subsequently forgot to take my trail food to the office and instead got through the morning on office fruit, chocolate biscuits and tea).
At lunchtime I procured a Large sandwich (the size of my face), crisps, flapjack and coke and this was still insufficient to provide enough calories to sustain me for the ride home. I crawled back the slightly long way around in order to avoid the steep hills then missed my turning and ended up climbing the 70m long 16% cobbled Lark street instead.
I walked in the house and parked my bike then lay in a lukewarm bath and went to sleep. A very happy camper.
No comments:
Post a Comment