C & D Fab Four Bikewell In Bakewell

OK over to Andy Pendred to tell you all about their ride yesterday.

https://www.strava.com/activities/399167974

Note - When reading please replace hill with mountain if only to shut up Pete

I'd planned a day trip up to the Peak District with Sam before he went back to Uni so it seemed a good idea to see if any fellow C&Ders fancied joining us. Phil, Nat & Pete decided to give it a go but sadly Phil had to drop out so the Famous Five became the Fab Four & off we set on a sunny September morning.

Nat had a nervous start as Pete got to grips with her pride & joy and strapped it on the roof !

We arrived at Bakewell & set off on a route I'd found online courtesy of a Wiggle sportive (other bike shops available)

 The first few miles climbed steadily then we turned up a steeper bit which Pete decided to smash & left us trailing. However as we rounded the next corner of this 20% hill - sorry Pete 20% mountain - we found Pete kindly waiting for us doubled over his bike & after he regained the power of speech & breathing he kindly let us go ahead to the top of a long climb. We all had a breather here and realised that we were in proper hill country. Pete had a much needed gel which turned out to have wonder properties to rival Richard's Special Blue Product as he flew up all the hills. The upside of hill climbing is of course the downhill & we were treated to some pretty quick descents.

 As you'd expect the scenery was stunning, varying from wooded lanes to open moorland with rocky outcrops. We cracked on to  Edale into a strong headwind and climbed up towards Mam Tor where we stopped to take in the view.

From here we deviated from the Wiggle (other bikes shops available) route & followed a tweak that I'd edited into the Garmin that took us down the famous Winnats Rd into Castleton. Although we went down Winnats the hill climb back out of Castleton on the other side was another massive one with 20% gradients.

Route wise all had gone well until everyone realised we were now blindly following my detour & it didn't help by Sam commenting on my previous route planning which doesn't always go to plan! So now we were treated to little mutterings of 'where are we' 'are we nearly there yet' ' I've not seen any signs for Bakewell' followed by 'I'm cold' 'my arms hurt' 'not another fecking hill' - that was just Nat ! Anyway to put everyones' mind at rest Sam checked out the Garmin (he was the only one who could read it without glasses) (Nat couldn't do it as she is female) & surprise surprise we were on track to Bakewell. So confident were my fellow riders that they disappeared off downhill without me then had to climb back a mile uphill to get back on track.

 A couple more climbs followed & we headed back to Bakewell for some well earned grub at The Original Bakewell Pudding Shop (of which some Pudding will be at the club ride courtesy of Nat).

Cheers to Nat, Peter & Sam, a great ride out which hopefully we can repeat as a club ride.

Thanks for that Andy

Happy Pedaling