Day Two

Forget the Olympic breakfast we all avoided at the Little Chef this morning. The Olympian task this morning was leveraging aching middle aged limbs out of bed.

There was an air of palpable trepidation as we surveyed the sky along with the 10 or so other C2Cers creaming up and helmeting outside the Travelodge.

We set off, retracing our steps from the night before through the streets of Penrith, including an unscheduled tour of the Morrison's carpark. The ride started with a sizable climb out of Penrith...but that was a mere amuse bouche for what was to follow.

Glorious long downhills through stunning scenery soon gave way to the tortuous climb to the social hub of the ride that is Hartside Pass. Tough. Hell yes, and the wind was something else.... And built and built to a serious storm force crescendo as the day progressed.

Its so easy to dismiss to comments of how bad something will be, and then only realise too late how wrong you were. Consequently much of today was spent at either 3mph (yes, walking pace uphill) or 35 mph downhill.

And did I mention the wind? I have never experienced a gale so strong that, going uphill, you can take your feet off the pedals and be pushed up.

But the scenery, the experience and the sheer sense of satisfaction as we cycled into Stanhope made it all  worthwhile.

Our loft conversion at the Packhourse Pub in Stanhope was novel but functional for 5 grown lads. (Steve and Rikki allocated the lilac honeymoon suite - an homage to the 1970s). Beers moved to dinner at the Bonny Moorhen, no one braving The Big One (see pic) and then a command performance by 'Poisoned Whiskey' - tonight's act, and Trevor's favourite, as the plucky waitress informed. We will never know who Trevor was but one might question his judgement. Never have I experienced so comprehensive a sound check that proved to be significantly better than the gig itself!

Karaoke night at the Packhorse was much more fun, and fuelled but pints of ice cold doom bar we sang away, locked in, to the wee small hours.

One more day to come....breakfast will be on the table at 8am....