Yes! A mountain bike route!

First time out on the not-road today. I can't remember when the last time was, probably Grizedale over a month ago. We met up with M&L who were up on holiday after their wedding and subsequent African honeymoon. It's always good to go for a ride with M as I tend to have to work a bit harder than usual on the ups which is handy.

Anyway as we had time constraints (fairly new baby, toddler who likes to nap at prescribed times), we did this route which I was at first a little dubious about, mainly because it seems a bit short. However it's a nice little run that took us an hour and a half from the carpark and back.

It's never a good idea to be in too high a gear up a steep switchback-y road at the start of the ride but that's what I did. Couldn't change down as I was at least turning the cranks so I carried on as I watched and felt my kneecaps pop off into the undergrowth at the side of the road.

It levelled out and became a lot more rocky and trail-like as I hacked up a lung, just in time for the descent down into somewhere near Loughrigg tarn. I quite enjoy rambler-slalom but kept it to a minimum this time for the sake of rambler-MTBer relations.

The route then took us back round Loughrigg tarn, up and through some woodlands then back down to Rydal caves (or Loughrigg quarry) which is pretty impressive for a couple of big scars scrapped out of the ground. I cleaned a nice little technical climb as well - I've still got it...

After that it's back down a cinder path and onto the road back to the carpark. I managed to remember to turn my Sports Tracker thing on my phone at this point which looked like this:

Just rewards included: cumberland sausage pie, a large americano, 2 scoops of icecream in a waffle cone (shared with P) and a browse in Biketreks.

Nice