In the early hours of the 24th July 2021, The games of the 32nd Olympiad in Tokyo were
belatedly nascent and broadcasting to timezones across the world. Eager night owls and
sport lovers in the UK were feasting on a dawn feast of Olympic sport. Athletes at the
height of there respective disciplines, swimmers, divers, skateboarders, gymnasts striving
for the ultimate in sport after years of preparation duelling each other for supremacy, all
beamed back to the eager viewer to a TV screen or device. Half a world away in a time zone
where the dawn is just breaking in a small corner of Lancashire a group of cyclists from Lune
RCC have met the breaking dawn at the Clock Tower in the small coastal town of
Morecambe on the west coast. Their mission, to cross the country of England to the East
coast and return to the town of Morecambe within the hours of daylight in the same day. To
achieve this goal the aspiring group would have to cycle the small matter of some 200 miles
and 8000 ft of ascent.
We embarked on our journey at 5 am prompt in good spirits. Splinters of the dawn light
giving way to orange skies as we crossed the Bay gateway and headed out of Lancaster and
onwards up the Lune valley towards Ingleton and the first gradients of the day breached and
ultimately to the high point of our outward Journey at Newby Head, still only 7am and we
are joined by our Moto companion for the day irrepressible Lune member Brian Ramsdale
who was to prove invaluable on the day pacing riders on after comfort breaks and passing
drinks to tired riders and just being a general feel good factor when you were having a bit of
a bad patch.
A fast descent into Hawes and we journeyed down Wensleydale via the roads north of the
Ure including a few steepish intakes round Askrigg which. took us to our first feed stop at
Preston Nick above Redmire, but not before we had undertaken the 20% gradients of
Scarth Nick, definitely the steepest point of the day.
8am on a glorious July day and our team of 8 were treated to a textbook food stop courtesy
of our invaluable support team of Janice and Damon Murphy in the C&M Motors support car
and Brian on the motorbike. We are atop the Richmond Tank Garrison, home to the MODs
fleet of tanks and the roads ahead are superbly maintained.
After the feed stop the tempo is increased and good speed is maintained despite an
unseasonal easterly headwind which would accompany us to the east coast. An enjoyable
descent down into Catterick would lead to a flat fast ride away from the River Swale and
towards Teeside.
Spirits were high as we neared the East coast and our half way point of Redcar, however
the headwind was making inroads on my proposed timetable and as we passed through the
town of Yarm we were slightly down on schedule though spirits remained high and soon
enough we were cresting the slight hill in the town of Redcar and breathing in the air of the
East Coast shortly before noon.
Job half done, we took in lunch again superbly coordinated by our support team and
thoughts turned to our return journey. 100 miles in the legs now but all the lads were in good
spirits although Jon displayed a dislike to the east coast air with an outbreak of hay fever
which required a visit to the local pharmacy . Redcar reminds me of visiting Fleetwood, a
beautiful little seaside resort forgotten by time but well worth a visit but maybe not worth
cycling 100 miles for.
Turning for home and the instant benefit of a tailwind was more than welcome, our progress briefly punctuated as Jack suffered a (thankfully the only one of the day) puncture as we departed Redcar.
The team now was in full flight making fast progress on the flat roads wind assisted we made it to our next feed stop at Brompton on Swale in very short order. Again Team Murphy had come up trumps as were treated to deluxe sandwiches and chips courtesy of the Farmers Arms.
I’d targeted a finish in Morecambe around 7.30 and thanks to the tailwind and some great
team riding we were now back on target and things were looking good. As we reached
Catterick, the enormity of what we were doing began to hit me. We had ridden 130 miles
already and here’s the news it’s gonna start getting lumpy again. All of a sudden where I
had previously felt pretty strong I began to feel weary as we started the climb out of Catterick
up the Range Road up to the Tank Garrison.
The next 2 hours, I can only describe as not my finest including a fuel stop at Hawes where
we met with support riders Trevor Page, Leanne Thompson, and John Morphet, which did
little to lift my spirits and the climb up to Newby Head was an interminable mission I will
remember as long as I live.
Meeting up with Phil Peake at the top of Newby head who had accompanied me on my
previous crossing of this route seemed to light a spark in me and as we began to descend
towards Ribblehead with a wind very much to our favour, I began to feel human again and
the rest of the group did too and we sped home down the Lune valley fuelled by the tailwind
and the knowledge our quest was now well within our grasp.
Shortly before 7.30 pm we reached the Clocktower in Morecambe from whence we had
started our journey some hours earlier, immense relief and pride engulfed me. It was a truly
amazing effort from the 7 riders who had accompanied me on this day Jack Baxter, Chris
Didsbury, Andy Murphy, Simon Mumford, Jon Linscott, Rich Mellon, Andrew White.. We
had crossed England and returned between the hours of sunrise and sunset of the same day, a truly epic effort from all involved a memory I will treasure as long as i live.
