Coast and Castles Route – 3
According to the official Sustrans map (yes we have a copy at great expense) the whole of the Saturday section is along the 0-50 metre altitude, in short that means no hills, or at least no hills like Hartside, no hills at all like crossing the Pennines, there are some “mere undulations” as we traverse the very few headlands, for instance there is a mere undulation on the maps above at Embleton which rises to 50metres above sea level, we may need oxygen at that altitude.
Just to put it into context the climb out of Nenthead on the first C2C took us up to 609 metres.
No Gentlemen, there is nothing to fear on this Saturday ride and for the novices among us, the first time riders, you will be left pondering on what all the fuss was about for the past two years, tales of daring do on the mountain stages of the last two rides will go straight over your heads, maybe one day we will take you back there, point at Hartside and whisper in awe, “We rode that hill, one day”.
The good news (for Andy) is that on that third map there is a little detour near the bottom to a little coastal port called Craster, its a detour that Andy will want to make and I’ll say no more other than to recommend that he clicks this link.
The bad news is that these three sections of the map only represent half of the Saturday ride for in total we have to cover almost (probably a little more than) 70 miles on that day, that’s further than we’ve ever done in a single day, I will leave you to ponder on that fact as you wonder now whether you have done enough preparation – just to make you feel better I have not done any yet.
