Short Sharp Shap

18 miles

511 metres climbing

Cumulative miles 646

Poor Martin woke up this morning with one of his awful migraines, he couldn’t cycle , indeed couldn’t really manage standing up. Fortunately this happened at Maggie’s who was a real star, was kind and looked after us and gave us the run of her house, even after she had to go out, so he could stay in bed.

Maggie and Gayle

Maggie’s lovely garden and view from the summer house

Fortunately too we had a very short day planned, although a somewhat fierce climb over Shap Fell. He slowly improved and we set out about 3. This area of the Lakes is lovely, gentler than the big fells further North and very green. The climb up Shap Fell was OK: steady, and we just cranked down the gears and snailed our way over. It is clearly a popular cycling climb as we were overtaken by several fast cyclists on road bikes, in some cases several times as they went up and down while we plodded up the once! Maggie advised us on a way avoiding the initial steep bank up the lane and we went over on the A6 with a Southerly wind helping. This is the first ( and possibly only) time we are planning to use an A road but it is in fact quiet, scenic and the alternatives are all much longer and fiercer.

Borrowdale, but not the well known one. From the A6 South of Shap Fell

The top was breezy and beautiful, the wildflowers here bog cotton and tormentil and the old Roman road running along the ridge.

Then the long downhill to Shap and left towards Bampton with beautiful views of the fells receding into the haze

And so to Chris and Caz where we have had a lovely evening talking about everything , generally setting the world to rights and being very well fed and comfortably rested.