At around 9am, Andy and I were leaving the B&B without Woz and Daz. In fact, they had already left their accomodation as they had a longer trip than us today! It was a bitterly cold start to the day with a strong wind to bite. Andy and I decided that before we set off it would be sensible to have another sip of whisky from our hip flasks to warm us up!
As soon as we sat back down onto our bikes, the pain of yesterday's workout
immediately came back! However, as I had experienced before, it doesn't take
long before you forget about it and get on with the job at hand. We were
immediately tasked with a steep hill out of Nenthead to Black Hill - the highest
point on the whole route at 1,998 ft (609 metres). I was feeling good on the
climb of this hill though and it wasn't long before we passed through the
Northern Pennines into Allenheads. A short and sharp climb into Currick followed
before a nice gentle decline into Rookhope.
At Rookhope the route goes off-road across the moor and we were immediately faced with steep and rough terrain. However, once this tricky section was out of the way, we were safe in the knowledge that all of the truly mountainous parts were behind us now and we could look forward to some downhill cruising to our final destination.
At
around the 13 mile (21 km) marker for the day, around 100 miles (161 km) for the total trip, we
were on the Waskerley Way which is an excellent easy going and largely well
surfaced dedicated cycling and walking trail that led us to Consett. This was a
nice relaxing 10 mile (16 km) cruise downhill taking us past Hownsgill Viaduct. Once we
had reached Consett we were 28 miles (45 km) in for the day - half way there, with just
another 28 miles (45 km) to go!
Following on from Consett we made our way towards Rowlands Gill, and it was around this area we had our first break to pick up a few snacks from a petrol station. We phoned Daz and Foy and they seemed to be progressing on the correct route this time, although were still some way back.
The route had become a lot more urban now and we were beginning to pass some nasty looking housing estates which encouraged our pace to go up a notch. I was beginning to feel the strain again by now and the last 10 - 15 miles (16 - 24 km) did seem to drag on.
We reached the River Tyne which was a relief but this was a tricky section of
the journey. Maybe the signposts here were bad, or maybe we were just plain
tired, but a few small mistakes were made. However, the mistakes that were made,
although were frustrating, were by no means too costly.
The signs for Tynemouth were soon in view but the last 5 miles (8 km) were very frustrating! For example, we would see a sign for Tynemouth saying we had 5 miles (8 km) to go, travel 1 mile (1.6 km), and see another sign stating we had 4.5 miles (7.2 km) to go! Aaaaarggghhhhh! This continued for the last few miles and I was beginning to wonder if someone was moving the finishing line further back, the closer we got!
However, we eventually made it to the "finishing line" as you can see from the photo on the left. We had completed 56 miles (90 km) of cycling for the day taking our total trip to just over 140 miles (225 km).
Our accomodation this evening was only around half a mile away from the finishing line, so Andy and I made our way there quickly to shower and change again.
We found a pub to settle down in for the evening. We had some dinner and waited for Woz and Daz to eventually make the finish. They did so, several hours later, and managed join us just in time for the Champions League final between Manchester United and Barcelona.