So cyclists, how did you celebrate the new Millennium?
A few lagers and fireworks perhaps followed by a gentle ride out after a late breakfast?
A fair enough start you might think but for two young heroes something a bit more radical was needed to fire the imagination.So how does a non-stop crossing of Sustrans C2C beginning at first light on new Millennium Day grab you? Coming after a heavier than usual new year's eve that should be a real challenge surely?
![[c2c map]](map.gif)
Not really - let's start from the Irish Sea at Whitehaven at one second into the new year and so be the first to make the trip in the new Millennium! Now a moment's thought should be enough for you to work out that this meant riding for 8 hours in darkness and crossing some of the highest and roughest terrain in England with the prospect of the usual mid-winter fayre of snow, ice, rain, wind and fog.
If all went well they would be spared a second session in the dark..............
Mad or what? Well one of the two, in a more sober moment or perhaps having a little more imagination than his mate decided mad it was so the two became one.Now the first hours of the new year are not the easiest in which to enlist helpers and our hero didn't even try and settled for 2 support teams to cover the eastern end of the trip. A mobile phone bought specially would supply the communications. Such a potentially hazardous expedition plainly demanded careful planning and preparation - lights for example had to last 8 hours at least while adequate winter clothing, survival bag, food, drink for perhaps 100 miles, a portable stove, spares, oil and first aid kit - all had to be carried in a rucksack.
A head torch also proved invaluable. The bike was a front suspension Marin Pine Mountain '96. Motive power was a fit thirty something veteran of 15 years of racing on and off road and various Polaris Challenges behind him. Form from a good summer season's racing was maintained by regular training, on and off road rides and some snowy weekend hostel runs.So far so good then - now comes the tricky bit, how to get to the start? Various railway time tables claimed it was possible to travel from Newcastle to Whitehaven on new year's eve to arrive at 7.42 pm.
The guard on the train to Carlisle however thought otherwise which must have done wonders for our man's morale. Fortunately the doubting official was nevertheless very helpful and eventually confirmed that between them the various railway companies would deliver our traveller and even his bike to Whitehaven as advertised.As a fall back in case of dangerously bad weather a bed and breakfast had been booked in Whitehaven and this would also provide a resting place until the witching hour. Predictably this refuge lay at the top of a steep hill and equally predictably the "heavy rain coming in from the west" fell while our lad searched for the "digs".
Here he was kindly invited to the inevitable Millennium bash which unfortunately precluded any chance of a snooze before the off - also it seems there is a limit to the number of vol-au-vents even a cyclist can eat. Four hours and one frustrating lager later it was down to the sea and the start - we wonder what the revellers thought? Perhaps when they came to sometime in the next century they were convinced that they imagined that someone left the party at its height to cycle to the other side of the country.
They must have been pretty impressed at the time however because they set off a fantastic display of fireworks as our lad turned eastwards. This was to continue on and off for the next 2 hours or so. Whinlatter Pass was reached at 2.10 am and due to a missed turn descended by road which was probably just as well from the safety point of view.The night continued mercifully dry and clear but moonless, but with a brilliant display of stars though the Plough was mysteriously absent.
A stop was made after 3 hours 15 minutes in the car park in Keswick where a cup of hot chocolate made on the stove went down very well. None of the locals passing unsteadily seemed to think this was at all unusual.
At Castlerigg stone circle outside the town, some kind of religious ritual had resulted in the worshippers being slumped in drunken stupors inside their cars. No doubt they felt great when they woke!Penrith passed in 5 hours 20 minutes and another halt was called in the Melmerby bus shelter where panic set in as the stove at first refused to function - perhaps due to the frost which had suddenly come down in the lea of the Pennines. "Prayer" seemed to do the trick and a cup of hot Kenco coffee revived the spirits for the first great Pennine climb of Hartside which loomed ahead.
A series of progress reports to the support answer phone had been made up to this point but now with food running low and no prospect of anywhere being open there was a definite need for "service" and quickly.
There was no response from base however - it was Millennium day after all.
Hartside was reached at 8 am where revellers waiting for the first dawn of the new Millennium offered the traveller a glass of champagne - a nice gesture but not what a weary cyclist needed when faced with a long freezing descent.By now it was so icy that it was safer to go round by Alston rather than risk the twisty switch-backs on the Garrigill section. At 9 am at Nenthead our hero had hit the wall in every sense. The last of the food disappeared but mercifully live contact was established with the second support team which was on its way and expected to be on the scene in about 1 hour.
There followed painful ascents of Kilhope and Allenheads with the fuel tank completely empty. The cavalry, in the shape of the second support team arrived at the 95 mile mark, just over the Allenheads summit where vast amounts of soup with croutons(of which more later), sandwiches, cake, biscuits, fruit and tea were swiftly put away.
This stop took 45 minutes and included stripping the bike of its heavy dual headlights and a quick squirt of oil on the chain and replenishing a bottle. The weighty haversack was also dumped in the car and the rejuvenated rider then plunged down to Rookhope where the support team relieved him of his rain top before the last big climb up the railway incline.
He was, as they say of lost mountaineers "last seen climbing steadily". In fact this was a very heavy ascent in sticky conditions and despite the recharged batteries was accomplished with only one gear left.
The two support groups met at Crawleyside and their rider arrived at 12 noon, reported that regurgitated croutons were quite acceptable and that only one actually got away, well it was a hard climb out of Rookhope.No. 1 support group then took over sole charge for the rest of the ride. It was by now a brilliantly sunny but cold day with a nicely rising tail wind. There were clouds on the far westerly horizon but with luck our lad would stay ahead of the weather.
Rowley Station at 1 pm was another sit down feed stop and this time our hero admitted it was an effort to get back out of the car.
At the "Transformer" he thought he was hallucinating when the support team waved from the top of the sculpture! Beamish was passed at 2.30 pm and the outskirts of Sunderland reached before dark.The sea was reached at 4.05 pm and so ended a truly epic C2C - surely the first of the new Millennium?
Mercifully there were no mechanicals or punctures and nothing seriously untoward to mar one man's unique celebration of the start of the new 1000 years.
So who was it who logged those 140 hard miles from Whitehaven to Sunderland in the first 16 hours of the year 2000? His name is Jon Mawson of the Houghton Cycling Club in County Durham and of course it was he who should have written this account - but he was too err...... tired I think he was trying to say!