No work for us today - 200Km - 8th August 2018

This ride was originally to be a loop from Galashiels to Newcastleton, over the hill to Langholm then back by Eskdale; a cracking sounding route that I was looking forward to riding, however it was not to be; road works made the route impassable and a replacement out and back route to Berwick via Morebattle, Wooler, Etal was put in place instead.

As a back up 200Km for August (my other calendar ride being a 600) I guess it would just have to do... Honestly I know these roads from the other Galashiels rides and was looking forward to it.

I set off at silly AM to drive down to Gala as I was expecting to be slowed up if I hit the Edinburgh City Bypass a tad too late in the morning; I rolled into the parking area across from Torwoodlee Golf Course considerably earlier than I expected and discovered it was a tad chilly at 8c and only 0545, I didn't want to be down at McDonalds until 7am for the 8am start so tried to sleep, but that didn't work; so I just drove down and had breakfast before returning to the car to get ready, and then returning to McDonalds.

The start of the route was essentially the same as that of the 400km the previous month, but this time we were in midweek traffic at 8am rather than 6am saturday traffic so I chose to take the route by the Rhymers Stone through Newton StBoswells; Rolling through Gala onto the Melrose road I just went at a comfortable pace to warm up, but I was soon battering on ahead maybe it was down to being one of the few entrants who needed to book time off work for the ride or maybe it was just my normal excessively fast start.

I stopped to look at the Rhymers stone and a few people caught up and passed; which allowed me to get riding with people and be sociable and spent most of the rest of the day riding with Sarah and Richard from the Lake District; the route on this section was identical to the 400 and other than taking the road along the back of Nisbet and over the suspension bridge I knew where we were; stopping at Morebattle for a snickers with a label that fitted the short nights sleep I had just had.

I put this away properly this time as I'd gone smaller with the McDonalds breakfast, and we cracked on along the border road through the Yetholms aiming for Wooler where the Co-Op provided a reliable control, I banked on getting a decent feed at Etal so only topped up my water supply

I also decided that splitting courses across both visits to Etal would make sense, so I ordered my main course of some form of sandwich as that's pretty much all they sold.  Looking back this was probably a mistake and I should have eaten a bit more at each control.

Etal Lavender Tea Rooms

Taking the road into Berwick we rolled into town on market day and took turns to watch the bikes outside Boots as water and sweets were purchased inside, before climbing back up out of town and heading back to Etal.  A hunk of Rocky Road was in my memory from the earlier in the day and was scoffed, Richard decided to hang back a bit longer while Sarah finished a more sizeable lunch so I set off on my own for Wooler, choosing the busier road option just to see what it was like. It rained and wasn't as pleasant but I got into Wooler Co-Op and another light snack.  I cracked on again and stopped at a historical site on the Kirknewton road, where Richard and Sarah caught up with me again.

Coffee Cake at Morebattle

The sky was still threatening rain as we stopped at the TempleHall pub in Morebattle for a reciept control, but with all intentions of bouncing the control after a toilet stop and can of juice I headed for the door as the others with the same idea escaped the heavy downpour, it was at this point I spied the large cake on the counter it looked like Chocolate cake, so I ordered a slice only to discover it was actually Coffee Cake; I don't like Coffee, but that cake didn't touch the sides, this was maybe a warning of what was to come.

After Nisbet the road climbs over to St Boswells for the ride back into Galashiels and I was not feeling too quick but still going well enough; I was aware that the time was getting close to the 10hr mark and I'd never managed a 10hr Calendar 200 before; I found enough energy to give it a bit of a dig and found myself approaching Gala at a fair pace, unfortunately I made a navigational error end found myself doing a loop of the town centre, this took me over the 10hrs mark on the Wahoo by 2 minutes and 2 more according to the receipt.


A rather enjoyable ride on roads I've got to know through the other Audaxes but a few errors made in timing and fueling; something to remember in the future.

Parking for Bikes