Moffat Toffee and Up on the Route Extension - 30th and 31st March 2019

I'm convinced doing two 200 rides in a weekend is harder than riding a 400.
There's something about the stopping, resting, driving somewhere else and getting up early the next morning that just makes it feel harder; just to add to that extra hardness there was an hour less in bed thanks to the cows somehow knowing what time of day it is by the clock and wanting milked earlier so they can have more fun chewing the cud and saying moo in daylight later in the day or something like that.

Moffat Toffee

I'd ridden this route in 2018 but had largely forgotten it with all the other rides I've ridden from Galashiels, I remembered the muir road above Annandale and the terrible surfaces including a junction where all I could make out was gravel and that there was a fair bit of climbing.
So I was ready to ca canny not just because of the road surfaces and climbing but also because it was the first of a 200km double header.

I wasn't quite ready for the start!

A hearty cooked breakfast sorted us out and we walked up to Focus Centre where I'd bagged a parking space the previous night.  Start time came slightly quicker than I was expecting and I had only just locked the car when the start time came.  I tried to ride with Robbie who was trying to keep up with Russell and Aiden was spinning along rapidly too.  We reached the town cross and Aiden shot off along to take the A7 route to Selkirk rather than climb over the hill, I kept trying to hang on to Robbie and Russel but a late gear shift and my legs blocking up with the shock of such a hard start had me going backwards through the field before the gradient eased off.  I got into a rhythm with some other riders and we swapped places as the road profile suited our riding, me going backwards on the climbs before bombing past people on the descents as usual. I was also riding in the vicinity of a tandem, who looked like would match pace with me there or there abouts.

Riding with the tandem

The first info control I made a mess of, I knew exactly which junction Lucy uses at Roberton but for some reason gave the answer for the next junction a few meters up the road; I could tell you the answers to the other 2 questions she's used there but that's not in the spirit of this game.  I passed the tandem again on the climb over to Tushielaw and then they got me on the descent, we repeated that on the climb to country march  but just as they were about to catch me on the descent into Eskdalemuir I heard the stoker say something short and sharp to the captain and their presence disappeared and I never saw them again all ride.

Corrie Common

The big breakfast meant I only really wanted to bounce the café at Eskdalemuir but the one thing they don't really provide is a quick bounce, I didn't need to eat so grabbed a cake and can of coke to sit and eat before continuing on to Langholm where I took a sandwich from the shop fridge and ate in a bus stop with a smashed window; all the glitz and glamour of Audax!
Some riders I knew bounced the control faster than me arriving after but leaving before but I knew I had plenty time so nae rush.  The next section over the muir was going to be interesting with my memory of the surfaces however it quickly proved that the council surface fairies had sorted many of the bad sections and the gravelly corner proved to have been cleaned though not resurfaced so all was good. I stopped to take in the view at Corrie Common and decided to get a couple of pictures of riders on the move as they crested the summit.

Descent from Corrie

At a junction not far out of Moffat I wasn't paying enough attention and I hit a bit of gravel at low speed, thankfully I caught the bike before the point of no return; in Moffat the sun was shining, and there was a gaggle of riders outside the Rumbletum Café where I decided to control; though riders were spread out around the town.  I got speaking to a rider sitting in the sun as I ate my cake who turned out to be living local to me and a name I regularly see on Strava "Clockwork Hamster", we discussed our Strava names and then the road ahead; I declared the ride out to the Grey Mare's Tail to be "Annoying" before setting off.

Looking up Moffatdale

The road bumps along the floor of Moffatdale as it rises to the waterfall where the pass over to the Yarrow Valley ramps up in a gentle but consistent rise to a house that can be seen on the approach.  Clockwork Hamster caught me on the descent just after St Mary's loch and we decided to ride together to the finish however typically for me late in the ride I was bursting for a pee on the last climb before Galashiels so I stopped to ease the discomfort and he finished just ahead of me as the sunset on a grand day out.

Almost beat the Sunset

11 hours isn't bad, same time as last year, less time stopped and marginally slower on the road though shows the difference by training structure; last year I had ridden lots of small rides by now; this year I've ridden very few short fast rides but long rides on all but 2 weekends of the year. I really need to start getting out at night and upping the pace to get some speed back into me.

Moffat Toffee last year was also my first Audax on the Orange Focus, since then I've ridden almost 11000km on it, the Synapse has 13000km on it and is 5 years old!

Up on the Roof Extension

Ponteland is closer to Gala than Gala is to home, so the double header that was presented in the event calendar wasn't too tricky to consider or for that matter hit the enter button on, however not long after setting off from Gala on our way south the mist was down and the drive over Carter Bar turned into a careful crawl.  This resulted in a later than hoped arrival at the hotel to go with the clock change, but I still got some sleep even if I did have to get up at what should be 5am to get to the start on time. 

Riders of the 200 and 160km rides set off together

We arrived at the start, bleary eyed with the lack of sleep, limbs aching from the efforts the previous day.  Bikes reassembled and pushed down to the hall to see who was around, Russell had made it down with a later than anticipated departure from Selkirk due to hanging on until control closing time at Gala along with Neil, Aiden was also on for the double header on the Trike.
Juice and some biscuits were all there was for breakfast but I'd had a Belvita breakfast biscuit already so I could hang on until we passed what passes for civilisation in a Sunday morning in England.

By the time I had grabbed my bike and made way to the start the vast majority of riders were lined up ready to go and thanks to not paying attention to the height of the kerb I was soon passed by any other stragglers. Robbie hung back for me and we caught and passed a few slower riders in the first few miles and also caught up with Russell and Neil who we spoke to for a bit before a slight rise put the distance between us. They were of course taking it easy. Aiden on the other hand had saved himself on the Borders ride to go a bit faster on this one and was off in the distance.

It's bleak up on the Roof of England

Due to the misreading of the info sheet that meant we hadn't been prepared to eat breakfast before the start so we took an early first stop at Corbridge where a Co-Op provided a breakfast croissant and juice, of the few riders that were behind us before this there were none now, or so we thought.  From here the road started to rise more aggressively and the average speed was ticking down but not too worryingly.

Just after the first info control two other riders caught us and chatted briefly, they had started 30 mins late. We were now confirmed as Lantern Rouge. The road continued upwards to the Derwent Reservoir where another info control was had to bring us round to a checkpoint in a car park where a table with provisions of Jelly Babies (of which I had a "few") and Flapjacks which I stashed a couple of in my jersey pockets.  We got some gen about the road ahead from the organizer, which confirmed it was mostly up and that we'd need to watch the surfaces and corners on the descents.
A mention of one of the info controls "What colour are the caravans" saw me successfully guess the colour (caravans only really come in 2 colours...) and it was suggested we should give the shade too, challenge accepted!

Climb out of Edmundbyers

I started seeing town names I recognised which must be from navigating on the Durham Dales in a Gold (Diarrhoea Brown) SAAB 96 many years ago.  Edmundbyres heralded the start of the first big climb 4km with an average grade of 6% leading us to the top of a plunge into Stanhope so steep that sand trap escape lanes are provided at the side of the road, a large group of C2C riders were climbing the hill out of Stanhope in a variety of paces and manners. 

The brief respite of the descent was soon replaced with a long drag up Weardale, which we traversed on a quite country lane with the remains of Quarrying evident at the side and over the road.  We passed the caravans and we discussed the colour shades, I thought Snot, Robbie thought Pistachio, so we decided to write each others.

Remnants of slate quarrying in Weardale include this Conveyor

The road started to ramp up at Wearhead as we climbed over the hill to enter Allendale, I stopped at Cowsgill to get a picture looking back down Weardale before continuing the long climb, on which I could see Robbie's bright pink Rapha jersey a long way off, though he said my Orange Mukyz kit wasn't as obvious looking back.  I caught up with him when he stopped at the summit on the county march of Durham and Northumberland. I rolled past and let Robbie catch up before letting the speed build up, and in no time we were in Allenhead where the café had opened out of season for us.
I worked out we had 30 mins in hand so we kept the stop brief, there was a few other riders in and we sat with some but we realized pretty quickly they were on the 160km ride with a more relaxed minimum speed of 12kmh.

Cowsgill

We were soon off again with 10 minutes to spare over closing time but we needn't have worried about that as after a small flat section out of Allenhead it was an hour long plunge for 25km down to Haydon Bridge where a quick Co-Op stop allowed the 160km'ers to catch us.

Haydon Bridge

The route returned to being fairly easy going for the next 50km back into Ponteland, Robbie got a bit ahead of me and beat me to the control by around 5 minutes; I ended up queuing for a stamp with riders who had finished and had to correct the controller as he thought I'd finished! 

A 20 minute stop was enough for a refuel and we set off for the last 40km, an out and back via Morpeth to the Co-Op in Pegswood, the outbound leg was a gentle climb with the odd ramp thrown in and we saw that we wern't that far behind the other riders with Aiden the first to pass us followed by Russel and Neil, we then had a few VC167 riders before the inbound and outbound legs diverged though there was one rider who decided to repeat the outbound to avoid the climb out of Morpeth, and then a large group of VC167 riders were leaving Pegswood as we arrived, we controlled at the co-op where I nearly forgot to get a receipt and then cracked back on, taking the route through Morpeth where a reminder of how poor driving can be was had on the descent with an impatient taxi driver.  Turning back onto the lanes though we were on our own for the return past Kikley.

A quick stop at the Ponteland control before the extension leg.

On the last small stretch into Ponteland I thought I'd see what I had left in me after 2 days which wasn't much but I was able to add 10kmh to my speed on the marginally downhill roll into town.
We to the hall just on 8pm, a 12 hour 200km ride the day after an 11 hour. Both with similar cumulative climb but different profiles, the first stretching it out over the day with the second loading it at the front and letting us catch speed up at the end.
We sat and are beans on toast and spoke to the organizer for a while afterwards, Robbie was staying in town for an early train so he was asking about how to get to the city centre, with the recommendation of getting to the airport for the metro, as I was staying next to one of the stations we decided to put his bike in the car to save the apparently horrible ride to the airport.

A 12hr 200km Audax isn't bad, 1hr 30m in hand as it was under ACP rules (15kmh) so to be last back was a bit odd, but that was with an 11hr 200km the day before so it's not bad!