28/04/22 – 01/05/22
Train to Skipton to avoid the less pleasant roads before what I should have registered as a DIY 200 km. Unfortunately I didn’t take any photos of the comedy off-road section just after Gargrave, amazed that I didn’t come off.
Scotsthrop Moor (Airton – Settle) 
River Lune and the M6 
Between the M6 carriageways near Orton 
210 km, 13 hours
The reason for the trip was to help out on the Highland Fling 1000 km at the overnight stop in Caste Douglas in the Gordon Memorial Hall, along with Les and Andy, and run by Windy. Pretty much spent all night making sure there was hot and not-too-soggy pasta at all times. Quite an interesting experience to see the pointy end of the ride (I’m never going to be there otherwise). Photos by Windy and Dean.
Windy’s apron 
(C) Deano 
Dean made these splendid drop bags, one of which I have thanks to a DNS rider
First section of the return journey was a detour to visit a proposed section of LEL, which Andy had been telling me about at the control. He had un-recommended it for that because of very bad road surfaces (which it had) and it was indeed rejected before the final route was published. I tool a wrong turn somewhere and didn’t quite go the way intended, but these were new roads for me despite being just outside Lockerbie.
I have long wanted to try following the train line along the Settle – Carlisle route, which I did once I was through Carlisle. Stuck to the rail line as closely as possible but called it a day at Langwathby, which was around the 100 km mark, plus it gets a bit fussy around here and Appleby.
Moles! 
110 km, 21.1 kph average