C2C Day 1 - Whitehaven to Penrith

There's a lot to be said for ignorance and for stumbling naively into something that you wouldn't consider if you knew what you were letting yourself in for. Having uploaded the GPS data to Strava and got a good look at the hills between Whitehaven on the west coast and Sunderland on the east, there's no way I'd have been so keen to take MrSmith up on his idea of cycling the Sea to Sea challenge.

It didn't start too well. Went to bed with the rain hosing down and woke to find that it was still pouring. Out the house by 6.30am and cycled along to Inverkeithing to catch the train to Waverley to meet the man and get the 7.42 train to Carlisle. All the bookings had been made, including the two bike spaces. But did the conductor know? Did 'e 'eck as like. Still, everything was bundled on board and we took our seats among all the people heading to Manchester for the airport or Wales for the football, cracking open the beers and bloody marys while we had a cup of tea and shared a KitKat.

At Carlisle we hung around with the trainspotters and shared their excitement as engine number 165456 rolled into platform 2 to take us to Whitehaven, where we would dip our back tyres in the Irish Sea and set off cycling the width of the country.

We set off around the same time as four young lads that we'd come across a few more times, and who'd allow us to feel suitably smug that not only were we keeping pace with these youngsters but they weren't even lugging their gear. One of their dads was driving the route with them carrying theirs. Pansies.

Anyway, although it's meant to be a fairly gentle introduction to the route, once you get out of Whitehaven and off the old train tracks, you come face-to-face with the Northern approach to putting a road up a hill. None of that winding switchback shite. No. Straight up.

High points - The first flapjack stop. Should have done it sooner. The first pint in Penrith. The second pint.
Low points - the first hill. It wasn't meant to start like this. The downpour. 5.10pm and we're still 15 miles from Penrith. The road into Penrith.