Last winter I had the idea that I would like to ride Coast to Coast in one day so started trawling the internet for possible routes. I found what looked like a very good one which started in Morecambe and ended in Saltburn-by-the-Sea and was only 120 miles. I then e-mailed club riders to see who would be interested and got eight positive replies so we agreed the date of 21/22 May and booked the overnight B&B’s in Saltburn. As time went on three people dropped out but we found two replacements so on the Saturday morning the ‘Magnificent Seven’ of Dave, Michael, Rick, Justin, Sue, Euan and new member Ian met at 7am in Catterall to be picked up by the minibus that would take us to the start at the Midland Hotel in Morecambe. It was chilly but a nice South Westerly wind promised a good ride and blue skies were forecast. After picking up rocks from the beach and the usual photo call at the C2C signpost we headed off at 7.45am onto the Lancaster Cycle path which was a nice gentle start to the day. The route took us through Caton, Hornby to Ingleton and then past the White Scar caves towards Hawes where we stopped for the first café stop at Hardrow at about 10am. The wind had been pushing us along at an average of 18mph so we were all feeling good at almost the one third point. We then rode a fantastic 20 miles along smooth quiet lanes to Leyburn and then through Middleham, Thornton Steward and Burrill before arriving in Bedale for our lunch stop at the Pantry. Seventy miles done at a decent speed on good roads without losing any riders – this is how all rides should be!
After a great lunch and rest we headed off for the final 50 miles which we were planning to do without any more stops. After 10 minutes we met our first problem – the A684 was closed for road works and all traffic was being diverted onto the very fast dual carriageway of the A1 which didn’t look very ‘bike friendly’. However Michael spoke to one of the road workers and he agreed to ride behind us in his big van to protect us from the traffic so we could ride the couple of miles of A1 before turning off to continue our journey on the A684; what a gent………and he was a scouser! We then passed through Northallerton before turning onto the minor roads towards the North York Moors National Park where the roads started to get a bit lumpy but the sun was shining, the wind was on our backs and we were having a ball. We had a couple of scary moments riding through a ford which was VERY slippy (although Euan didn’t seem to care and went through it at about 20mph!). We then had a very steep, twisty descent where our brakes were on full most of the way down and once we were in the valley Ian’s front tyre exploded due to the heat in the rims - I though someone had been shot!. That could have been very nasty but he managed to stay on two wheels and quickly replaced the tube and we continued heading east towards the sea. We hit our first proper hills around Kildale and Commondale with 100 miles in the legs when we were faced with two killer ascents of about 20% each however we all managed to cycle them (albeit very slowly) and then we could almost smell the sea air. At this point the route turned Northerly and we had a fantastic 40mph descent for about five miles (as long as you avoided the lambs on the road!).  We then passed through Lingdale and finally crested the hill to be greeted by the wonderful sight of the North Sea and the village of Saltburn down in the valley. We stopped at a café by the beach to have celebratory drinks, photos and to throw our Lancashire stones into the Yorkshire sea. Our bike computers were showing 6 hours 57mins of riding and an average speed of 17mph and everything about the day had been perfect (the route, the weather, the company, the café stops, only one puncture) and we now had a night out in Saltburn to look forward to and then the return journey the next day……………..BUT THAT IS A TOTALLY DIFFERENT STORY and one I’m probably not qualified to write about but I’ll leave it at that to whet your appetites for chapter two of the C2C story.  
Dave Heslop