The Stockport Community Cycling Club 2016 Weekend at Newton Rigg in September will offer two different rides on the Sunday – a shorter ride and a longer one. On Sunday Andy S, Andy P and I set out to recce the longer ride. It was a lovely day for a ride. After breakfast we had a walk around the gardens at Newton Rigg College.

Having got changed, Andy S, Andy P and I set off for our cycle ride. Jim had decided to give it a miss and went to check an alternative finish for the shorter ride. We set out following a similar route to the one we had started the previous day, through Newton Reigny, Skelton, Lamsonsby.

At the juction to Mungrisdale, we turned off and made our way to Mungrisdale via a gated road.

We then cycled through Mungrisdale down to the A66.

We briefly cycled along the A66 before crossing over and passing through Troutbeck and then climbing up through Matterdale.

Having reached the top of the climb, it was then mainly down hill to Ullswater.

At the bottom is the National Trust’s Aira Force Cafe where we met up with Jim. This was where we had lunch and we were very ready to eat!

We were just setting off after lunch when Andy S realised that his front wheel had a puncture. There was a slight delay whilst this was fixed.

We then cycled along the edge of Ullswater for quite a while.

Our route then took us back up hill again towards Dalemain. We passed Jim towards the top of the hill.

We then continued towards Greystoke.

At Greystoke we stopped for an afternoon break at the Quirky Cyclists Cafe, which is a wonderful place. It is run by a lovely lady who gives her garden over to be a cafe for cyclists. She provides some lovely food. We had tea and cake (but had some lovely homemade soup the previous day).

After our break, we then set off back to Newton Rigg College, which was only about another 4 miles.

You can see our route below:

There were a couple of hill before lunch and then another after lunch. However there was some really amazing scenery along the way. It was a fairly hard ride but we really enjoyed it. In fact the three of us dozed off on the way home – it was a good job that Jim was driving!