Undulations. It's a nice word isn't it? So much more pleasant than precipitous or plunging. Welcome to Silverdale. Just south of the mainly mountainous Lakes in a tucked away corner of north Lancashire; a secret, undulating, verdant oasis bypassed by the honeypot bound hillwalkers and mountain bikers, ripe for an easy day's skateploitation.
A lovely day out road testing the new heel brake and flat wheel set-up. A few miles of rolling, lush countryside, ancient woods of oak, yew, beech and holly seasonally bedecked with ivy; forest glades dappled with wintery sunlight, resonant with the melodious call and response of the blackbird and the throaty smokers' cough of the jay. The timeless scent of woodsmoke drifting lazily in the air and rich, moist earthiness of leaves being gently recycled by nature on the forest floor. A sound in the distance. A vague rumbling and incoherent mumbling, becoming louder. Protestations about undulations. A hidden red deer nuzzling acorns discreetly from the loam pricks up his ears.
And then:
The deer leaps gracefully into deep cover. The jay hacks a spitball and coughs out its fag as it darts into the higher branches. Farmers fling themselves in their own slurry pits in terror...well we can hope can't we?
Yep, it's all gonna be shattered next week by the banshee shriek of the heelbrake failing to slow the skating lunatic's mad descent on the unsuspected and unsignposted one in four that appeared from nowhere around a blind bend. Ah, the smell of burning urethane in the morning, there's nothing like it.
Heelbrake testing in the wild to commence next Tuesday.
Photos of Silverdale nicked from flickr Courtesy: focusmania Jenny Mackness spg_mutts ministry
of full sun in the Lakes...but no skating! I know, I know - a wasted opportunity and I am ashamed of myself. My only excuse was the tarmac never quite drying out after the heavy morning dew. And the roads being never much less than one in five gradients anywhere. Oh and being knackered from fell walking; being knackered from trail running; being knackered from heavy cake consumption; and the SRD hill-braking system being as yet untried.
Normal misbehaviour will resume shortly. Just need to find a hill in/around Southport to test the bleedin' brake. And then wait for the cover of darkness. Oh the shame.
Edit:
The SRD braking system is now un-untried. As of tonight I'm coming out of the closet as a fully born again heel brake user.
Not because they slow you down descending hills easily, which they do; nor because they're gonna transform my Lakes skating, which they are. No, it's because they make a MEGA-SQUEAL which, in the dark frightens the pants off any pedestrians within half mile of one. Cool.
Ok here it is: I don't like them, you don't like them. To be honest we're all a bit ashamed of them. I've already been mocked by in certain quarters just for mentioning them. But we need to try these things; if we don't experiment we never learn anything. Apparently they emit a terrible squealing noise when dragged along the ground causing onlookers to leap aside in terror. They even leave marks on the floor if depressed too firmly. But dogwalkers who use extendable leads need to be punished and punished severely - so strapping them to the back of one's skates and using them as a heel brake down steep hills is fully justifiable and kills two birds with one stone in my book.
Meanwhile, I've managed to discreetly acquire a much less fun but infinitely more embarrassing speed retardant device. This probably isn't really designed for banana-rockered wheels. As you can see from the photos, there's about 4 mm clearance when the skate is on the middle two wheels, but when on the rear wheels it's about 2mm.
This should be fine as long as I'm skating on marble. Newly polished marble. Bouncing around the Lakes on rutted tarmac is going to more difficult. Every time I surmount a blade of grass or traverse a mote of dust I'm gonna grind to a halt as the SRD touches down. One alternative may be to mount it on the front of the frame to act as a kind of snow plough to clear a path in the sheep pooey areas? Actually, now I come to think of it mounting the dog walkers at the front to act as the sheep poo plough may be the best option.
At the moment, however, the best I can do is to have three 80mm wheels at the rear, removing the rocker at the back, and sticking with the 76mm wheel at the front to allow some manoeuvrability. I believe this is known as the "EU banana rocker" as it conforms to European curvature standards. I'd like to try this set up out in Southport before my next skatepedition next Tuesday, but:
A. There are no hills whatsoever in Southport. B. Small children on plastic Barbie skates would mock & kick sand in my face C. I would be harangued within an inch of my life by my skating colleague CK.
Kentmere, lovely Kentmere. The scent of coal fire smoke drifting in the air, a heavy overnight dew still adorning the grass, and oak leaves mottled brown and brittle as tracing paper fell like snow as I veered gracelessly, arms flailing up the roller coaster lane, cursing autumn's wet mists and bloody road-littering mellow fruitfulness, towards the distant fells. Fortunately I didn't get as far as the fells due to time constraints (yep, spent too much time sinning in Staveley) otherwise I would have been tempted to head up into the foothills for some really fruity downhill fruitbooting. I only had an hour to skate, but about a million calories to burn off so thought I'd get as far up the valley as I could in thirty mins. I'd rashly decided not to take the newly purchased helmet as I'd predicted a pretty flat route up the valley, contour lines being thin on the ground according to the map but contoured pretty damn thickly up and down on the road itself in reality. But this was fun stuff, not the quarter mile one in five descents from hell of recent escapades. Fifty metres up, fifty metres down, a nice bit of flat then another fifty metre up and down on and on, and fairly gentle at that. More a kiddies' merry go round than an Alton Towers' nightmare.
For the first mile or so the lane hugs the tumbling river Kent before meandering off on its own merry way up hill and down tree lined dale.
Strangely, there are two small factories down this sleeping shangri-la so I had to drape myself across hedges a couple of times while lorries tore past me at formula one speeds, but as the valley is a cul de sac it was really quiet most of the time.
Tarmac quality ranged from excellent to "I must see my GP about getting some new knee cartilage" in places, but overall pretty good.
After just a few miles I stopped, gazed longingly at the unexplored hinterlands and decided that it'd be wiser to save this for next time, as I would have the new custom speed retardant attachment by then, more time, a helmet, and the threat of violence from a girlfriend abandoned for hours in a rainy Lancaster would've been mitigated. I'd say this was probably the most fun skate yet. I will be back. I may take shoes with me next time and at the head of the valley de-skate, walk over the hills to the next valley (Longsleddale) and skate back from there. Boy, am I gonna need serious caking after that one.
Not many people know that the village of Staveley, nestling in the foothills of the Kentmere horseshoe mountains, is becoming a destination for the more discerning open-minded visitor keen to experience and indeed taste the pure, unadulterated, earthy entertainments that this veritable hotbed of shameful delights is home to.
Yep, you know what I'm talking about you dirty monkey:
NOW SEEK FORGIVENESS
It's also home to a rather nice 14th century church with stained glass by William Morris.
So tomorrow, after indulging in a few lusty moments I may go for a quick skate up the gentle, pastoral valley of the fast flowing river Kent towards the mountains whereupon encountering anything more than a one in two hundred gradient I'm gonna turn tail & flee having still not recovered from the Windermere fear.
Also any rough surfaces, sheep poo, dogs, cats, bulls, wet leaves, wet anything or bloody Melvyn Bragg I'm outa there.
Til I get the custom speed negating accessory (don't make me say heel brake) I'm taking it slow & leisurely.
And then quick as you like back to Wilf's. Have I mentioned that I like Wilf's?
Apologies for the rain last week; we're back from the Lakes now so expect the indian summer to resume shortly.
Yep it rained a tad. Then it rained lots of tads. Every bleedin' day.
The rivers rose inexorably. Fords that would normally have been a doddle to drive through became impassable.
Roads that had been skated by James & myself became rivers.
Yet did our spirits drop? Yeah, course they did! But we overcame our despair; we waded through our slough of despond in the only sensible way; the only way clinically proven to beat depression, as recommended by 8 out of 10 cats: we ate cake.
We took our medication carefully on the first day, just a muffin & a piece of lemon drizzle cake at Wilfs. This seemed to help so we found a cake dispensary in Keswick and handed our prescription in for tiffin & autumn plum cake at Lakeland Pedlar.
Ok, possibly we overdid it on the Sunday at Zeffirelli's in Ambleside with the triple layer lemon cake. Looking back this seems to have been too high a dose and probably contributed to our prozakpastry addiction.
Unfortunately the rest of the week proved as wet as the weekend which inevitably forced us to indulge even more shamelessly.
Memorable moments: apple & date muffin lemon drizzle x 2 tiffin autumn plum coffee & walnut triple layer lemon victoria sponge raspberry & almond bundt raspberry, oat & nut slice strawberry cream sponge chocolate & orange x 2 blackberry & apple crumble date & treacle scone orange polenta raspberry bakewell raspberry & almond tart blueberry & almond tart
Disclaimer: list does not include breakfast pastries, croissants etc or ice creams, obviously.
Luckily the caffeine and sugar combo provided the energy required to drive around the northern Lakes in my guise as Tarmac Quality Inspector (SouthportSkateScene dept) in order to catalogue & record suitable routes for adventurous (& probably certifiable) skaters.
Results:
bugger all. The hills are just too steep. You'd have to be mad to even consider this area.
So, I'm considering going back to this area. Possibly with a.... (whisper it) heel brake. Oh, the shame. I feel dirty now. But they are available to purchase in certain types of discreet establishments which cater for those sort of tastes: sometimes known as specialist skate shops. So it's a possibility.
Plus I'm still addicted to the darn cakes so I have to go back for medical reasons.
of the Windermere skate...successful in that I didn't die - I'm now contemplating the next skatepedition.
You'll have noticed the weather turning far more cold, windy & wet - that's my fault. It's become a tradition that no matter in which season we stay in the Lakes the whole country gets a mini ice-age. As we're staying further up north at Keswick for a few days from Saturday, as well as taking the obligatory snow shoes, ice axe & crampons, I'm going to be taking some new maps to check out some new routes this time.
One possibility will be on our doorstep. Looming over the vale of Keswick is the massive mound of Skiddaw, the third largest fell in England. Winding tightly round its base is the lonely singletrack lane known as Back o' Skiddaw; or as it's known in the local dialect Get Off My Land Afore I sets T'dogs On't Ye. Renowned huntsman & DJ John Peel of whom the badly misnamed song Ken John Peel was born here & is buried just off this route at St. Kentigern's church. Well known author and TV personality Melvyn Bragg lives near here.
The whole circuit of Skiddaw would be about 20 miles, but cutting out the boring main road bit and the overly hilly scary stuff would still leave around 12 miles of gently undulating fun*. And if it's a bit more than undulating, having learned some lessons from the last skate I now have a helmet. Also, a first aid kit. I also learned that skating in flat as a pancake Norfolk is a far more sensible idea.
skating through it twice just cursed me completely. However, looking on the bright side, judging by the speeds I attained on wednesday it certainly seems to act as a top notch bearing lubricant.
I was already nervous about this trip - after all I would have the pungent aroma of doggedly determined dregs of the doggy doodah stuck in my wheels' nooks & crannies for an hour & a half on the way up there.
Plus the hills. The Hill Fear was upon me.
At least the sun was shining; forecast 25 degrees mmm. Although the damp from the early dew was lingering unnervingly late into the morning...which obviously meant I should head to Wilfs for a time-killing, moisture-beating cake/coffee breakfast frenzy.
Hmmm decisions, decisions - exotic fruit muffin or tiffin? You're right - it had to be both.
Thirty minutes later, fully fuelled up on caffeine & sugar I parked the car at Ings church & ventured off up the cyclepath next to the main Windermere road. Flat, smooth & easy going with the sun on my back & the wind in my hair. Well, the sun on my back anyway.
I hit the first hill five minutes later: suprisingly easy!
Ok, it wasn't much of a hill but hey, I'm from flat as a pancake Southport - this was like Everest! Particularly when I neared the summit & encountered the slippy stuff in the shade. Whoo boy, that early dew, mixed with moss, leaves & greasy rubber residue from tyre tracks was a lethal cocktail.
If you've seen me barefoot running you know how like John Cleese I can look. Well, the only way to describe how I looked negotiating this stuff is to combine the John Cleese silly walk with the ambling duck-like shuffle of Charlie Chaplin. Drunk. On skates. Sometimes backwards.
On cresting the summit I looked down on a vista of loveliness...& terror. The view ahead of the Lakes from this point is gorgeous: but there is one big monkey of a downhill to get there. Also, the first fifty metres or so were in the shade. Hmmm.
T stopping works really well on the flat. On hills, less well. On slippy, mossy steep mothers of mountains not at all.
Of course, I didn't realise this for the first five seconds of the descent. Then, I got scared; but possibly not as scared as the two Japanese girls walking a couple of dogs at the bottom of the hill were as I plummeted towards them at mach 1. I gestured wildly for them to move to their left post haste. So naturally they froze. Somehow I managed to squeeze between them, yelled "sorry"& left the scene rapidly; not looking back, so they wouldn't get a good look at my face & so be unable to give the police a good description.
Windermere & escape arrived not a moment too soon.
I hurriedly darted off down a side road. I shouldn't have done because it was, yep you guessed - steep, shady & slippy & I careered into a dry stone wall.
Pinballing my way down the lane found me a couple of minutes later in quiet, residential back streets. Nice, flat sunlit streets. I'd never seen a council estate as an oasis before.
Bemused postmen & little old ladies looked askance at me as I skated bruised, battered & bloody quick away from vengeful Yakuza squads & karate kicks.
Hitting the first country lane was a relief. Safe at last.
Until at the top of the hill & around the corner came the next roller coaster section of road. Unlike a real roller coaster, the fun bits for me were the uphills. Slow, methodical & safe. This downhill section was a Disneyland scale nightmare: gentle sunny beginning to lull me into a false sense of security & then the epic 20% gradient descent in the greasy shade began. Having earlier ascertained that T stopping doesn't work on wet hills I nevertheless wobbled around one footedly trying to slow myself down from about thirty mph as around the corner came a vision from hell. Yep, a BMW. Fortunately, not driven by the Yakuza, but still on my side of the road. Well, strictly speaking on the same side of the road as myself. Ahem. Anyway to much to his amusement I threw myself sideways to perform a classic hip/elbow/shoulder loss of skin & blood stop. This worked a treat, in that I came to a stop without hitting the accursed BMW, and that I lost much skin. And any pride I had left.
The driver of the demon car graciously stopped to make sure I was alive before laughing cruelly & driving off.
I took what was left of my hip skin & skated off into the relative calm of some rather nice single track country lane.
The whole route so far had had really good quality surfaces. Ranging between 7 to 9/10 on the dodgy tarmac quality scale. The single track kept up the quality but had a fair bit of loose gravel mixed in with it too. Plus the usual mossy greasy bits. Plus a few puddles. Oh, and some sheep poo for good measure. All good fun.
The last three miles of the single track was a lovely meander through hill & vale, tranquil and bucolic with scattered woods and ancient farms dotted about. Luckily the rabid farm dogs that thought I was a dream target of a sheep on wheels were on t'other side of the fence.
The biggest hill was saved til last. This one had everything. Loose gravel, sheep poo, puddles of something that I hoped was water but probably wasn't; and an old farmer leaning on his walking stick watching me.
I had to look cool. I had to skate down this malevolent mountain without breaking a sweat. I had no bloody chance.
I shot off like a bat out of hell confident that now most of the dampness in the shade had dried off I'd be able to slow myself down. The loose gravel was having none of it. Stones flew left and right as I dragged my by now well worn wheels vainly behind me. Clouds of dust & grit followed in my one footed wake. This seemed to go on forever. I rounded a bend at about thirty mph, sheer will power keeping me vertical...and the magical mantra "don't fall with the farmer watching don't fall with the farmer watching". Somehow I made it alive to the end of the lane and grabbed onto a gate to halt my progress. The farmer was by now out of sight so I prised my hands from the gate and wiped the flies from my sweating forehead and pootled as nonchalantly as I could back to the waiting car.
Just one more thing to do before I could rest my weary bones. Eat cake.
Yep, a quick mile & a half skate down the cyclepath saw me safely esconced at Wilfs in Staveley once again.
Tshirt, skates & socks off and lying on the bench next to me drying in the sun. Job done.
Would I do it all over again? Do you think I'm mad!? Yeah, you're right I am & I would, like a shot - it was fantastic.
I'm nervous about the Wednesday skate. There are hills. Big ones, little ones, roughly tarmaced ones, with whopping big pot holes. Sheep poo. Sheep poo on the bends on the hills... With sheep in attendance? I actually skated through dog poo today for the first time. Twice. Not on purpose, as a way of preparing myself for the more rural equivalent, just out of gormlessness. But I do feel like I can take on any variety of excrement you care to throw at me now; and having encountered a few Cumbrian farmers, I know this could well happen.
So I'm apprehensive about the terrain, the locals, cattlegrids, cattle...in fact I think I've almost talked myself out of the whole thing now....
Well the forecast was good: damp start but drying off during the morning to sunny intervals. So we set off with a spring in our step & a happy heart. Then we hit the M6 & saw the cars coming down from Cumbria with their headlights on...hmmm.
We decided to pause on the way up at Wilfs in Staveley for a depression-busting carrot cake & coffee. Medicinal reasons obviously. James cheered up markedly at seeing the micro brewery next door.
It wasn't easy tearing ourselves away from the beer tapas on offer there, but well, we're professional skaternauts who take our exploratory work seriously. And we were skint.
Onwards! We hit the north. And the rain hit us back. On arrival at Thirlmere carpark #1 the ground was damp but it wasn't actively raining.
Not until we paid our pay & display fee & put our skates on, then it started. After some miserly grunting from me about having paid bloody £2.50 to park, and having promised James that we would avoid any puddles we set off.
The tarmac was pretty good quality - about 7/10 on the dodgy "skateable tarmac scale", but there were a fair few wet pine needles around to get stuck to our wheels & a couple of tons of wet leaves, however I think several inch deep puddles washed them off ;-)
It was a nice gentle skate north for about 4 miles with good views of the Helvellyn range across the lake, with a gentle tailwind. We arrived at the end of the lake after about 30 mins skating, slightly damp from the light rain & cold sweaty with fear - but exhilarated from our safe passage thus far we carried on towards Keswick & our doom. Well, not quite doom but a bloody steep, wet, leafy, slippy downhill with a blind bend half way down its quarter mile length. It's fine I said & hurtled off downward - cause that's the sorta guy I am. Stupid.
Having made it to the bottom intact with only a mild panic attack & only losing a few kilos of urethane from the wheels due to reckless T-stopping to show for it, I waited for James - eventually appearing a minute or two later with slightly wild staring eyes & newly white hair.
Fortunately the end was in sight by this time & we came to a wobbly stop by the Keswick road. The sun came out, hooray! And then went in again & more rain started. We paused for some slightly hysterical laughter & mopped our sweatily fevered brows before setting off back & doing it all again, but this time uphill & into a headwind.
All in all a really good skate, but possibly better in the dry.
The expeditionary skaternauts' first venture into Lakeland climes, may hopefully go ahead this week - if the rain holds off...
Myself & James vs Thirlmere.
It's gonna be difficult. There could be wet leaves. Or wet pine needles. Puddles to negotiate, occasional lost cars to dodge. Feral sheep. With rabies. Anything could happen.
We're gonna need cake to sustain us. Wish us luck. And a good forecast!
Friday sort of uncancelled itself. I wasn't gonna go up as the forecast said wet...but I had to take M up to Lancaster anyway....and well, an hour in wet Lancaster is enough for anyone! Ah, the lure of the Lakes & the call of the cakes...
So I decided to take a quick scout out of one or two planned skateperditions, to get some idea of the tarmac quality (I can feel a tarmac quality points type system coming on!) & whether the roads are actually skateable.
Yes!
Maybe not today, but next time, definitely; 5 miles of this particular beauty round the back of Thirlmere.
In the 20 minutes that I was there, I saw just one other car.
commence next Tuesday.
