Sin City, and beyond.

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.