Page 26 - QARANC Vol 14 No 9 2014

24 QARANC THE GAZETTE
A&E Wheelers coast-to-coast
After a successful 2013 C2C (Whitehaven to Saltburn) by the A&E Wheelers Cycle Club, James Cook University Hospital (JCUH), Middlesbrough, we decided to do it again. As far as I can remember there was no vote but I put my name down as it sounded like good “phyz” and a chance to raise some money for charity. What more reasons do you need? Plus, I also suffer from the unacknowledged condition of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) so I needed to be on the list!
Our leader, with the apt name of Marc Leader (Nurse Practitioner), decided that the 2013 distance of 170 miles needed to be raised to a neat 200 and completed in three days. I was unsure if this was an early acknowledgement to the impending visit of the Tour De France to the North of England, or simply an excuse to see more of the Lake District National Park. I later found out it was a combination of both, with our very own hill phase just like the Tour De France. Marc’s main selling point was that we would be finishing in Whitby and there was an excellent chippy there. That was good enough for me.
The C2C team consisted of nine riders with a vital support crew of 2. I had decided to splash out on EBay and purchase my own bike, ensuring it was serviced prior to the ride (TY Sgt Prosho). Sadly Maj Good had not, a decision that cost him buckets of sweat as you will read.
The chosen charity was Cancer Research UK as we all had family or close friends that had been affected by cancer. My boyfriend had recently been diagnosed with bowel cancer and I felt this would be an excellent way of fighting back. Marc set up a donation page on the Virgin Just Giving site and the total now stands at £3362.50. A big thank-you to all who kindly donated.
Day One – Whitehaven to Windermere
C2C preparation was limited, despite Marc’s attempts at organising training days and frequent top tips. This was underlined by our not-so-healthy breakfast of bacon sandwiches at JCUH before our departure, but they did taste good! Day one was always going to a stiff test. A 0700hrs start at JCUH with a 2 hour drive to the start point at Whitehaven, followed by a cycle through the Lake District National Park to our first overnight stop at Yewdale Hotel in Windermere. The day started for me at 0515hrs as I had to travel in from Durham. Day One was accurately titled the Longest Day!
We finally made it to Whitehaven and had to perform the
customary “wheel-dipping” before we set off. It’s supposed to be lucky and by 1130hrs we were finally pedalling. I had hastily got some bespoke biking tops made, so at a glance we had a slight resemblance of a group who knew what they were doing. Looks count for a lot in the cycling fraternity. The truth was that most of us had no idea how demanding day one would be given Marc’s route selection.
Other than the daily starts and the final few miles into Whitby the group did not move in a peloton formation, instead choosing to split into ability groups. I found my niche was with Michelle Watson (ED Nursing Asst). We seemed to complement each other, although neither of us could understand the route on day one. Marc was leading the “fast group” which contained Nick Athey (Consultant), Danny Best (husband of Maureen Best /A&E Sister), Tony Moore (HCA) and Paul Coyne (RN/Offshoe Medic). The third group was a QA “past and present” team of Maj Good (OC ED) and Jase Pickering (ex QA SSgt RN).
Day one was always going to be hard but Maj Good decided to up the ante. Not only did he chose to use a similar bike to one once rode by Mary Poppins (less basket) but pushed his stamina to the limits by having brakes that were secretly always on. Having to pedal downhill as well as up tends not to leave you with enough breath to burst into spontaneous renditions of “a spoonful of sugar”. So an evening of bike maintenance awaited Maj Good before he could rest his weary legs.
During the southward part of our Lake District dog-leg Michelle and I bumped into a cyclist called Peter. After a brief explanation of who we were and what we were doing he offered to navigate us down the west coast avoiding the busy public roads, whilst supplying snippets of local info. As good a tourist guide Peter was, we had to part ways after about 20 miles otherwise we might well have spent the entire day just navigating around local viewpoints and not tackling the hills that stood in between us and our hotel. He was such a nice gentlemen and even made a kind donation to our chosen charity. The Lake District is a beautiful place but the hills are not nice when pedalling up them and the hotel at Windermere seemed to take an age to reach. It took about 7 hours, however it was over 8 hours for the QA P&P team due to the extra brake resistance.
At 1830hrs we finally reached the hotel in Windermere. 7 hours since I first climbed into the saddle, 111⁄2 hours from leaving JCUH and 13 hours since reveille. We had completed