Steezy Lakeland 200 Project

20 Apr

Kitty
A cyclist who thinks that every discipline is worth enjoying, even at the expense of the living room for bike storage.

Bike: Hopetech HB130.

Favourite Snack: Fruit pastilles

Favourite type of riding: A multi-day mountain biking adventure

Vanessa
An ex ultimate frisbee champion who brings her A-game to mountain biking.

Bike: Whyte 130.

Favourite Snack: A solid pastry would never go amiss.

Favourite type of riding: gravel/mtb trails winding through forests

On the 18th of March, the Steezy Collective off-road recce crew set off to tackle the legendary Lakeland 200 over five days. The route is a gnarly 200km around the Lakes created by Alan Goldsmith, the mind behind the Highland Trail 550. The route is known for hike-a-bike a-plenty, stunning views and lots of climbing, ascending a total of 6000m throughout the 200km.

Why this route? If you research the Lakeland 200, everything talks about how gnarly it is but not too much about the adventure itself. With very few women attempting the route we wanted to challenge this narrative and tackle the route as a group of six women who all share a love of off-road riding. With the route intended to be ridden as an Individual Time Trial (ITT), there’s something magical about taking a bit more time and exploring everything the Lakes have to offer.

Who were we? I’m glad you asked, as I’d love to introduce you to the crew:

Taylor
A Canadian who loves to live between both London’s, a tourer turned off-road shredder.

Bike: Hopetech HB130.

Favourite Snack: Hummus and GF pitas

Favourite type of riding: If it’s long, I’ll take it.

Alice
A local to the Lakes whose roots are in mountain biking. With a big love for anything with two wheels, she’s recently discovered the joys of fixed and gravel.

Bike: PipeDream Sirius

Favourite Snack: Outdoor Provisions nut butter.

Favourite type of riding: Big sendy MTB

So, back to the Lakeland 200.

We all travelled to the Lakes from London and Leeds with different expectations of what we were tackling. Alice had a grasp of the popular natural trails that were en route, but had never connected them before. Kitty has done a few Wainwright’s so knows there can be some tricky fell walking, let alone hike-a-bike around these parts. Vanessa hadn’t been told much more than where to be and when! With this mixed bag, we had a soup of anticipation, nerves and excitement as we readied our bikes in the Ambleside YHA.

I’m sure you don’t want to hear about it like that. This trip could be recounted day by day in minute detail but would somehow miss the essence of what happened and what we learnt.

So instead I’d love to show you what happens when you mix six adventurers, a beefy route and some unexpected challenges.

The Route

Check out the ITT website to see the official Lakeland 200 route, it’s got lots of views and gives you an idea of what you’ll be riding. But, what you can’t have an idea of is exactly what “a lot of hike-a-bike” means until you get there. With the first day giving us a taste of something you could ride on an e-bike or maybe even an unloaded trail bike we thought it was just a case of keep on pushing, but day three proved us wrong. Climbing over Black Sails Pass, and I mean climbing, was like an obstacle course but carrying a 30kg fully loaded mountain bike. We weren’t ready for this.

I’ll leave it to Vanessa to explain:

“Day 3, how will I ever forget. It was challenging, no lie, but equally rewarding and beautiful, the waterfall crossing was incredible.”

The Season

We chose March for our trip as Jade is taking on the big one itself, The Highland Trail, in May and we wanted to give her time to test her setup, and have a taste of the epic-MTB life. The only problem, is campsites and YHA’s won’t open until the start of April. We had to meticulously plan our route to make it to Keswick by 10pm on the third day or we would be left sneaking behind a wall and missing our only opportunity for a bed on the trip.
YHA Black Sails, the most remote YHA in the country, was shut so whilst we contemplated our decisions in the trough of the 2 passes at that very YHA, we had no choice other than to carry on the second half of the route in darkness to Keswick.

Then there was the gamble: the weather. This, however, fell in our favour. During March the trails are clear with most adventurers waiting for more guaranteed sunshine but we lucked out. Sun for days one to four with only the mildest of mizzle on our shortest day, day five.

The Initial Challenge

We had roped in filmmaker, Catherine Dunn, known for her work with the legendary Adventure Syndicate, to capture the trip as part of what we called the “Steezy Lakeland 200 Project”. This would be part 1, the recce. So as we packed up Catherine called through with some gutting news. She’d developed symptomatic Covid-19 and wouldn’t be able to join us. We already had the bikes set up, the kit ready to go and all the hostels and the campsite booked, three of us were already in the Lakes.

Assessing what we had, 3 cameras, a couple of GoPro's and the naivety of some (very) amateur filmmakers we knew what we had to do. For Day one Lakes MTB helped us out with finding the local go-to prodigy, Dave MacFarlane, who got some drone footage and intense moody Lakes riding clips as well as our interviews. Catherine told us how to set up our cameras, with Taylor knowing a bit more than the rest of us, we were ready to go.

Catherine is the best to tell you about how the footage turned out:

“Turns out they didn't need me after all! Self-filming is such a personal thing to do, to capture friends in their high moments and, importantly, in their low moments. It's really hard but, as you'll see in the film, no one shied away from capturing the tough moments (and the hilarious ones too). They nailed it.”

The Riding

One thing that nothing can prepare you for is your first-time multi-day riding in the Lake District, all of us had dabbled in day rides up Loughrigg or a cheeky spin up Walna Scar. But, none of us had ever ventured deep into the Lakes. With some spots so remote you have to ride for more than a day to reach them, the rewards were abundant. I think Alice can explain this for us:

“I’ve ridden around the Lakes since I was a teenager, I thought I was pretty familiar with it. However, there’s something about going point to point that takes you places you wouldn’t think were accessible by bike. On day three we headed out of Boot up to Burnmoor Tarn. I love finding the tarns and reservoirs in the Lakes that you can only get to on a bike or by foot and it was so refreshing to see the sparkling blue water so high up but, the real prize was the descent. Letting the brakes off and shredding down into Wast Water was incredible, this is a descent you could do as an out and back, but taking it on after hiking up for 2 miles made it all the sweeter.”

The Hike-A-Bike

We developed a love-hate relationship with the hike-a-bike. It was gruelling and the definition of type 2 fun, tough work and a lot of aches and pains but the views and descents always made it worth it. Weirdly, the effort put into the climb made popping over into the most scenic views in the country feel like they were fairly earned and allowed us to sit and soak up the sun in peaceful bliss.

The hardest hike-a-bike was the one from Wast Water into Black Sails Pass, but what about the best? Climbing up to the top of the Fell from Dale Head, racing the clock to reach our 7:30 Brotherswater Inn reservation was incredible. We had a dance party, some motivational speeches from Alice and even a few entertaining bog crossings.

The Conclusion

There’s so much more to tell about our Lakeland 200 adventure. A lot of it will be elucidated in our film, some of it will be passed around as anecdotes for anyone who asks what it was like. There’s just no way to relay the whole adventure without trying it for yourself.

A word of caution to take away as you prepare yourself for your Lakeland 200 adventure; travel light, carry lights and stay light. The only thing that can make this trip impossible is letting the hard parts defeat you rather than the light ones carrying you through.