Lumley castle to Richmond: it’s a bit like going home

July 14, 2017 margie Comments 0 Comment

“It’s a bit warm,” says the woman at reception as we check out of Lumley Castle.

I turn on my Garmin and check the temperature. It is 18 degrees. Celsius. I am trying to decide whether to ride in my leg warmers or not today.

Everybody wants a chat. We ride into Chester-le-street to take a look, and park near the market place, and it is on. One man offers advice about the best market stall to pick up snacks “to keep us going.” He decides we are rich because we stayed at the castle, admits that he got married at the castle (but isn’t married any more), and leaves us with a couple of packets of questionable use-by-date Reese’s pieces, direct from his favourite market stall.

A woman rides up on a bike, also near the market, and chats about cycling, and how she would love to do long distance but she has hurt her back. She offers advice on the route to take to Richmond, but I only get half of what she says, she speaks so fast.

We ride through Durham on our way to Richmond. Durham is a pretty, old town, with an iconic city profile. We stop in the main square for some lunch, and make a detour to view the cathedral towering over the river, which has some odd dam construction.

It is pleasant to idle, but we need to get a hurry on – with maybe 50km to go, and the day getting away. The ride for the afternoon is pretty lumpy, with some of the worst at the end.

We are on our way out of town, and I see a “Free House”** that just looks like a pub to me. I call out to Neil as I pull up behind him at at traffic light, asking if he knows what it means. The light changes, and we start to move. I figure he will tell me when we get going properly, out of traffic.

And then it happens. A car very high up in the intersection suddenly turns left, right into Neil’s path. The car clips his front wheel and he wobbles but somehow retains his balance. I don’t know how; those Cadel Evan-esque bike handling skills again. He makes his way to the kerb and leans his bike against a sign in a deceptively calm fashion. He is shaking hard, and collapses onto the ground.

There is suddenly action around us. A passer by stops. The woman from the car rushes up and falls to her knees beside Neil, begging forgiveness and muttering about how her husband rides a bike and how she was just no thinking about what she was doing. A motorcylist comes over, saying that he has all the car details.

Neil is unhurt, but shaken. His bike is not damaged. The driver insists on buying him a coffee, so we repair to the Free House across the road. She buys a coffee and muffin, and sits there with us, apologising, until we tell her to leave.

We finally set off again, with still about 40km to go. It is going to be another late night.

We are our way cautiously out of town, choosing the bike path wherever possible. Our planned route takes us from busy road to back country lane, and finally to a “public bridal path” that is wild and woolly and overgrown, and looks entirely unpleasant to ride on. Neil may have referred to it as a goat track.

Out with the technology, devices all over the shop searching for an alternate route. We need to go back to the busy road for a few kilometres, and then turn off into “High Road”. I figure this is not the main Street. And it isn’t. Up and over we go, and we are soon back on the planned route, with still about 1.5 hours to Richmond.

It is 5:15 and Neil calls our B&B to let them know we are still on the way. We are about 20km from Richmond, and with the way we are travelling, and knowing that there are a couple of hills just before to the town, we expect this will take another hour and a half. That is not popular news with our host, who claims we told her we would be there at 4pm, that she has plans to go out that she will now have to cancel.

We are looking forward to arriving there now … not.

The rest of the journey is uneventful, but a real grind, especially the last hill before Richmond.

We arrive at the B&B to be greeted by Steve*, who is pleasant and tells us no bother we are late. He possibly makes a tiny eye-roll in reference to his wife.

We shower and rush into town, fearful of missing out on food. The Town Hall pub serves until 8:30. It is a few minutes short of that time, so we hurry in to order. Our lasagnes (one meat, one veg) are perhaps not quite what we had in mind, but are delicious and hit the spot. The crumbed and fried mozzarella sticks are awesome.

We take a turn around town, a walk around the castle, and have a beer in another pub in one of the side streets (wynds). By this time it is raining lightly; hopefully the rain will all fall tonight, and the weather will be fine for a ride into York tomorrow.

The temperature barely rose from the 18C this morning at Lumley Castle. I hope the woman at Reception did not expire from the heat.

* Not his real name.

** A Free House is an English pub that is owned independently of the breweries that supply it.