Cycling in Northumbria - Sustrans Route #68: The Cheviot Hills

The "big ride" on our holiday followed Sustrans number 68 (the Pennine route) through the Cheviot hills. You can head up into Scotland via this route, but we took it as far as Wooler, a small town in the Northumberland National Park. As much as I wanted to cover a good 70-80 miles on this day, we only ended up covering 55 miles, but still it was one of the most challenging rides we've ever done - the verdict was unanimous!

We took a couple of wrong turns when heading out to join the cycleway, which gave us our first taste of how relentlessly hilly the landscape is here - struggling over hilly roads to find you've come the wrong way only meant more hilly roads on the way back! The hills didn't stop; up and down and up and down and up and down. They weren't sharp, steep hills as they are in Yorkshire, but rather long, slow, painful hills, without much of a euphoric race downhill once you tip over the brow!

Cheviot Hills Elevation Map

Compared even with our tougest ride, it was much hiller as you can see!

Still, the scenery was incredible - it would have been easy to believe that we were in Scotland already! The landscape was harsh and remote, and it's easy to believe that you could hide in this part of the country for days without risk of being found (just as Raoul Moat did last summer).

The great thing was that we didn't feel like giving up the whole time. We were tired and sore, we were looking forward to getting home and having a shower, but we both felt like we could do it. No one got off and cried because they just couldn't face another hill! This is good news - this tells us what we need to know: we might actually have a chance at completing the 100 miles after all.

See that small splodge heading up the hill? That's me!

Cycling in Northumbria - Sustrans Route #1: Coasts and Castles

While on holiday in Northumbira we took the opportunity to try out some of Sustrans Route 1, the "Coast and Castles Route", which runs from Newcastle up to Edinburgh along the Northumbrian coastline.

We were staying in Alnmouth, about 35 miles north of Newcastle, so we decided to head to Banburgh along the cycle route, about 25 miles North of where we were staying.

The route is simply stunning; most of the way is accompanied by fantastic views out to sea, passing through tiny fishing villages every now and then which were bustling with active holiday-makers all eager to enjoy this fantastic part of the country. It struck us how far apart everything was, and even then how sparsely populated the villages were.

Another obvious difference was the elevantion of the area. Whereas Yorkshire has steep hills and areas of serious ups and downs punctuated with good periods of flat riding, Northumbria is all either up or down - mostly up, it seemed! The hills are usually long and sprawling, but there are also regular steep climbs requiring low gears and lots of stamina!

One of my favourite parts of the ride took us off-road onto what is mainly the walker's path. Tricky in places on hybrid bikes, this offered a really exciting and reasonably technical hour of riding, some of which required the wimp's option of getting off and pushing! It was hot and the breeze onto this path, which followed the line of the sea directly, was absolutely blissful!

The heat really was a challenge for both of us on this ride. While it's possible (or even probable) that it'll be a typical grey, drizzly English summer day on August 14th, if we wake up to blue skies and potential 20+C temperatures we'll really be struggling. This ride was a good opportunity to test how we work (or if we work!) in the heat, and gave us some foresight as to how we should best deal with a hot day of cycling.

We drank absolutely loads of water during the day, which seems obvious, but it's easy to forget to top up in a village store and be left with nothing a few miles down the road. We also enjoyed a short break in Bamburgh, where we had a picnic on the beach with plenty of salty crisps. We've also taken to packing up a couple of apples in our bags when we go out, as they provide fantastic refreshment as well as sugars, and are a nice change from cereal bars and peanuts!

This was a really great route in testing weather, which at one point pushed us a little far over the edge. We were both quite disappointed with Bamburgh, which boasted only two bike parks and was absolutely over-whelmed by cars. Still, it gave us a good turning point for the ride, which ended up being 50 miles altogether. A good day out, and a great route for exploring the Northumbrian coastline!