Coast and Castles Bike Ride
Over the first weekend of September 12 intrepid souls embarked on a challenge. The idea was to ride from Berwick to Tynemouth over a two day period, stopping at Alnmouth.
Initially all went to plan and everybody arrived by train at Berwick station, unfortunately things started to go wrong from there. One member of the group had problems getting out of the car park of Berwick train station, but the trip had been organised by David Ellison very well and one of the land party cars took the unfortunate individual to get his bike repaired.
We were on our way. It was a beautiful hot day and everybody was in good spirits. We were all expecting a fairly easy ride and hoping that most of the trip would be 'down hill', but it soon became apparent that we were in for a tough day as there was a strong wind in our face most of the way and it was mostly up hill. We didn't even get a chance to enjoy the downhills as the wind made it necessary to peddle on the downs. There were a few injuries on the first day and a couple of people had to drop out at Seahouses, but they gave it a good try. Thanks to the two land parties the people who became injured were picked up and taken to Alnmouth where we were to be accommodated. The land party again stepped in at Embleton and picked up 2 more fatigued riders.
After everybody showered and there was a night of eating and drinking spent in Alnmouth. The next morning everybody (10) being refreshed and raring to go - NOT - set of to Warkworth for breakfast. There was nothing in Warkworth so we set off to Amble and found a cafe for breakfast and very much desired coffee. Then there were 9. The ride was much more pleasant than day one with a lot less climbs. The views were lovely and the ride was a pleasure. We left two more at Newbiggin and so there were 6 left heading towards Tynemouth. After getting lost at Ashington and a few wrong turns we headed towards Whitley Bay and eventually arrived at Tynemouth Priory. Well 4 did any way as we don't know what happened to two people on a tandem.
Thanks to David Ellison (who was one the 4 that finished) for organising the trip and spent a lot of his own money funding one of the land parties. Thanks also go to Lara Clifford and Mark Simmington who gave up one of their days off to help stranded riders and keep everybody's spirits up. Thanks also to everybody that participated and made it a fantastic weekend.
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