During day 5 we were due to travel from Preston to Carlisle travelling through the lake district, we were also due to climb our longest climb on route, Shap which is approximately 9-10 miles of pretty much continuous climbing.
There was also some rivalry within the group regarding who would be the first to the top of the Shap climb, we left Kendal and almost immediately began to climb. A fellow rider James Gifford immediately set off at pace up the long climb and I followed along behind. For the next few miles James and I set a blistering pace spurred on by each other and taking turns on the front. He beat me to the summit by about 50 metres, but then on the final run into Shap I accelerated past him to reach our lunch break first. We both decided that neither of us would have ascended so quickly had we not worked as a team and also been competing so hard with each other. We completed the accent of Shap in 36 min 52 seconds at an average speed of 14.7 mph and climb of 1,415 ft
At the end we decided to award ourselves the KOM award for our ride up Shap, but as it was James’s shirt I actually never got the chance to wear it… Although not sure it would have fitted anyway!
