The Crossing Day 3

The very bad weather forecast for Day 3 turned out to be just bad weather. There was steady light rain but reasonably high temperatures which meant there was no chilling out in the cold. It felt a bit of a grind at times today with quite a lot of rough sections where I wasn't able to ride up or down - I'm a very nervous and cautious descender.

I finally made it into Scarborough around 3 pm feeling in pretty excellent shape - even my bottom wasn't suffering too much after all that time in the saddle.

A celebratory ice cream was on offer as was the obligatory medal to add to my collection.

Had a wee walk round town, a coffee, a walk round some gardens, fish and chips and then ready for the bus home at 7 pm. This got into Whitehaven just after 11 pm and I was back at the Premier Inn around 11.45 pm.

Event Stats:

Day 1 : 103.65 km ; 1932 m climb ; elapsed time of 8 hrs 55 mins
Day 2 : 59.91 km ; 693 m climb ; ride time of 3 hrs 58 mins ( should have been around 100 km)
Day 3 : 95.68 km ; 1688 m climb ; time of 7 hrs 47 mins

Overall an enjoyable three days. Lots of people seemed to have come back and done the event many times. It does seem very expensive (over £400) for what you get although it was all delivered very effectively. At times the route seemed designed for pain and challenge rather than pleasure. There are probably nicer routes to do the C2C. As an endurance challenge it certainly delivered. A range of different bikes on the course. I think roughly 50/50 between full sus and hardtail. No perfect solution as there was a constant mix between road and rough trail. On balance not really my preferred type of event as I really don't like the rough downhills on a MTB.