Steezy Lakeland 200 Project: Part 2 (Film)

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Photos and introduction by Catherine Dunn (@_catherine_dunn)

The Lakeland 200 is an attritional mountain biking route that takes riders through the Lake District’s most challenging terrain. By summer 2022, only one woman was on the official finishers list, which requires riders to complete the route in under 40 hours. Sally Ozanne, a Lake District local, had blazed her way round the trail in just 22 hours and 50 minutes. We figured it was about time she had some company on that list.

In August 2022, the Steezy Collective (@steezycollective) brought together seven women to change the narrative of the Lakeland 200: Lorah, Jenni, Cat, Alice, Alex, Naomi, and Jade undertook the route with the ambition of finishing in the allotted time. You can watch the film documenting their journey below, followed by written reflections from four of the women that piece the trail together and take you through their unique experiences of the Lakeland 200.

Staveley – Grizedale

Words by Lorah (@lorahpierre)

My alarm goes off. It’s 4 a.m., and I’m already awake. I can hear the slightly out-of-sync chimes of a dozen grandfather clocks. The night before, I checked into the cheapest Airbnb I could find close to the start. A large manor house at the end of a long gravel track. It has the most unusual decor, most notably the bathroom, which is salmon pink from ceiling to floor with the creepiest assortment of clowns, especially the one hanging in a basket above the bath. Needless to say, I had a slightly unsettled sleep, but one more comfortable than a roadside bivy.

Today, I’m taking on Alan Goldsmith’s Lakeland 200, attempting to complete the route in under 40 hours with six other riders, all of which are women. I ride down to the start to meet the others. I hover uncomfortably as though waiting for someone to fire a starter pistol to signal that my efforts can commence. Only this isn’t a mass start; our aim is a mass finish. We’ve had to choose when we leave based on our perceived efforts, and I’m hoping to be back at this spot 30 hours from now.

I take it easy. Steady pedaling. I’m trying to gauge how my body is feeling. Pretty shit. In the lead-up to this attempt, I haven’t actually done that much riding. I try to untangle myself from every thought trying to steal this beautiful landscape from me.

It’s hard to get into a rhythm when pedaling is punctuated by gates. Lots of gates. Did Sally Ozanne bunny-hop them? One can only wonder. Sally is currently the only sub-40-hour female finisher. All in an inspiring and intimidating 22 hours. I keep noticing that my mind is wandering. I’m not fully engaged, and my ankle feels a little stiff. It’s an injury that occurred on the Dales Divide earlier in the year and also flared up again when trying to take on the Highland Trail (from which I scratched). I take some ibuprofen and hope that it will loosen up. Something has to. I enter the woods just before Ambleside, and the route introduces its first serving of technical riding. I’m gliding over rocks and slate, slate as sharp as knives. It just got fun.

First, I hear it, and then I can see it. Sealant flying all over the bike and all over the backs of my legs. I’ve managed to slash my rear tire less than 15 miles in. I stop on the side of the trail and look at the damage. There it is, 2-3cm in length, a cut in the sidewall. I’m considering how I’ve been feeling up until this point, and I’m pretty sure this is a good excuse to duck out now.

Those moments of despair usually shine a light on the shit you need to focus on. I can hear the voice of my good friend, Tom Hall, speaking of his time on the Pan Celtic Race earlier that year: “I’ve transcended the ego and entered a state of complete acceptance.” I laugh. That memory is a solid reminder that I’ve offered myself up to the Lakes. I’m at the mercy of what is ahead of me.

I’m looking at my kit to solve the problem. I could boot this and pop the inner tube in. Jobs a good’un. Only a good’un if I don’t get another flat, though. I have one inner tube and no puncture repair kit. What an idiot. At least I brought the hand pump. I know there’s a bike shop at Grizedale along the route, and I know I can sort myself there. The catch: it’s another 20 miles away.

I’m thinking I could try doing the worst plug to date and see if it’ll hold enough pressure to carry me there. Three plugs in. Hand Pumped. I spend the next 20 miles snailing it, occasionally putting a little more air back in. I get to Grizedale. I buy a patch kit and another inner tube. I look for my gloves. I didn’t bring any. I buy some. The sight of my plug effort is making me cringe. Sod it. I’m here.

“I’ll buy the Eliminator, please.”

The bike shop boys watch me as I remove the rear wheel and pop the tire off. I sort myself out as I’m eyeballed from the sideline, but their craic is welcome. It removes that sense of being on your own in the wild. I have no idea how much time this little hiccup has taken, but I assure myself it is all good training. Training for what, I don’t know; I’m sure one day I will find out.

It takes me a while to adjust to the mindset of having the correct pressure in the rear tire, and to regain that feeling of confidence whilst pedaling. It’s amazing how much solving a problem can leave you feeling like an absolute boss. Yeaaah. I’m back in the game.

Grizedale – Black Sail Pass

Words by Jenni Myers (@_jenni_myers)

The section of the route through Grizedale and into Coniston felt like the calm before the storm. Beautiful riding on excellent trails with short sections of gentle hike-a-bike, lulling you into a false sense of security. I was on familiar ground, and complacency was sneaking in. I’d attempted the route a few weeks before and pulled the pin due to bad weather around Coniston. So, this was the section for me where things started to go downhill. And I don’t mean the riding. That was definitely all uphill!

Not far in, I rolled my ankle while pushing my bike over a short section of hike-a-bike. My ankle was fine, but my knee was a bit mashed. No time to clean up the blood trickling down my leg, I was cracking on. Past a group of teenagers with stereotypically overloaded rucksacks, and it was time for my next party trick: the Buckaroo. While descending a rocky path, my saddlebag decided to work loose and fall into my rear wheel, causing my bike to brake suddenly while I continued my forward momentum. I just about managed to stop myself from going over the handlebars. I took a couple of minutes to recompose myself, fix my saddlebag (or so I thought) and watch the group of teenagers overtake me.

Off I go again, past the group of teenagers and onto the next rocky descent. I’ll give you one guess what happened next. By this point, I was feeling pretty fed up, and it marked the beginning of my downward spiral. After the slog through Grizedale forest, I was rewarded with an epic descent, which certainly lifted the spirits, then a gentle roll into Coniston. Time to say goodbye to civilisation; now we enter the real mountains.

Black Sail Pass

Words by Cat Magill (@catrmag)

It’s something like 1 a.m. I’m not really sure—in efforts like this, it’s best not to look at your watch. I’m sitting on a bench outside the Black Sail YHA, a remote hostel between two tough hike-a-bike passes. Or, at least, that’s where it falls in the Lakeland 200. Everyone inside is sound asleep, as they should be. I’m stuffing food in my face and contemplating how I am going to make it over the next pass. The fish and chips I devoured standing in front of the Keswick Coop some hours earlier has been completely burned up, and my legs and body are feeling a bit burned up as well. I’m doing the route anti-clockwise, the opposite way to everyone else, which means I’ve covered a lot of the biggest climbs already—although on this route the climbing honestly never ends.

What’s amazing about this moment in the pitch dark by myself is that I’m not nervous or uncomfortable. Three weeks earlier, I set out on my first attempt of the Lakeland 200, having never ridden through the night before and feeling rather intimidated by the idea of it. Riding through the night seems to be a given in most ultra-bikepacking events, but to me it felt like a terrifying obstacle, especially going it alone. I’d decided to tackle the ITT in part to face up to this fear and see if I could overcome it.

The first time I got off easy, as I managed to more or less keep up with Jade (who I was riding with). And so, for most of the night, there was a human presence and a light nearby. But, this time, I’m going in the opposite direction to everyone else, and I’m alone. I’ve already crossed paths with Naomi, Lorah, and Jade on the climb up to Honister, and I’m on my own now. I can’t hope to catch anyone or tag alongside them through the night, and the sunrise is too far off to anticipate. I have to dig in and get on with it.

A hostel guest stumbles past me on the way to the toilet, triggering the motion sensor light and reminding me that I can’t sit here forever. I polish off a biscuit, pack up the remains of my snacks, switch on all my lights, put on an audiobook to distract me from thinking too much about the big climb ahead, and set off back into the night.

My main memory of this side of Black Sail is that it’s slippery. And that there are some steep rocky sections. Sure enough, I’ve barely gotten over the first section of wet slidey grass when a wall of rock confronts me. I’ve done some bouldering, but it never involved getting a bike with me up the route. A delicate balancing act and some awkward contortions get me past the section, and then it’s one step at a time up the climb.

Some way up, I slip in the mud and my bike crashes down on top of me. Seems a good moment for a rest. I extract myself from under the bike, sit in the grass with my knees hugged into my chest, and gaze out into the darkness. Passing some kind of night riding ultra-bikepacking test is the furthest thing from my mind. I’m nearly lost in a trance; I’m part of the night, immersed in the magical madness where totally inane things feel completely normal.

There may still be hours before the dawn finally breaks in a wall of shivering mist in the valley. There may be some chaos ahead in the bog on Eskdale Moor, lights that can’t penetrate the darkness, a GPX track that seems to send me straight into neck-high reeds, endless trudging and bumbling through ruts and over lumps. There may be an entire day of riding, riding, riding, and never arriving. But I don’t know and I don’t care. I’m fixating on the one star glowing through the clouds, floating in and out of focus. There is nothing else to see, nothing to think about. I’m not alone, I’m not scared. There is this moment and nothing else.

Pooley Bridge – High Street

Words by Jade Field (@jade_saskia)

I had been thinking about riding the Lakeland 200 in under 40 hours all year. It had been niggling away at the back of my mind since I toured the route in March and after a failed attempt in July, where I quit after 85 miles in 24 hours of non-stop rain. I felt like I had something to prove. I was desperate to finish under 40 hours, and I was hoping I might even make it round in under 35.

Early Sunday morning, I climbed out of Pooley Bridge as the sun rose, heading towards Martindale and Hartsop, and it was only then that I started to believe I was actually going to finish. And I rode that sense of achievement and feeling of joy all the way back to Staveley.

I bumped into Naomi on the grassy hike-a-bike out of Martindale, and we stayed pretty close until the finish. I would stomp past her on the hike-a-bike sections (pushing my light gravel bike past her heavier mountain bike), and she would come flying past me on the descents. We slowly made our way past Hartsop and started the last big climb up to High Street.

Before Pooley Bridge, I had suffered through some low moments of extreme sleepiness, but as I climbed up to High Street, the mental tiredness faded away. I’ve only been up there in very good weather, but as far as I’m concerned, High Street is incredible. You hike-a-bike up onto the ridgeline and then get to enjoy an excellent bumpy ride along the tops with absolutely stunning views in all directions.

I stood at the trig point looking down onto Windermere and felt so lucky to be there in that moment. I was hungry and tired, and my whole body ached, but I had challenged myself to something I wasn’t sure I could manage, and I was close enough to the finish that all the doubts brought on by my chronic imposter syndrome had finally disappeared. It was all downhill from there—other than the last two little climbs.

High Street – Staveley

Words by Lorah Pierre (@lorahpierre)

The sun is warming my skin. I stop and turn 360 degrees. Then again, and again. Alan Goldsmith, you evil genius. You can get back out of the bin. I can’t tell if I’m smiling or gurning. Caffeine salts erased my night fatigue, but I’m feeling twitchy, and the need to stretch out my jaw is strong. A night shift trade-off.

I’ve just made it over High Street. I feel dwarfed in comparison to the mountainous landscape that surrounds me. The weather conditions are prime. Clear skies, a cooling breeze—or gust, depending where you stand. For the last six hours, my mind has been trippy. Chickens strung up in trees, men waiting on the roadside cradling children and offering up bottles of water for me, only to dissolve as I smile and reach out my hand.

I’ve been seeing dark shapes and figures moving in the tree lines as my bike mounts a conveyor belt that has been set to reverse. And the sensation that something is behind me, mocking my struggle, just able to dart out of sight every time I turn around to steal a glimpse of the midnight creeper.

No doubt, I’ve been a bit of a dehydrated mess. I haven’t been able to top up my water bottle since… I’m not even sure. I was frantically looking for water in Pooley Bridge. I gave up, returning to find Naomi passed out in the middle of the road, taking a power nap. I carried on only to eyeball every farm, house, and puddle of livestock urine until the finish line. Since then, I’ve been sucking the snot out of my own nostrils.

I descend fearlessly. Riding in the daylight brings a false sense of confidence, and I find myself occasionally backtracking when failing to turn when instructed. I have an ‘inventory’ on the back of my phone. Staveley 127.5 miles. Only, It’s 128 miles now. Later, I will be able to make sense of the mileage confusion and remember that I rode five miles to the start. I’ve been totally out of sync, and all the energy I had reserved to blast to the end has been wasted.

I look at my bent rear mech and laugh. I have no reserved energy. I’m absolutely done. When I’m not cobble-hobbling, I’m single-speeding. My bike was making awful noises back in Keswick, and I’ve been wrestling with a shifting nightmare since then. I bump into a local rider out on the trail. He seems to know that there are a group of women attempting sub-40-hour efforts on the trail this weekend. We stop and chat. We start to depart in opposite directions, and as we say goodbye, he doesn’t hesitate to let me know that what lies ahead of me is pointless, savage, and testing. I laugh. Does he not know what I have spent the last 28 hours doing?

By this point, I’m so delirious that I attempt to follow two guys on full-suspension bikes down the boulder descent. It doesn’t last long before I’m tangled in my own bike. I’m laughing at my reactionary scoff with my previous encounter. Who’s laughing now? Well, me, but only out of a blip of madness.

The terrain levels out, and boulders turn into dirt tracks and compact gravel. I lick the salt from the inside of a packet of mixed nuts and feel satisfied. Exhausted, my head is alive and content. I feel like I’ve completed the hunt and am about to sit down with my pack and bask in our ability to survive. I want to snuggle my two boys, two and four years of age. As challenging as parenting is sometimes, there is a different challenge of placing myself miles away from them. The guilt lingers at my yearning for selfish endeavors. Though, I know I’ll come back with a shift in perspective each time. Those thoughts are enough to summon strength.

The track falls away to tarmac. The slight sensory overload of civilization reveals itself, and I’m momentarily stunned. I see my boys and melt back into momma mode. Some 30 hours and 20 minutes, and I’m back where I started. Only, rather than rain and angst, I’ve got ice cream and giggles. The others are still at various points on the trail, but it won’t be long before Jade, Naomi, Cat, and I will be sitting around a table comparing the state of our feet and planning the Lakeland 200 double.

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