BARNARD CASTLE

Sheila has now cycled 293 miles to reach Barnard Castle and has 599 miles to go before she completes the course… and she is 65 miles from the Scottish border.
The 52-mile road to the next control point at Brampton crosses the Northern Pennines and, after 11 miles, Sheila will arrive in Cumbria. Before she gets there, she will have to pass through ultra-picturesque Middleton-in-Teesdale and then climb to the 1,961-foot summit of Yad Moss, which is high enough to be one of only six ski resorts in the whole of England.
Happily, it rarely snows in July (even in Cumbria) but Sheila’s legs (once praised by none other than Led Zeppelin singer, Robert Plant) will have to work hard in any weather. Described by Road Cycling UK as “a monster of a climb”, it is an ascent of over 14 miles in length and although the gradient averages at only 2%, RCUK says: “it’s a real tester if you want to get a long effort logged on your ride, with a series of punchy kickers which sap the legs”.
The steepest gradient is 8% and RCUK goes on to add: “The rise itself starts with a grippy false flat for the first four kilometres, before hitting two per cent for the next four. After this, an initial pitch that hits eight per cent signals the style for the rest of the segment, with repeated rollers that sap the energy from the legs. It’s a real test of your on-the-bike recovery ability as you grind your way to the top”.
The reward for enduring a grippy false flat and repeated rollers before grinding your way to the top is, of course, the right to freewheel downhill nearly all the way to Brampton where, passport in hand, Sheila will be almost ready to cross the border from the land of her birth into the land of her forefathers...
As Sheila might say: Whoo Ha!