214 PEAKS ON A £400 BIKE
Furloughed from his job as a conservationist, Dan Wynn set himself an ambitious challenge to summit every one of the Wainwright fells in the Lake District in one continuous push, and all on his trusty old Saracen
One man’s mission to ride all the Wainwright fells on a month’s unsupported bikepacking trip in the Lake District, refusing to let a decade-old budget bike and zero experience of mountain riding hold him back
e’re all experts at making excuses, aren’t we? “It’s too wet outside!” “My bike needs a service!” “I can’t be bothered…” These are all phrases you can be damn sure have never come out of Dan Wynn’s mouth. About three months ago, Dan – who’s a conservationist for the RSPB – got in touch with us to say he was planning a bit of riding to keep himself busy while furloughed from his job. Having briefed us on his plan – to ride and hike to the top of all 214 of the Wainwright fells and do it in one monthlong, self-sufficient camping trip – we thought he sounded like a nutter.
And then we saw the bike he’d be doing it on. Not a svelte cross-country whip, but his old Saracen Hazzard – the chunky entry-level full-sus that first got him into riding and the one that, for sentimental reasons and to make a stand against consumerist culture, he refuses to leave behind. Talk about making things hard for yourself! But, as Dan explained to us, you don’t miss what you’ve never had: “Although my bike’s heavier, it just means I’ll get stronger.” You can’t argue with the logic.
His goal was far from insignificant either. To say you’ve ‘done’ the Wainwrights means getting to the top of every fell featured in Arthur Wainwright’s seven-volume Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells. That’s a lot of uphill, a lot of rough terrain and, if you’re travelling by two wheels, a lot of miles to link them all together.
The sun’ll come out tomorrow
Planning this epic started as any good British adventure should – with a pile of OS maps. “I laid them all out, marked on every Wainwright and all the bridleways, then looked for a route to connect them together,” Dan tells us. “You can’t legally ride to the summit of every one, so my plan was to get as close as I could by bike and then go on foot the rest of the way.” Dan admits that the logistics turned out to be quite complicated because, although he’d set out to minimise his elevation gain – getting up high and then not coming back down until he’d ticked off all the fells in that area – he was thwarted on more than one occasion by the elements. “I aimed to ride a continuous route,” Dan says, “but in reality if you look at where I went, it looks more like a kid got a crayon and scribbled all over it!”
The Lakes aren’t known for their predictable weather and for two weeks of Dan’s 36-day trip he had to battle on through thunderstorms, savage winds and driving rain. But that wasn’t the scene on day one when he set forth from Glenridding to ride the full Helvellyn ridgeline – up Helvellyn and Dollywaggon Pike, over the Dodds and across to Clough Head. “I was greeted by blazing sun and I remember the buzz I felt setting off that first day!” Dan recalls. “Prior to starting out I’d never taken my bike up a proper mountain before and it was all new to me. Nine hours it took me, to ride the whole ridge and drop down into Ullswater, and the whole thing was just amazing.”
Dan’s lack of experience makes his challenge all the more impressive, as does his steadfastness. A week later he was waking up in his tent each morning with all his gear soaked, pulling on sodden shoes and ploughing on towards the next peak. “I’m a bit of a stubborn arsehole!” he replies modestly when asked whether he ever considered giving up. “But there were certainly times when I wasn’t enjoying it. On the day I was heading up to Thornthwaite Crag and the High Street plateau I could hear lightning striking all around me in the valley, and I ended up having to ditch my bike and huddle down with the sheep for well over an hour until it passed. After that it got dark and the wind and rain
PRIOR TO STARTING OUT I’D NEVER TAKEN MY BIKE UP A PROPER MOUNTAIN BEFORE AND IT WAS ALL NEW TO ME
picked up so strong that I had no choice but to pitch camp in the middle of the storm!” Because of the relentless wetness, Dan started developing the early symptoms of trench foot, with no dry clothing to put on and his feet constantly wet. “Pedalling was actually a relief from putting my feet in the bog the whole time,” he recalls.
When you’re going through all this hardship solo, finding the motivation to keep going is always going to require you to dig deep, but Dan’s no stranger to one-man expeditions, having toured across Arctic Norway and taken on paddleboard trips to far-flung destinations. “The hardest thing about being on your own is that you’ve got no one to bounce ideas off,” Dan believes. “When you’re tired and physically beat-down it’s easy to make wrong decisions and, even though it might be a small error, add a few together and they can soon set you back. There was one day when I messed up my route planning and ended up diverting up over Hardknott Pass and Wrynose Pass. That absolutely killed me and added on about 40 miles, plus a lot of uphill.” No kidding! Getting up those 1:3 hairpins is a struggle with a motor, let alone a fully-laden MTB.
The really wild show
For the most part, though, Dan – being a conservationist and someone who’s attuned to the natural world – says these trips are a form of escapism for him. “It’s like pressing the reset button on life,” he tells us. “You get back to basics for a while, refresh and then go out and attack the world again.” Even soaking wet and miserable, he’s resolute that he’d still rather be out there than sat at home.
Some of his best memories from the Lakes came from finding solace in the hills, but others were because of the connections he made with people along the way. “My favourite Wainwright of them all was Holme Fell,” Dan reveals. “It’s not even one of the big ones, but it just felt like a very wild and natural place. It’s covered in heather, with gnarled and stunted trees that cling to the top, and there are crags, boulders and tarns that make amazing swim spots.” Meeting other mountain bikers was something that Dan really relished too, and he says it was great to bump into riders on various trails along the way, share stories and also discover more about what it’s like to be a local in these parts.
Counter culture
This brings us on to Dan’s bike, which is the sort of machine you’d expect to see locked up outside the shops, not being taken on the ride of a lifetime. “I’m a firm believer that you’ll have a good time whatever you’re riding,” Dan says assertively. “I’ve got pretty strong views on the whole gear culture we’re seeing now, with people thinking they need to be spending thousands on expensive kit when it’s not necessary at all. Maybe it’s a luxury that’ll help fractionally,” he concedes, “but I like to show people that you can get by on basic equipment and still have a great adventure.” It’s probably a good thing that Dan has never tried a modern-geometry trail bike, because it meant he wasn’t fazed by the prospect of riding his £400 Saracen
– a machine from the days before the UK brand started making properly good bikes again and with at least 10 years of riding on the clock – on some pretty tough terrain.
“It’s old, but it’s built like a little bulldog,” he says. “I feel like I can throw it into anything and it’ll just bounce off.” “And did anything go wrong?” we ask. “Nothing at all,” Dan replies proudly. “All I had to do was change the tyres, and that was only because they were nearly bald when I started.” Even though his total set-up, with food and camping supplies and the rest, added up to a whopping 34kg, Dan’s convinced that if he had his time over again, he wouldn’t change a thing. We decline to tell him just how much easier we think his life would have been on a better bike, because he makes a very valid point about embarking on an undertaking like this: “You can almost guarantee it won’t be the bike that lets you down, it’ll be you that breaks first!” So, there you go folks – next time you catch yourself complaining your bike’s not good enough, pause and take a leaf out of Dan’s book.
I’M A FIRM BELIEVER THAT YOU’LL HAVE A GOOD TIME WHATEVER YOU’RE RIDING