“We live on an island, everyone should ride across it at least once!” That’s the marketing strapline for Frontier300, an annual bikepacking event which traverses the UK, roughly following the English/Scottish border. Emma Osenton headed along to take part earlier in the year and sent in a great ride report of her experience.
I’ve ridden across the UK a few times and in a few ways, on and off road, as a tour and as a one day. That was a while ago now and having heard great things about Frontier300 as a one day ride, I was keen to find out more.
Coast to Coast is one of the easiest ways to do a big distance, dip your back wheel in one side and aim for the other side to dip the front. I’ve even managed to get friends to do it as their first imperial century, despite one of the road versions being 140 miles. What makes it tricky is the logistics, do you leave a car in the middle, train to one side, ride across, then train back to the car? Drive to one side, ride to the other, sulk about how to get back to the car? Or just sack it off as it becomes quite a faff, unless of course you have a special friend who wants to tail you with a car for the day?
This is where the team at Focal come in, simply drive to the finish, get the coach with your kit to the start and then they’ll bring your kit back to the finish. Then all you need to do is convince one of your mates to come along for the ride.
My friend Mathieu and I were down for the two-day version, with neither of us having done much long stuff of late. It seemed a fairly relaxed way to approach things, plus there was the promise of a bit of a party at the overnight with talks, fire pits, brands, food stands and a bar.
With a crazy early 5 am start on the Friday morning and both of us having quite a long drive to get to the finish over on the east coast at Druridge Bay, we decided to have a nice easy start and head up on Wednesday, book on to the Druridge Bay campsite where the event was happening and have a chilled morning before getting on the coach with our boxed-up bikes on Thursday at 2 pm to take us to the start at Rockcliffe Bay.
The site is run by Northumberland Council, it seems, mostly on a prebooking system. Thankfully, there’s a mobile signal, so we booked on as we arrived, confusing the park manager in the process. He didn’t seem to know if we were booked on with the event for the weekend or where exactly we were supposed to park. Finally, we got booked onto some hardstanding, knowing we’d probably have to move again the next morning.
Morning came, we moved the van once, no sign of anyone to do with the event and the ranger still didn’t seem to know. We then discover that we’re supposed to be in a different field and move again, so much for the relaxed start. A few other entrants had started to arrive, finally a sponsor flag went up near to the field entry point followed by a Luton van for the bike transport, followed by a small coach.
After a brief chat from the guys at Focal, we were off. Driving across certainly gives you a taste of what’s to come and quite how far you’re about to ride. After a slightly random stop at a giant Asda for supplies we were soon in Rockcliffe Bay, or at least the village hall about 3km away, complete with a pizza van and a village shop. Bikes were unloaded and built back up, a talk-through of all of the strict timings for the luggage drop off the next morning and safety procedures along the way and it was time to head over to the basic camp field and pitch for the night or at least try to in the super long grass. It’s kinda hard trying to go to sleep so early but thinking of the 5 am start….
Neither of us would describe ourselves as morning people, especially without a coffee! Bags needed to be in the van to get to the overnight by 4:45 am and you had to start by 5 am. We’d been puzzling over the early start time. You needed to do a minimum of 15 kph, it’s 180 km to the overnight, meaning you’d likely be at Kielder for 5 pm. Even with entertainment, this still seemed a little excessive and the Scottish border is pretty sparsely populated, so avoiding traffic didn’t seem too much of an issue.
Bleary-eyed, we rolled down to the bay. Nobody was there, no wheel dips, but off we rolled. The route immediately took us onto hidden gravel tracks through the trees of Dalbeatie Forest. I confess I wasn’t exactly awake enough to enjoy it. We stopped briefly, sneaking into a campsite to use the facilities and fill water bottles. Before we knew it, we were onto the cycleway to bypass Dumfries. Matheiu didn’t take much convincing to spin around and head into town for a sit-down breakfast and big coffee! A glance at the tracker page and we were already the flowing locks of the mullet!
On we pedalled, suddenly much more chipper for having had a brew. Quiet lanes flowed past, into the Forest of Ae. We’d caught up with some other riders. We thought we’d missed the checkpoint and feed station as the route guide that we were given stated that it closed at 8:30 am. However, it turned out that the feed wasn’t there at all - the guide has been printed based on the timings for the one-day event, which starts at 4 am! I think we half felt bad for the other riders, but then we were deeply glad that we’d snuck off for breakfast.
Flowing gravel tracks for miles as we rolled onwards, it seemed something of a novelty to actually ride real gravel without it turning to boulders. I’d chanced riding completely slick 40mm gravel tyres, with a little worry that they’d get shredded, but also thinking about how much easier they would be on the tarmac sections.
We knew there was one hike-a-bike section. The clag had come down, filling the valley and making the trees heavy with moisture. Soggy trees lined the climb up. We laughed a little, remembering some crazy bad hike-a-bikes from other events to spur ourselves on. Catching up with a few other riders as we climbed, it was nice to see some people. Jostling back and forth and chatting for the next few miles. The feed at Eskdalemoor appeared like a mirage - even more so because it was in the village hall, meaning proper toilets! Hot coffee was flowing along with a well-stocked feed.
A fast section of road led us onwards to Langholm. We’d been chatting with two guys who lived close to the start and were enjoying their knowledge of every hill, track, trail and potential cafe stop. We were making good time, in fact, great time considering that we were pootling along really. We took their advice to stop in the cafe at Newcastleton. I’m glad we did, the owner wanted to know if we wanted to buy her cafe and seemed rather glad when we ordered afternoon tea. The two chaps we’d been with then piled in and ordered more.
It was only 30 km from there to the overnight at Kielder, onwards we rode. Pulling into Kielder campsite we were greeted by Focal staff, keen to help us find our overnight bags and assist us with them into the camping area. We were definitely some of the last to arrive. A couple of dozen tents peppered the area, although despite it being 6 pm it seemed like everyone had gone to bed. There was a burger van, a few people stuck to the side of the site office trying to get onto the very feint WiFi and a Tailfin Easy-Up.
Tents were still soggy from the previous night’s rain, so we opted to take advantage of the showers and grab a burger. Now Mathieu had laughed at me when I offered him the loan of a midge jacket for the weekend but as the evil critters began to swamp the site, I’m pretty certain that he was glad of it. We tried to find out what had happened to the bar and entertainment, hoping fire pits were about to be lit to hopefully get the midges back a bit! However, none of the promised entertainments for the evening happened. Now we knew why everyone was in their tents by 6 pm.
Midge hell is real. We gave up and went to bed.
The tricky bit with going to bed so early in the summer is that it’s still light. There’s zero phone signal at Keilder, so I couldn’t even watch a film on my phone.
I’d woken a bit early, I confess, I’m not great at just being laid in a tent. I wondered if midge hell was still waiting for me outside the tent. A quick trip over to the toilets let me know that it was. I lay in my tent. Despite the promise of coffee and breakfast being supplied as part of the event I’d decided not to take any chances and I’d packed my stove. There was no chance of laying in the tent making coffee with the midges clouding the entrance. Midge jacket back on, along with waterproof trousers. I could just about sit at one of the picnic benches and brew up and make porridge. I ought to add, we weren’t supposed to leave Kielder before 8 am on the Saturday. It was still early.
Slowly people crawled out of their tents, packed down, went back to the burger van for bacon butties and tried to stand in sunlit areas with a bit of a breeze (honestly, I sound like I’m describing a vampire attack!). A bleary-eyed Matheiu appeared. I wish I had his capacity to sleep! Bags were loaded onto the vans to be transported to the finish, another quick briefing and we were back on the road, winding our way along the north side of Kielder water.
The weather was improving, as were the views, the big open panoramas were opening up before our eyes and finally, after the previous day's drizzle, the sun was coming out. We stopped for a cheeky second breakfast in Bellingham, watching the weekend riders meeting, catching coffees and heading off for the day. We probably didn’t really need to stop at the feed station straight after Bellingham, but it was nice to poke our heads in and say thank you.
The next section of the route had the Scott Strava Segment, with prizes for the fastest woman and man. I’m not sure it would have mattered if we had actually known where the start was - I think we were too busy enjoying the views to care about sprinting up hills!
The second day of the ride passed much quicker. Whilst the route is roughly 50:50 gravel and tarmac, the first day is much longer and has more gravel. I was definitely glad of the slick tyres on the tarmac. Before we knew it, we were in sight of the sea again. The route whooped up and down gentle hills, creeping ever closer to the coast. The light breeze pushed us on and before we knew it, we were on the back track behind the dunes and rolling back into the now erected event village to whoops and cheers from the small crowd gathered near the finish and a bottle of event beer!
Back to the van for a shower and some food (there was event food, but I really didn’t fancy another burger) and we headed back over to watch the one-day riders, quite literally sprinting across the line wearing skin suits!
Morning came and riders from both events gathered for a debrief and a bit of a prize-giving in the sunshine.
My feeling is that it’s probably better as a one-day event. If you can ride 189km in a day, then I’m certain you can do the full 300 and that way you avoid 15 hours of Kielder midges! All in all, it’s a fantastic route, the open vistas are just incredible.
All images courtesy of @Frontier300