robjh
Legendary Member
- Location
- Cambridgeshire - almost Essex
Have a good ride everyone. It was a great day out last year, but I've thrown my lot in with the night riders daan saaf this weekend.
England : Lancashire Forum ride from Whalley: Glasson Dock Revisited - POSTPONED to Sat,18th April 2015
- Thread starter ColinJ
- Start date
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OP
OP
ColinJ
Puzzle game procrastinator!
- Location
- Todmorden - Yorks/Lancs border
Let's hope that they were right before and wrong now!
I have been out this afternoon and it was as forecast here, but TBH - there were some dark clouds in the distance which looked like they might drop rain out Blackburn way and that was not on the forecast.
Have fun, and hopefully I'll see you on another forum ride up here or in the Midlands some time!
OP
OP
ColinJ
Puzzle game procrastinator!
- Location
- Todmorden - Yorks/Lancs border
Oops ... I just remembered noticing that my front brake blocks are almost worn down after this afternoon's ride. I could probably squeeze another 100-200 km out of them but I'm not going to take the chance, having destroyed a rim in the past by doing one ride too many!
I'll go and put some new blocks in to be on the safe side.
I'll go and put some new blocks in to be on the safe side.
jazzkat
Fixed wheel fanatic.
- Location
- The Cumbrian Riviera
A strange coincidence, that's my job for after tea.
Going to give my bike a wipe down and get everything ready for tomorrow. See you all at Spring wood.
OP
OP
ColinJ
Puzzle game procrastinator!
- Location
- Todmorden - Yorks/Lancs border
And my bike is looking mucky, so I will clean mine as well. Oh, and clean/lube its chain.
I had forgotten that I had chucked the kit I am intending to wear tomorrow in a bathful of detergent to soak after this afternoon's ride. (My washing machine is kaput!) I just spotted it soaking away, waiting to be finished off. I would have been somewhat peeved to have woken in the morning with it all still soapy and soaking wet.
My tumble drier is also bust and I don't have a secure washing line so I have improvised and hung the washing out of the bathroom window on hangers. There is quite a breeze blowing so I think it will be dry in a couple of hours. (I do have a very good spin drier so 99% of the water has already been extracted.)
Nothing else exciting is happening here, except that I am threatening a large bar of dark chocolate with immediate consumption!
jazzkat
Fixed wheel fanatic.
- Location
- The Cumbrian Riviera
Good for you, I've just eaten most of a family size Asda rhubarb crumble (with custard and cream!)Nothing else exciting is happening here, except that I am threatening a large bar of dark chocolate with immediate consumption!
Carbo loading, that's what it is
Good for you, I've just eaten most of a family size Asda rhubarb crumble (with custard and cream!)
Carbo loading, that's what it is
I couldn't resist the almost half bottle of red wine left over from Wednesday night so I finished it off along with a turkey stir-fry. A bowl of porridge tomorrow at about 7.30 am washed down with a mug of tea and I'll see you at Tod for 9 am Colin. See the rest of you good folk at Spring Wood.
OP
OP
ColinJ
Puzzle game procrastinator!
- Location
- Todmorden - Yorks/Lancs border
Aargh ... I made the mistake of watching some music videos on my phone in bed. Next thing I knew I had watched about 2 hours worth so here I am 4 hours sleep later trying to force myself to get out of bed and eat the porridge to fuel my ride! I have no appetite for it, but it has to be done or I will conk out later ...
Weather as forecast - nippy now. My kit is ALMOST dry, so that means a cold, damp start - super!
Actually, I am looking forward to this ride. I will be ok once I have woken up properly and got on with it. See you soon!
Weather as forecast - nippy now. My kit is ALMOST dry, so that means a cold, damp start - super!
Actually, I am looking forward to this ride. I will be ok once I have woken up properly and got on with it. See you soon!
jazzkat
Fixed wheel fanatic.
- Location
- The Cumbrian Riviera
What a great day! Lovely weather and great company.
Good to meet you all and I hope we'll meet again in the future.
Rob
Good to meet you all and I hope we'll meet again in the future.
Rob
- Location
- Shrewsbury, Shropshire
I'm glad it was good. Really sorry I didn't join you. Things didn't work out to plan this morning.
OP
OP
ColinJ
Puzzle game procrastinator!
- Location
- Todmorden - Yorks/Lancs border
Will post about the ride later - I got intercepted by a mate on his bike as I rode in the opposite direction home. He came back for a cuppa and a chat and has only just left. I need a good wash and a good meal!
Pumpkin the robot
Guru
Just got in. My better half came to pick me up and we went for a meal in Clitheroe.
Great ride and good company. I will be doing that ride again this year, the roads are pretty clear, the views are great and plenty of hills and descents. Thanks for sorting the ride out Colin. Same time next year?
Great ride and good company. I will be doing that ride again this year, the roads are pretty clear, the views are great and plenty of hills and descents. Thanks for sorting the ride out Colin. Same time next year?
I would echo the thoughts above. A fabulous ride, great company, great weather and great scenery.
Plus the 'icing on the cake' was seeing a svelte Colin in such excellent form with his fitness quite obviously much higher than his pre-illness level. A testament to his patience and perseverance. Looking forward to the next one already!
Plus the 'icing on the cake' was seeing a svelte Colin in such excellent form with his fitness quite obviously much higher than his pre-illness level. A testament to his patience and perseverance. Looking forward to the next one already!
OP
OP
ColinJ
Puzzle game procrastinator!
- Location
- Todmorden - Yorks/Lancs border
Thanks for coming along, y'all!
One benefit of the much reduced turnout compared to last year was that I actually managed to talk to everyone. Whether the victims appreciated their good fortune is another matter ...
I rode to Todmorden first thing to take advantage of the kind offer of @Littgull to drive me to and from the ride. We got to Spring Wood in good time and met the others - @Martin Archer , @jazzkat and my local riding pals Carrie and Julie.
The weather was as forecast. We got a nice cross/tailwind on the way out, but a cross/headwind on the return leg which was quite hard work to ride into. Still, the sun was shining and it was great to be out on the bike in good company with no prospect of rain.
Jazzkat was on fixed, which as always, is both impressive to watch, but also vaguely baffling to me as a non-convert. I rode behind him up the Trough of Bowland climb and it was like watching a slo-mo scene in a movie. The highish gear and steepish climb result in a cadence which looks impossibly slow. On a bike with a freehub, it would be incredibly difficult to get the cranks up 'over the top' through the dead spots in the pedal stroke, but the fixed transmission just drives the cranks through that troublesome zone. Strange!
Here's a picture I took of the others at the summit of the Trough, before we began the long downhill towards the coast ...
L-R: Julie, Martin Archer, jazzkat, Carrie, Littgull.
We then got back on our bikes and bombed down the 17 miles or so to Glasson Dock, assisted by the wind.
The cafe at Glasson Dock was busy. It has been refurbed since last year and seems popular. We sat out the front in the sunshine and awaited our orders. There were a couple of delays getting served so Carrie was given a free Cappucino. I had already paid for mine and joked about splitting the cost, but my food was delayed too so I was give a second one free, and a plate of little biscuits (biscotti?) to share out with my patient companions.
A cyclist at the next table volunteered to take a group photo of us at our table. It was taken with Carrie's phone which seems to have a pretty basic camera so the photo is best viewed small!
Eventually, it was time to set off on the return leg. The wind was doing what we expected it to do. In terms of effort required, it partially made up for the lack of significant hills on the way back!
It was a pleasant ride back to the car park.
We were chatting as we packed our bikes away and I spotted something that required immediate comment ... Carrie was trying to remove her front wheel and was fiddling about with the quick release lever. She seemed to be trying to use it like a wing nut rather than a QR. She is a very experienced cyclist, but I know that she never does any of her own bike maintenance. (A mate and I spotted that her bike's bottom bracket was badly worn a couple of weeks ago - about a cm of play at the end of the cranks!) So ... I was alarmed to think that she was not using QRs properly. It turned out that the threaded cap at the other end of the skewer was stuck. I don't know whether it has been cross-threaded, or whether it has corroded? At any rate - we could not shift it. That made it impossible to adjust the QR to get the lever to work the way that it should. I think she has been riding the bike with an inadequately secured front wheel!
I explained that this was an extremely serious issue and must not be ignored. The consequences of a crash caused by loss of a front wheel could be horrific ...
Martin suggested the following fix ... take a hacksaw to the skewer next to the jammed threaded cap. Saw it off, pull out the various QR parts and bin them. Replace with new QR!
I demonstrated to Carrie how my QR works so she would know how to operate them. The thing is ... I know that she tends to have a happy-go-lucky attitude to such matters and I suspect that she might not have taken in what I was saying! I'll check that her bike gets its new QR and will make sure that she is using it properly next time we cycle together.
I didn't quite have the 'oomph' I was hoping for today, but it has been a busy week on the bike and I think my legs were feeling it. Still ... I was not struggling at any point.
A nice day out in good company!
My next forum ride will be in 6 weeks time, on Sat, 30th May, also starting and finishing at Spring Wood, Whalley. It will be out over the Cross o' Greet from Slaidburn to a cafe in Wray, and then back over Bowland Knotts. I did it solo last year and it is a very nice route. It is not one for bad weather though, so I'll keep a postponement option open for that one too! If you like the sound of it, pencil the date in your diaries, and watch out for a new thread in a couple of weeks time!
One benefit of the much reduced turnout compared to last year was that I actually managed to talk to everyone. Whether the victims appreciated their good fortune is another matter ...
I rode to Todmorden first thing to take advantage of the kind offer of @Littgull to drive me to and from the ride. We got to Spring Wood in good time and met the others - @Martin Archer , @jazzkat and my local riding pals Carrie and Julie.
The weather was as forecast. We got a nice cross/tailwind on the way out, but a cross/headwind on the return leg which was quite hard work to ride into. Still, the sun was shining and it was great to be out on the bike in good company with no prospect of rain.
Jazzkat was on fixed, which as always, is both impressive to watch, but also vaguely baffling to me as a non-convert. I rode behind him up the Trough of Bowland climb and it was like watching a slo-mo scene in a movie. The highish gear and steepish climb result in a cadence which looks impossibly slow. On a bike with a freehub, it would be incredibly difficult to get the cranks up 'over the top' through the dead spots in the pedal stroke, but the fixed transmission just drives the cranks through that troublesome zone. Strange!
Here's a picture I took of the others at the summit of the Trough, before we began the long downhill towards the coast ...
L-R: Julie, Martin Archer, jazzkat, Carrie, Littgull.
We then got back on our bikes and bombed down the 17 miles or so to Glasson Dock, assisted by the wind.
The cafe at Glasson Dock was busy. It has been refurbed since last year and seems popular. We sat out the front in the sunshine and awaited our orders. There were a couple of delays getting served so Carrie was given a free Cappucino. I had already paid for mine and joked about splitting the cost, but my food was delayed too so I was give a second one free, and a plate of little biscuits (biscotti?) to share out with my patient companions.
A cyclist at the next table volunteered to take a group photo of us at our table. It was taken with Carrie's phone which seems to have a pretty basic camera so the photo is best viewed small!
Eventually, it was time to set off on the return leg. The wind was doing what we expected it to do. In terms of effort required, it partially made up for the lack of significant hills on the way back!
It was a pleasant ride back to the car park.
We were chatting as we packed our bikes away and I spotted something that required immediate comment ... Carrie was trying to remove her front wheel and was fiddling about with the quick release lever. She seemed to be trying to use it like a wing nut rather than a QR. She is a very experienced cyclist, but I know that she never does any of her own bike maintenance. (A mate and I spotted that her bike's bottom bracket was badly worn a couple of weeks ago - about a cm of play at the end of the cranks!) So ... I was alarmed to think that she was not using QRs properly. It turned out that the threaded cap at the other end of the skewer was stuck. I don't know whether it has been cross-threaded, or whether it has corroded? At any rate - we could not shift it. That made it impossible to adjust the QR to get the lever to work the way that it should. I think she has been riding the bike with an inadequately secured front wheel!
I explained that this was an extremely serious issue and must not be ignored. The consequences of a crash caused by loss of a front wheel could be horrific ...
Martin suggested the following fix ... take a hacksaw to the skewer next to the jammed threaded cap. Saw it off, pull out the various QR parts and bin them. Replace with new QR!
I demonstrated to Carrie how my QR works so she would know how to operate them. The thing is ... I know that she tends to have a happy-go-lucky attitude to such matters and I suspect that she might not have taken in what I was saying! I'll check that her bike gets its new QR and will make sure that she is using it properly next time we cycle together.
I didn't quite have the 'oomph' I was hoping for today, but it has been a busy week on the bike and I think my legs were feeling it. Still ... I was not struggling at any point.
A nice day out in good company!
My next forum ride will be in 6 weeks time, on Sat, 30th May, also starting and finishing at Spring Wood, Whalley. It will be out over the Cross o' Greet from Slaidburn to a cafe in Wray, and then back over Bowland Knotts. I did it solo last year and it is a very nice route. It is not one for bad weather though, so I'll keep a postponement option open for that one too! If you like the sound of it, pencil the date in your diaries, and watch out for a new thread in a couple of weeks time!
Good photos, that have captured the sunny weather and camaraderie perfectly.Thanks for coming along, y'all!
One benefit of the much reduced turnout compared to last year was that I actually managed to talk to everyone. Whether the victims appreciated their good fortune is another matter ...
I rode to Todmorden first thing to take advantage of the kind offer of @Littgull to drive me to and from the ride. We got to Spring Wood in good time and met the others - @Martin Archer , @jazzkat and my local riding pals Carrie and Julie.
The weather was as forecast. We got a nice cross/tailwind on the way out, but a cross/headwind on the return leg which was quite hard work to ride into. Still, the sun was shining and it was great to be out on the bike in good company with no prospect of rain.
Jazzkat was on fixed, which as always, is both impressive to watch, but also vaguely baffling to me as a non-convert. I rode behind him up the Trough of Bowland climb and it was like watching a slo-mo scene in a movie. The highish gear and steepish climb result in a cadence which looks impossibly slow. On a bike with a freehub, it would be incredibly difficult to get the cranks up 'over the top' through the dead spots in the pedal stroke, but the fixed transmission just drives the cranks through that troublesome zone. Strange!
Here's a picture I took of the others at the summit of the Trough, before we began the long downhill towards the coast ...
View attachment 86194
L-R: Julie, Martin Archer, jazzkat, Carrie, Littgull.
We then got back on our bikes and bombed down the 17 miles or so to Glasson Dock, assisted by the wind.
The cafe at Glasson Dock was busy. It has been refurbed since last year and seems popular. We sat out the front in the sunshine and awaited our orders. There were a couple of delays getting served so Carrie was given a free Cappucino. I had already paid for mine and joked about splitting the cost, but my food was delayed too so I was give a second one free, and a plate of little biscuits (biscotti?) to share out with my patient companions.
A cyclist at the next table volunteered to take a group photo of us at our table. It was taken with Carrie's phone which seems to have a pretty basic camera so the photo is best viewed small!
View attachment 86196
Eventually, it was time to set off on the return leg. The wind was doing what we expected it to do. In terms of effort required, it partially made up for the lack of significant hills on the way back!
It was a pleasant ride back to the car park.
We were chatting as we packed our bikes away and I spotted something that required immediate comment ... Carrie was trying to remove her front wheel and was fiddling about with the quick release lever. She seemed to be trying to use it like a wing nut rather than a QR. She is a very experienced cyclist, but I know that she never does any of her own bike maintenance. (A mate and I spotted that her bike's bottom bracket was badly worn a couple of weeks ago - about a cm of play at the end of the cranks!) So ... I was alarmed to think that she was not using QRs properly. It turned out that the threaded cap at the other end of the skewer was stuck. I don't know whether it has been cross-threaded, or whether it has corroded? At any rate - we could not shift it. That made it impossible to adjust the QR to get the lever to work the way that it should. I think she has been riding the bike with an inadequately secured front wheel!
I explained that this was an extremely serious issue and must not be ignored. The consequences of a crash caused by loss of a front wheel could be horrific ...
Martin suggested the following fix ... take a hacksaw to the skewer next to the jammed threaded cap. Saw it off, pull out the various QR parts and bin them. Replace with new QR!
I demonstrated to Carrie how my QR works so she would know how to operate them. The thing is ... I know that she tends to have a happy-go-lucky attitude to such matters and I suspect that she might not have taken in what I was saying! I'll check that her bike gets its new QR and will make sure that she is using it properly next time we cycle together.
I didn't quite have the 'oomph' I was hoping for today, but it has been a busy week on the bike and I think my legs were feeling it. Still ... I was not struggling at any point.
A nice day out in good company!
My next forum ride will be in 6 weeks time, on Sat, 30th May, also starting and finishing at Spring Wood, Whalley. It will be out over the Cross o' Greet from Slaidburn to a cafe in Wray, and then back over Bowland Knotts. I did it solo last year and it is a very nice route. It is not one for bad weather though, so I'll keep a postponement option open for that one too! If you like the sound of it, pencil the date in your diaries, and watch out for a new thread in a couple of weeks time!
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