Recumbent Ride
(Illicit ride No 3)
6/10/24
There had been some earlier rain, then drizzle. As it seemed to have stopped I thought I’d just take a twiddle round the local estate paths on the Spirit. So, left out of the gate, down on to the road and a good freewheel past a road junction then left into an estate road.
On to a path under some trees. It was noticeable that there were a lot more fallen leaves about than when I last took a ride only a few days ago. Turned right,
then left at the next crossing. Up a slight slope then rode on hemmed in by garden fences on either side.
Blurring not due to immense speed, but shaky hands!
I came to a road. With fattish tyres I had no concerns about going across the non lowered but not particularly high kerbs to where the path continued on the other side. With the Grasshopper having narrow slick tyres I’d had to be a bit more careful on my previous ride here. Some horse droppings suggested that there’d been a horse here recently. I continued up a very gradual slope with trees and shrubs on the left, garden fences on the right, a sort of roofless tunnel. This seemed to be prime time for dog walkers too, as I slowed or stopped several times to let them pass.
I came to another road, no traffic and lowish kerbs, so rode straight across. Another tunnel of fencing and shrubbery, then the view opened out on the right. Through some trees where there was a carpet of leaves and moss under wheel, up a short slope, and to the road. I was tempted to just turn left and freewheel the few hundred yards downhill to my back gate, but as there was a much longer gradual downhill in the direction I’d just come from, I decided to go back that way. I stopped by the open space for a photo, then carried on.
Across the road, passing some of the dog walkers I’d passed earlier on the narrow path, across the next road, through another canyon between fencing panels, across the point where paths crossed and then to an estate road. Bizarrely, there seemed to be a pot with the reddish stems of a dried plant sticking upwards here but as I rode by I saw that it was a telephone cable access point with plastic coated fibre optic cables protruding from it.
I followed the estate road to its junction with the main road, turned right and was soon at my back gate. I certainly felt better after this ride, still trying not to overdo things. After I’d put the bike away it began to rain quite heavily, so I’d got the timing right on that.
Distance 2.07 miles. Max speed 12.9 mph. Average speed 4.9 mph. According to Garmin.
Ascent 63 ft. According to Bikehike.
