Your ride today.... (part 1)

[clockhammer]

Lovely little 4.5 muddy miles this morning before the wife goes out to work and I am on child duty. Met one other cyclist out to get muddy and a few very pleasant dog walkers. Went out before breakfast though and felt it, mustn't do that again. What a great way to start the day

 

[Lee_M]

There's rule 5 and there's going out in that! I think I'll have another coffee instead!

 

[RhythMick]

Came home the off road TPT route, taking advantage of a rare commute in the daylight
Bike looks quite clean from a distance, just don't look too closely

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Nice photos. Where on the TPT ?

 

[RhythMick]

Not today, but Wednesday I did 31 miles on the Lincolnshire Wolds, my previous distance was only 21 and that included a pint half-way round. So I learnt two valuable lessons - whilst heading down a quite steep single-track road and you meet some 100+ ramblers walking in groups of four or five in the same direction it is the done thing to shout 'bike' rather than shout 'excuse me'. Despite them slowing my 30-45 mph descent to 3 mph I was very polite but just met with stern glances of 'wtf are you doing on our road!'. The second lesson is electrolytes! I normally for my 18 mile routes take High5 Zero with me, but have none left (and to be honest I was waiting to find them on offer again), so took some well watered-down OJ. Well yesterday I woke feeling hungry-sick, breakfast didn't help, stomach cramps occured and lots of loo trips thoughout the morning, by lunch time I felt so drained it took me 20 mins to unload and reload the dishwasher! I phoned in sick to work (I start at 12.30) and went to bed, no telly, no PC, no jobs around the house, just bed. After a little food in the evening I began to feel slightly better, and this morning I'm back to normal. A little bit of digging seems to hint that I really did need those Zero tabs (other hydration/electrolyte tablets are available).

Apart from that I enjoyed it though. This cycling malarky sure beats running or the gym.

Or it could just have been a bug coming on. Lots going around similar to that.

 

[potsy]

Nice photos. Where on the TPT ?

Various points between Stockport and Didsbury

 

[coffeejo]

Just back from a lovely ride with the Breeze ladies - it's amazing to see how much they've grown in confidence since we started just a couple of months ago.

 

[derrick]

41 miles on my own, my cycle buddy is of with a bug, so no stops did the longer hilly route, not having to wait for someone was really nice, could push a bit harder, weather wise had a few light showers but apart from that not to cold, really enjoyed the ride. just finished cleaning the bike, i think i need a winter bike, but being the way i am i would be cleaning that after evey ride.

 

[gbb]

Quick 20 miles. Motivation is a struggle again, i'm just not spending time on the bike so my fitness is ebbing away, then the desire to push evaporates, its a vicious circle.
Set out to do a couple hours, but cut it short to 1.5 hours. WTF is the matter with me ?
That said, a very useful ride, nice'ish weather, not too breezy. Just over 15 mph average. Below what i'd normally be doing, but given my lack of time out there...i'll take that.

 

[Old Plodder]

I'm always less motivated at this time of the year, it's something to do with the clocks & a lack of daylight.

 

[Rickshaw Phil]

It was this afternoon (if not warm) so a slightly longer tour than recently was called for. It was yet another of my regular routes but I haven't done this exact variation for about a year. Condover (as usual) to start then across to Longnor, round the back of Leebotwood and over to Cardington, out to Church Preen school where I turned towards Hughley then towards Harley. Before Harley I doubled back towards Harnage & Cound before heading home via Pitchford, Cantlop, Condover and over Lyth Hill.

Once the sun started going down the temperature dropped quite quickly and I was struggling to keep up a reasonable pace.

The numpties were out today and I hadn't even got to the end of the road before receiving my first bad overtake. To be fair, they gave me plenty of room. I'm not sure the driver coming the other way was so keen.

Unfortunately at one point I was a numpty myself. Going through Condover the first time, a van was reversing into a driveway on t'other side of the road. I judged there was enough room to get past and went for it.... just as he pulled forward to get a better angle. Could have been a short ride.

As usual a few pics:

Nice day for it. Looking towards the Wrekin from Lyth Hill.

Sunshine & shadow on the Lawley.

The Royal Oak at Cardington. You can see a lot more of it with no leaves on the ivy.

Church Preen school. The actual village of Church Preen is a good mile up the road.

Hughley.

I'm a fair bit closer to the Wrekin here.

Cound.

At Cantlop, the sun has set and just the clouds are being lit up still. The moon is in shot too if you look close.

Today's tally is 33.5 miles at an average of 11.8mph (it felt slower).

 

[coffeejo]

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The Royal Oak at Cardington. You can see a lot more of it with no leaves on the ivy.

I'm not 100% certain, but I do believe we ended up going past that pub a couple of times following a navigational failure (on my part) when we were in your neck of the woods in September.

 

[Rickshaw Phil]

I'm not 100% certain, but I do believe we ended up going past that pub a couple of times following a navigational failure (on my part) when we were in your neck of the woods on holiday in September.

It is possible. It looked more like this in September:

 

[Cyclist33]

Popped out for a gentle couple of hours of photography and "cyclocross" with Maggie fattened up for the winter.

 

[Cyclist33]

Think I may have taken an important step towards 29ers today - I took Maggie up some of those shallow wooden steps you get in country parks. Ok, not exactly a black run but consider I've never been able to do it on my 26" wheeled hardtail. The 700c bike above took it in its stride. And more generally, I felt I was going slower than on my hardtail but actually was going faster. It might take time to accept that reduced rush and to gain the compensatory ability to do trail you previously couldn't.

 

[asterix]

Had a great ride to the west of York, giving it welly all the way. Unfortunately the number of rivers make choice of route a bit limited so part of it was a fast 9 mile stretch of the crowded A59 - better than expected altho' an artic passed me a bit close. It's probably pretty horrible during the week with more HGVs about. Shall plans thing better next time.