I recognise that from a ride I did when visiting my sister. I looked back in my collection of photos and found this one ...
My ride today was the first since mid-December. I have therefore lost a lot of what little fitness I had managed to build up at the end of 2013.
I wanted to ride further than I have since I got ill in July 2012. My longest ride so far had been 31 hilly miles. I wanted to reduce the amount of climbing but boost the distance, so I decided to ride at least 15.5 miles out from home on the valley roads to Burnley and see how I felt with that before deciding what to do next ...
I was a bit late setting off so I fitted lights to my bike in case I decided to extend the ride more than I had intended to. That turned out to be a wise move!
It was a pretty uneventful ride over to Rose Grove at the south end of the Padiham Greenway. The Greenway is a fabulous community asset built on the route of a disused freight railway line. It is frequented by families walking with their kids, dog walkers, skaters, cyclists, and - today at least - skunk smokers ... I almost got stoned just riding past them!
One problem though - not all the people who use the Greenway appear to have the brains they were born with, unless they were born witless, that is! A woman in her 30s was crossing the Greenway with 2 unleashed dogs, just in front of me. I checked the dogs and saw that the bigger, older one would not be a problem. It was more interested in running around in the field beside the Greenway than chasing cyclists. I could tell at a glance that this was not so for the other one. It went straight into attack mode! It was a small dog, barely out of puppyhood. More of a yappy annoyance than a dangerous threat but there is always the possibility of colliding with a dog which is intent on getting up close and personal. Sure enough it came straight for my front wheel and I had to brake and swerve round it. The owner was calling out to the dog in a totally ineffective voice, which no self-respecting mutt would ever mistake for commands. "
Here boy, don't be silly - leave the nice man alone, he doesn't mean you any harm ..." This is while the dog came in to attack from behind as I tried to accelerate away from it. He actually managed to get close enough to get hold of my right overshoe in his teeth! I toyed with the idea of giving him a gentle kick but decided that it was the owner that was to blame and the dog was too young and poorly trained to know any better. I settled for glaring at his owner and pointing out that the dog was going to get seriously hurt one day if she didn't learn to control it properly!
There were a few other daft people about, but mostly everybody got along just fine.
I got to the end of the Greenway and realised that would have covered 32 miles if I just turned round and went back the way I had ridden out. The thing was though - the sun was shining and I was feeling good so I did a quick calculation and worked out that I had time to ride on to Spring Wood picnic centre, where my March forum ride will be starting from. All being well, I would get back to Todmorden before it started to get dark. The A646 is well-lit and I had lights, so I decided that wouldn't be a problem.
I rode to Spring Wood by the scenic route round the back of Read and the Old Roman Road.
I thought to myself what a contrast today's weather was to what we had a year ago!
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That's Read church in the sunshine to the right of the picture. It looked like there was less pleasant weather to the left of the picture in the distant west.
I did the 20% descent of the Old Roman Road and wondered how I would cope on the way back up it.
There is nearly always an ice cream trailer at the entrance to Spring Wood and there it was today. I decided to stop for a quick treat before heading for home ...
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The ice cream seller handed it over and said "
That will be just £2 sir!" Oh super, and there was me thinking it might cost £5.75, or something ... Am I out of touch with inflation, because £2 seems a lot for a cone with a bit of flake stuck in it!
I had a quick chat with the ice cream chappie. He mentioned what a contrast today's weather was to what we had a year ago ... great minds think alike! Apparently he only worked 3 days last January because of the cold weather.
I set off for home after about 15 minutes at Spring Wood and got up the 20% Old Roman Road climb ok in my grovelling gear - my lack of fitness more than compensated for by my much reduced flab luggage - 1 stone of fat rather than the former 4.5 stone of it!
The hills did start to wear me down a bit though so I was grateful to cross over the railway line at the top of Cliviger Gorge and begin my descent to Tod.
I decided to chuck in one last little climb in Todmorden to avoid the town centre. It only goes up about 27 m but it misses out a section of busy road and is more interesting.
I was using my lights for the last 8 km home. So, I got back having covered 69 km or 43 miles which I was pretty pleased with, all things considered! I was tired, but that was to be expected. Fitness will come eventually if I stick at it.
Here is the profile of the ride out ... (The ride back was the same in reverse except for that extra 27 m climb in Todmorden)
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; then came an indirect way back to 
. Not recommended.
