Your ride today....

[Shearwater Missile]

It started off bright and sunny but by the time I got on the bike it had clouded over and that was 10.00 am. I won`t bore you with the route but pretty flatish and was having a good ride, passing a few cyclists and got a wave back from them each time, always nice that. I was averaging about 17.7 mph and with an easterly 11mph wind felt pretty chilly and at 8 degrees but wind chill making it feel like about 5-6 degrees. My super roubaix leggings ( I`d put them away in February) are certainly getting a second coming this week. Is it me or are we going backwards weather wise ? Anyway, I felt fairly cosy and as I turned the corner so to speak at Rattlesden I noticed a massive dark area of sky out towards the east and thought I`am not going to miss that. The roads were still dry until I reached Combs (2 miles from home) where I thought that they were a bit damp and then they were wet and that is when it rained, temperature dropping, hands getting cold and the last mile and a bit up hill. I averaged 17.4mph over 21.7 miles so not bad. By the time I got indoors my hands started to hurt, just like the middle of winter. My wife said that it had been sleeting, at least I missed that, some consolation I suppose. Still I had a good ride, not much in the way of wildlife to report but plenty of primroses and cowslips and some tulips out. I know, a photo would have been better, next time !

 

[Andy in Germany]

After yesterdays failure to get a longish ride in, I determined to set out a bit earlier this morning. I reckoned that for the 60 odd kilometres I had planned, I needed about four to five hours, so to make sure I was around for the rest of the family as much as possible I'd have to leave around six.

I also wanted to clear the cycleway along the "Siebenmühlental" (lit: "Valley of the Seven Mills") as early as possible, because on a spring weekend it tended to become a tangle of walkers, families taking little Franz our on his first bike ride, and drivers taking their annual bike ride and forgetting that they were not in their high-end company car on the Autobahn to Munich.

This meant getting up at five. On a Saturday for goodness sake...

I made it out at 06:15 which was later than I wanted but earlier than I expected, and rode into and along the valley described yesterday, in the dark, startling deer as I went.

After a slightly tedious ride past the airport, again, and through another town, I ended up on a very pleasant, paved and traffic free route which, being on a slight ridge gave an excellent view all around.

One of the things I could see was the cycleway I was supposed to be on, a couple of kilometres distant and the other side of several cabbage fields.

I probably should have looked at the map first.

Still, after a brief detour through another industrial estate and under a metro line and through some highly uninteresting suburbs, I found the old railway line, now a cycleway along the Siebenmühlental.

As it was about seven in the morning (and to be honest two-fleeces-and-a coat level frigid) I had the whole trail to myself....

as it wound on and on...

And on and on

And on. Past the seven mills, old stations, over viaducts and through forests...

Until, this being Germany, it ended up at a Biergarten...

The rail line continues a few kilometres, but I left it here and n headed into the forest towards the town of Nürtingen. Fortunately a lot of the local towns have made the important socio economic discovery that Cyclists Bring Money, and for a very small amount of investment, you can get a very high return: thus they provide useful signposts every few kilometres.

When I arrived in Neuenhaus I was slightly startled to see a traffic jam at the bakery, before I realised it was still eight in the morning.

The next village was Aich, home to the worlds leading manufacturer of concrete pumping trucks, should anyone require such a vehicle.

It is also the point where the hills between the Aich Valley and Neckar valley are lowest, which is very handy for lazy middle aged cyclists...

[part 2 follows...]

[Edited: So many typos...]

 

[Shearwater Missile]

After yesterdays failure to get a longish ride in, I determined to set out a bit earlier this morning. I reckoned that for the 60 odd kilometres I had planned, I needed about four to five hours, so to make sure I was around for the rest of the family as much as possible, I'd have to leave around six. I also wanted to clear the cycleway along the "Siebenmühlental" (lit: "Valley of the Seven Mills") as early as possible, because on a spring weekend it tended to become a tangle of walkers, families taking little Franz our on his first bike ride, and drivers taking their annual bike ride and forgetting that they were not in their high-end company car on the Autobahn to Munich.

This meant getting up at five. On a Saturday for goodness sake...


View attachment 462148

I made it out at 06:15 which was later than I wanted but earlier than I expected, and rode into and along the valley described yesterday, in the dark, startling deer on the way.

View attachment 462149

After a slightly tedious ride bast the airport, again, and through another town, I ended up on a up on a very pleasant, paved and traffic free route which, being on a slight ridge gave an excellent view all around. One of the things I could see was the cycleway I was supposed to be on, a couple of kiliometres distant and the other side of several cabbage fields.

I probably should have looked at the map before charging off down the first available route.

Still, after a brief detour through another industrial estate and under a railway line, and through some highly uninteresting suburbs, I found the old railway line, now a cycleway along the Siebenmühlental.


View attachment 462150

As it was about seven in the morning (and to be honest two-fleeces-and-a coat level frigid) I hat the whole trail to myself....

View attachment 462140

as it wound on and on...

View attachment 462141

And on and on

View attachment 462143

And on. Past the seven mills, old stations, over viaducts and through forests...

Until, this being Germany, it ended up at a Biergarten...

View attachment 462144

The rail line continues a few kilometres, but I left it here and n headed into the forest towards the town of Nürtingen. Fortunately a lot of the local towns have made the important socio economic discovers the Cyclists Bring Money, and for a very small amount of investment, you can get a very high return, so there are useful signposts every few kilometres.

View attachment 462145

There are also villages. I reached one of my favourites villages. When I arrived in Neuenhaus I was slightly startled to see a traffic jam at the bakery, before I realised it was eight in the morning.

View attachment 462146

The next village was Aich, home to the worlds leading manufacturer of concrete pumping trucks, should anyone require such a vehicle. It is also the point where the hills between the Aich Valley and Neckar valley are lowest, which is very handy for lazy middle aged cyclists...

[part 2 follows...]

Looks like a nice place to ride and quiet but then you were about early. I suppose the old railway trails were due to Germany`s equivalent to Dr.Beeching !

 

[Andy in Germany]

Part one here:

After yesterdays failure to get a longish ride in, I determined to set out a bit earlier this morning. I reckoned that for the 60 odd kilometres I had planned, I needed about four to five hours, so to make sure I was around for the rest of the family as much as possible, I'd have to leave around six. I also wanted to clear the cycleway along the "Siebenmühlental" (lit: "Valley of the Seven Mills") as early as possible, because on a spring weekend it tended to become a tangle of walkers, families taking little Franz our on his first bike ride, and drivers taking their annual bike ride and forgetting that they were not in their high-end company car on the Autobahn to Munich.

This meant getting up at five. On a Saturday for goodness sake...


View attachment 462148

I made it out at 06:15 which was later than I wanted but earlier than I expected, and rode into and along the valley described yesterday, in the dark, startling deer on the way.

View attachment 462149

After a slightly tedious ride bast the airport, again, and through another town, I ended up on a up on a very pleasant, paved and traffic free route which, being on a slight ridge gave an excellent view all around. One of the things I could see was the cycleway I was supposed to be on, a couple of kiliometres distant and the other side of several cabbage fields.

I probably should have looked at the map before charging off down the first available route.

Still, after a brief detour through another industrial estate and under a railway line, and through some highly uninteresting suburbs, I found the old railway line, now a cycleway along the Siebenmühlental.


View attachment 462150

As it was about seven in the morning (and to be honest two-fleeces-and-a coat level frigid) I hat the whole trail to myself....

View attachment 462140

as it wound on and on...

View attachment 462141

And on and on

View attachment 462143

And on. Past the seven mills, old stations, over viaducts and through forests...

Until, this being Germany, it ended up at a Biergarten...

View attachment 462144

The rail line continues a few kilometres, but I left it here and n headed into the forest towards the town of Nürtingen. Fortunately a lot of the local towns have made the important socio economic discovers the Cyclists Bring Money, and for a very small amount of investment, you can get a very high return, so there are useful signposts every few kilometres.

View attachment 462145

There are also villages. I reached one of my favourites villages. When I arrived in Neuenhaus I was slightly startled to see a traffic jam at the bakery, before I realised it was eight in the morning.

View attachment 462146

The next village was Aich, home to the worlds leading manufacturer of concrete pumping trucks, should anyone require such a vehicle. It is also the point where the hills between the Aich Valley and Neckar valley are lowest, which is very handy for lazy middle aged cyclists...

[part 2 follows...]

Brief pause at the summit for celebratory supermarket brand snickers bar and photo of distant hills.

This was the first close up view of these hills, which will hopefully feature in future rides this year.

Unfortunately the weather has no sense of occasion and they were half hidden by drizzle.

After several minutes wondering which of three possible entrances could be a cycleway into the next village, I managed to find the correct route more or less by luck and rolled down towards the next village and crossing point for the river Neckar.

Where there was another Scary Hill Of Doom to reach the river bridge. By the way, I wasn't holding the camera funny: the tower really does lean slightly.

Interestingly curvy bridge over the river.

Now I was on the Neckar cycleway I could concentrate on hammering out the miles plodding along at my usual pace until I reached Nürtingen, which is the home of the technical college I attended for nearly three years while learning to be a cabinet maker.

I know Nürtingen, so I'm not sure why I took an entirely wrong route to the railway station expecting to find a bicycle friendly subway. There is a way through, but it starts from another point in the town, a fact which of course dawned on your correspondent after slogging up a hill and navigating a busy junction...

Still, once on the correct side of the river I was on my old college commuting route, which I probably last rode along on the day of my final exam. Having navigated some construction areas where he state is building a new railway (and it is remarkable, is it not, just how much money can be found when a government really wants to? There must be millions going into this project.) I used the covered bridge that leads back over the river,

before swearing my way up some frankly entirely unnecessary hills beyond...

Especially as I almost immediately had to go down the other side, through an avenue of ash and sycamore trees that makes a Gothic arch over the road, giving the impression of travelling through a cathedral, to Denkendorf, which has a church big enough to be a cathedral, and which I'm told was once part of a Monastery.

More use of the Anglo-Saxon vernacular was required for the final gradient up to my own town, and then I could relax and take the final trail through the woods to our village:

Where my family (who, bless them, are not morning people) were just starting Brunch, involving those well known vital food groups, croissants and chocolate spread.

Well, it'd be rude not to.

besides it's a well known fact that after riding 60 kilometres and 350 vertical metres by mid morning, any food is healthy, right?

Next goal, 80-100k: time to start planning...

[Edited due to multitypos]

 

[Andy in Germany]

Looks like a nice place to ride and quiet but then you were about early. I suppose the old railway trails were due to Germany`s equivalent to Dr.Beeching !

Thankfully there are very few closed railways: Germany never had a federal Dr. Beeching, and in many cases local railways were not even nationalised. This line was built for forestry and hoped for commuter traffic into Stuttgart that never materialised.

I'll post pictures of the old stations on the Railway Enthusiast thread at some point.

 

[NorthernDave]

Short on time with much non-bike stuff to do today, but I wanted to get the Giant out for a ride to check everything was working properly after changing the gear cables.

So, a quick local loop, down to Cross Gates and then on through Manston where i had a surprise as a heron took off from one of the suburban gardens and flew across the road above me. I wasn't expecting that!
Out past the former Vickers factory at Barnbow, once reportedly the longest single building in Europe, which is now totally demolished and they're are on with breaking up the many, many tons of concrete footings and hardstanding on the site. Goodness knows how many lorry loads there will be to take off site, but all was quiet due to the early hour.
Carried on Barrowby Lane heading out into what used to be open countryside, but where the new first section of the East Leeds Orbitl Road is under construction, meaning lots of cones, wandering temporary but generally smoothly surfaced roads and earthworks are all present.
Turned round at the farm - the route continues as a bridleway to Garforth, but not for me today on a road bike with skinny tyres.
Back the way I'd travelled and a loop around the top of Penda's Fields saw me onto Barwick Road where I encountered the numpty of the day.
With a clear view of the road in each direction for at least a quarter mile in each direction, with no traffic at all other than me (and I was far enough away for him to easily cross in comfort - and probably cross back again as well!), he pressed the button on the pelican crossing and then walked out anyway.
The lights then changed to red just as I got there, forcing me to stop.
Anyway, they went to green eventually, so it was up the rise and then onto local roads up to home.

6.0 miles (9.65 km) in a leisurely 32 minutes at an average of just 11.3 mph with just 219 ft of climbing and an average temperature of just 1.0°C

All good and after much testing I can confirm that the previous crisp and reliable gear change is restored. Lots of pootling along looking at stuff too, which I'm going to use to explain the low speed.
I should probably have done the other 0.2 of a mile to make it 10k, but hey-ho.

Sorry no pics today as it was too cold to stop and take my gloves off, but her's the map to end:

 

[TigerT]

After last weekends rides and a couple of gym sessions during the week, I was tired today, but the weather forecast is for rain and snow tomorrow so I decided I had to get out today.

I set out at 11:00am and headed for my usual weekend destination- Baden.

The ride out was miserable and started to rain. But at least the wind was in the right direction for the ride home!

As I arrived the sun came out, though it was still pretty cold. I sat outside eating my coffee and cake, thinking how easy it would be to jump on the train home. Got to keep up my 50kms a week though so I set of home under my own power.

Glad I didn’t give up, although my legs felt like lead, the way home was pretty good, it stayed sunny, the wind had dropped (so no tailwind:-( )

Not my best ride. The weather is crazy at the moment here in Zürich. Snow 2 weeks ago, sunny but windy last weekend, miserable today and then forecast warm enough for shorts again next weekend!

 

[Donger]

I was cycling abroad today too .... in Wales, to be specific. My self-imposed obsession with the Metric Century-a-Month Challenge led me to enter a 100km event (the Gwent Gambol audax) starting in Usk at 08:00 this morning - which required getting up before the milkman for the drive from Gloucester with my clubmate Paul. I really should have taken some photos in the stunning Usk Valley, but we were rattling along so well and enjoying it so much we didn't stop until we got to the first info control at Redwick on the Severn Estuary. From there we picked our way through some Roman ruins at Caerwent and along an even more ruined NCN4 that had more craters than the moon, before heading off for Chepstow via the Bulwark Road:

Some lovely quiet roads on today's route ... you can always trust Audax UK to find them. Our only navigational error came when descending into Chepstow, when we overshot our left turn and ended up leading a sizeable group of others the wrong way. By a miracle, when we picked our way through an alleyway on foot we came out at a pedestrian crossing directly opposite the control point at Pye Corner and arrived with the trip computer registering exactly the right distance. Jammy or what?

One surprising omission in my vast array of cycle rides done in Gloucestershire, the Forest of Dean and Monmouthshire is that I'd never ridden along the Wye Valley from Chepstow to Tintern Abbey. I put that right today.

After a bit of a climb out of Chepstow, there was a fantastic descent into Tintern, with great views of the abbey:

Next came the monster climb of the day, up a little side valley as far as Trellech, before another sweeping descent into Monmouth. Lovely scenery, lovely weather.

The last info control of the day came at the Steel Horse cafe in Llanvihangel Gobion. We were definitely not riding the right sort of bikes for this place. There is a little black sign outside the beer garden saying something like "No bicycles beyond this point". When I stopped here with @Banjo last year, we left our bikes outside and went inside only to find a brand new, huge motorbike inside the café! One of the other riders in the event kindly took this shot of Paul and me outside the café:

Made it back to Usk in 6 hours 30, having taken a café stop in Chepstow and a few brief rests along the way. There were plenty of others drifting in behind us, including one guy who kept trying to reel us in but who I actually managed to distance every time we hit a hill. I'm really feeling the benefit of losing 10lbs in weight recently. A great ride in great company and well worth the early start. Bikes loaded back on the car, we set off back to Gloucester both agreeing that this was one of the best routes we've ever done.

After a long, hot soak, I'm already starting to ache, but won't mind that at all in the morning. I can thoroughly recommend the Gwent Gambol audax to all comers for next year. Wonderful stuff.
Cheers, Donger.

 

[cosmicbike]

Been off the thread for a bit, not feeling the cycling ATM. I've ridden every day, but utility or work, no 'me' rides. Popped to Plymouth yesterday to see the family, and after a kip me and the lad did Drakes Trail from Plymouth to Tavistock. Nice ride out, cold ride back. Still, at 32 miles the longest for a month and my boy did well.

 

[AndreaJ]

Todays ride was another route round the lanes of Whixall and although the sun was shining it was much colder today which needed more layers than has been necessary for a while. I set out towards Whixall passing through Welsh End, Fenns Bank, Alkington, Tilstock for the only bit of main road on this route, back into Whixall, Hollinswood, Goblins Lane, StanleyGreen, Coton, Waterloo, Edstaston, Paddolgreen, Foxholes, Horton and home. Saw a few other cyclists out, this area is popular with cyclists for the local café stops with a few group/club rides showing on strava. Beautiful sunny day if a bit chilly and what BBC weather app described as a moderate breeze was strong enough to blow me sideways more than once! Lots of lambs out in the fields now and lots of wildflowers in the grass verges and clear enough to enjoy the view over the Welsh hills in the distance.. 24 miles at average speed 15.6mph and 2 PR's on Strava( with tailwind)

 

[Billy Wizz]

Well it must be 2 years trying to get back on my bike I can safely say this weekend I covered nearly 60 miles with no problems it feels great to be back.

https://www.mapmyride.com/workout/3484159321

 

[Mike_P]

Well done to everyone braving the freezing wind - after a weeks ebike commuting to work and back my lips are seriously sore despite using balm and a snood so no this weekend and there I was hoping to knock up a few hours for the BC Ride Seven Challenge.

 

[Andy in Germany]

Well it must be 2 years trying to get back on my bike I can safely say this weekend I covered nearly 60 miles with no problems it feels great to be back.

https://www.mapmyride.com/workout/3484159321

Good for you. Glad you enjoyed yourself...

 

[13 rider]

Been off the thread for a bit, not feeling the cycling ATM. I've ridden every day, but utility or work, no 'me' rides. Popped to Plymouth yesterday to see the family, and after a kip me and the lad did Drakes Trail from Plymouth to Tavistock. Nice ride out, cold ride back. Still, at 32 miles the longest for a month and my boy did well.

Good to here your still out and about hope your mojos returning and a big well done to cosmic junior

 

[cosmicbike]

Good to here your still out and about hope your mojos returning and a big well done to cosmic junior

Cheers @13 rider , just not got the urge ATM, sure it will return. At least I've got the half century in for April, plan to do the 100km at some point when I can get my ass in gear! Mini CB did a great job, found the way out easy but after falling off one of the jumps at the track in Tavistock the ride home was with a somewhat scraped and bleeding shin, nothing he hasn't done before. Matched his longest ride, though last time it was a flat ride along the Thames so this one a bit harder.