Your ride today....

[AndyWilliams]

 

[PeteXXX]

The more I look through the 'Rides Today', the more I realize how many great places there are yet to be ridden..

Or places yet to eat cake

Life is too short.........

 

[Deleted member 1258]

The more I look through the 'Rides Today', the more I realize how many great places there are yet to be ridden..

Or places yet to eat cake

Life is too short.........

Normal life keeps getting in the way of cycling and there's sod all I can do about it, as you say life's too short and theres not enough time.

 

[MikeW-71]

Wooohooo, sunshine and heat meant just shorts and short sleeves

I even remembered the sun cream this time

I just headed out and made it up as I went, so I went for hills. Cotehill to begin with.


Which, after more ups and a steep down leads to Armathwaite, a village in a valley, so you know the only roads out of the place all lead up steep hills... What joy


After a snack stop, I headed out to the right of the photo, and along the riverside road, leading to a sod of a climb up towards Cumwhitton. It's about a mile and starts with a steep bit, just to do your legs in, and then drags on and on. I did quite well on it today, feeling good, so after a quick Haribo stop, I pressed on towards Castle Carrock and stopped at the top of How Street, just because I had to get this picture


How awesome is the weather today!

2 and a bit miles downhill later and I'm at Warwick Bridge and stopped in to see my parents for a coffee with 20 miles done. Now there was only the question of which way to go to get back home. Hmmmmm, I only live 5 miles away, but that's too easy for today while I'm feeling good. Back the way I came and lets do the climb through Heads Nook . Ohhh yes, that felt good, might be a PB on that one (and it was), OK lets hop over a road and head past Cumrew and towards Ainstable! Yeah, sounds good

Except that when I got to the Ainstable road, many top-dressing signs were out Well, at least they hadn't done the steep climb yet and I only came across the dreaded chippings just before I turn off left anyway to get to Ainstable. I reckon I need to avoid that road for a couple of months until it settles down. Going through Ainstable leads me back to Armathwaite, and my usual way out..... Station Hill (so-called because it goes past the Station). It starts at 13%, then drops to a mere 10%, gives you a little "level" bit at the station and then 10% again to get you to the top

Todays effort after 35 hilly miles went pretty well I thought and the rest of the return route works it's way back down through Cotehill, where I came to an unexpected "traffic jam" behind a Jag.... which was behind a couple of farmers... and a couple of Bulls. Hmm.

45 miles altogether. Loads of other riders out and even a few that looked like it was their first ride in years

 

[Garry A]

We didn't mean to go this way

Haven't we all said this at some point

 

[Spartak]

View attachment 89658

Thought I'd try and sort this strava climbing challenge.
Plus I've got a hilly 150 coming up, so I rode the route of the mendip transmitter 100, but went from my house. (Can't reccomend this audax enough).
5000 ft of climbing including blagdon hill and cheddar gorge, bacon, coffee, mendips and sunshine. 77 miles of fecking lushness.

That sounds 'Gert Lush' ... @Pikey

 

[BrynCP]

43 miles today, out to the coast and back in a loop. 17.6mph average over the entire ride, which is my best yet over that kind of distance.

Looks like rain tomorrow morning, so hopefully I'll get a similar distance in sometime in the afternoon, and hopefully a better Monday for another 100KM+.

Yearly total is now 1500 miles from 53 rides; I really need to get more rides in! Maybe a 30 miler is in order tonight.

My bike, which I bought in May 2014, has now done 5100 miles in total.

Well I went out for another 23 miles! A quick loop around the local villages; unfortunately it was the right temperature and humidity it seems for what seemed like a million flies in some of the woody areas, all hitting me in the face, the eyes and getting in my helmet!

 

[Gravity Aided]

15 miles my distance today, a great square of the countryside I use for training, as it has some hills. The Fuji performed well. I am using a newer wheel set and narrower tires now that weather is better. I saw a Red Tailed Hawk, and a large vole of some sort. Corn is about 4 inches high.Weather is stupendous today, winds S at 9 mph, and about 25 C or 80F temp, and low humidity. All in all, an excellent day for a ride. Not particularly picturesque, but a great day nonetheless.

 

[contadino]

My longest ride to date yesterday. I had devised a route to Lecce - a university town crammed with Roman ruins and Baroque-era architecture and known to its inhabitants as 'the Florence of the South' - returning by train. Lecce sits in the flatlands south of home, so it was a gentle descent followed by lots of flat riding. The route passes through the heart of the primitivo growing area. Due to a slight navigational error I spent 15-ish km on white roads dodging herds of sheep and goats, which was a pleasant change, and the olive trees do a stirling job of protecting you from the wind. The bike performed superbly and other than an odd issue with my left hand, where my glove seems to dig in between my fingers after about 30km, and a bit of sunburn, I felt fine at the end of the ride. The tank wasn't empty.

Sadly Lecce hasn't changed for the better since my last visit. Lots of panefici, botege and funky little bars have been squeezed out by uber-trendy tourist bars with eye-watering prices. I couldn't even find a proper gelateria. They all seem to buy it in in tubs now. I did spot this couple of newlyweds, who'd hopped over the wall to have some photos taken in an old Roman anfiteatro.

Ride details here: https://www.endomondo.com/users/19965740/workouts/527771196

 

[anothersam]

About 2 hours ago I had a pipsqueak of a ride, a mere 6 miles in the mist-muffled dark. Turned up the tunes and let hands slip from handlebars for a gentle short-haul flight. There was one decent hill in the way; I love climbing at night, which flattens the fear from all gradients but the least civillised. The birds have woken up now but it's just about time for bed.

 

[BigAl68]

What a fun day I had yesterday. I am a road bike rider and haven't been on a MTB for 20 years plus yet yesterday I went to cannop cycle centre in the forest of Dean... My mate lent me one of his top end lynskey titanium bikes and I am no longer a downhill virgin.

My understanding of how hard riding up forest trails is now complete after four hours of hard slog followed by scream inducing and smile making pure adrenaline fun. I even got the hang of just letting go and floating over the jumps. What a buzz and even the two offs I had didn't stop me going again and again. I think I now have another n+1 to consider.

 

[Keith Oates]

I went out for a ride this morning which was the first one for a week as it took me that long to get a replacement tube after the double fairy visit last weekend. It's also the first Rice harvest of the year out here and nearly all the roads have rice laid out on the cycle tracks to dry out the rice before bagging it up to be sent to the rice mills. I finally managed get in 54 Km and now have just finished cooking and eating some pork cutlets with a load of potato and onion. An afternoon of ZZZZZZZZ's beckons.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Deleted member 23692]

Yesterday's ride was my 27 mile local off-road route down to Sebergham and then back following the River Caldew. Late May and late summer usually offer the perfect blend of low vegetation and dry surfaces which normally makes for an excellent ride. And today it was perfect

No pics today as I was being selfish and keeping it all for myself but here's a couple of previous posts for the same route - Oct 2013 and Sept 2014

This was the first time I'd done the route with a 1x10 drive train and it was just so much easier, and slightly quicker too.

 

[LarryDuff]

Lovely ride yesterday morning. 50 miles of which the last 30 were in sunshine. First sunny ride of the year.

 

[biggs682]

a nice 22 miles earlier this morning taking in Mears Ashby , Sywell , Holcot ,Hannington ,Orlingbury ,Burton Latimer ,Finedon and back to the boro .
all done on the bigger of my 2 R.E.W 's which performed great