Your ride today....

[Old jon]

How the flippity blasty heck did that happen?

Not at all sure. This is the third break in that area I have seen, the first two were other people's bikes, both some time ago. Fixed them.

 

[JPBoothy]

Not at all sure. This is the third break in that area I have seen, the first two were other people's bikes, both some time ago. Fixed them.

The last time I saw breaks like that was on a Whyte frame. It is a scary thought that we are paying for a reputable brand name but don't actually know where the frames are being made anymore. Good luck with your search for a replacement though

 

[Andy in Germany]

Boxing Bah Humbug Day. And it started well. Decided to head off in the rough direction of Wetherby, took the geared bike and pedalled towards Holbeck.

Not much changes there, along Water Lane and onto Great Wilson Street towards Crown Point Bridge. Quiet, to be expected I suppose, and all the traffic lights were green until the turn onto Roseville Road. Then Roundhay Road, which is up in this direction and by the time I reached the clock at Oakwood I seemed to run out of legs. Stopped for a couple of minutes, then continued for more up on Boot Hill. Which went fairly well. Cross the Ring Road and carry on along the A58 for a while then turn left onto Whin Moor Lane.



Felt a bit of a wobble just before Shadwell Main Street, put it down to road surface and turned left to carry on to Slaid Hill. Turn right at the lights onto Wike Ridge Road, down the dip then up. Wobble again. Stopped. Some time ago a spoke in the back wheel had broken, and I replaced it. But I wondered, as you do. Anyway, the back wheel was spinning true, I looked around the rest of the bike and saw nothing wrong so continued. Through Wike, take the right turn for Scarcroft and could have been in a lower gear for that first rise. Next rise, correct gear but all over the road. Stopped and looked, broken frame.

Two pictures in the wrong order

View attachment 497943

View attachment 497944

That is a bit of a facer. Not exactly what I said at the time, but close. Almost twelve miles to walk home, which gave me plenty of time to recover, and think about stuff. It was good to reach my front door though. And I still have the fixed to ride.

Glad to hear you were okay @Old jon. That could have been nasty on a downhill.

 

[Dave 123]

Christmas day

a frosty loop. There was a fair bit of black ice about so I took it very steady...

https://www.strava.com/activities/2954873425

Today was much less sunny, murky in fact. Much warmer though

https://www.strava.com/activities/2959376144

 

[EltonFrog]

I needed to go to a cash machine today, but the thought of another ride to town was putting me off, then I remembered that I could get cash from the post office a couple of miles away.

A mild, but damp day with wet roads, got to the post office (it’s a bit flakey this place, it’s lottery on whether it’ll be open or not) got my cash, and carried on through Blewbury, East Hagbourne, the hamlet of Coscote, West Hagbourne and back.

7.10 miles , blew the cobwebs off, and closed the exercise rings on my watch.
20 days of cycling in December so far.

 

[footloose crow]

27 December. Around the valleys

A lot of late nights (or early mornings) with family events, too much wine, too much chocolate, the usual story...and today anticyclonic gloom, low clouds, grey, grey, grey. Staring at the map wondering if Portreath or Perranporth would motivate me, I find a route on RidewithGPS I had planned a few months ago. And I have a new bike GPS fresh from Santa's sack that can guide me along this convoluted route that follows the heads of the five valleys pointing away Truro like the fingers of a hand.

The house is silent at 11.30am when I leave, closing the door quietly, leaving sleeping guests to slumber happily. Madame Crow waved laconically from beneath the duvet when I told her I was going. Taking it slow, along the roads I have travelled so often this winter in my cycling renaissance, my season of enthusiasm, up Truck Hill to Probus, following the winking light of the GPS. This is a new sensation and I must be careful not to just watch my slow progress along the GPS map, the flashing symbol that marks my satellite derived position. I am new toy excited to see the GPS tell me to turn left or right, giving me precise measurements in feet to the junction. I already know when I need to turn but the GPS flashes and buzzes like an efficient tour guide and I obediently follow. We all need to be reassured in life, to feel the comfort blanket of space age technology telling you that you are OK.

Soon I am onto new roads, diving deep into the shaded, wet, tree covered valley of Coombe, ducking under the railway line as it crosses on a granite viaduct, then crossing under it again as the lane meanders but Brunel was a man who believed in straight lines. And granite. Every time I come to Coombe it feels dark, running with water, damp, mossy houses and wet roads, the steep valley sides blocking the light. Not that there is much light today, just a low duvet of cloud above the dripping trees. But the lane is quiet, no traffic and I enjoy following the line of the White River which is no longer white since the clay works finished and is hardly a river, an athletic leap will take you across but it is in spate and rushing and foaming and I mentally place myself in a kayak and plot my route down the river.

St Stephen arrives, a larger place, a town in Cornish terms but one with an identity crisis as signs variously describe it as St Stephen or St Stephens. Perhaps there are two of them. The St Stephen I pass through today is on a busy B road, people impatient to pass me and I collect a long line of frustrated motorists as I puff up the steep hill outside the town. A revelation. My GPS tells me how steep the hill is. I know now that this is a 15% hill. I didn't expect it to be as steep or as long, mistaking the first bend for the top and then presented with more hill to another bend that I hoped was the top but it wasn't and at this point I had reached my anaerobic threshold and was wobbling.

Now at last a flat bit and I can speed up. Traffic gets past me, the road widens. But then a sliver VW Golf, two lads in baseball caps. I know because my children have told me, that I must not judge by appearances. The car slows to my speed and sits just behind me, There is no traffic and I wonder what they are doing. They come level, both lads looking across at me and gesturing. The engine revs and surprised I wobble into the verge and for a few seconds hover on the edge of crashing. The Golf comes past in a roar, passing close. I am not used to this kind of intimidation. I look at the GPS to see how soon it will be before I can leave this road.

The turning appears and silence descends as I turn into the quiet lane. I feel my shoulders dropping, relaxing. Like all the winter lanes the road surface is corrugated and potholed, a central line of mud with tyre worn tracks either side. The lanes follow the contours. Actually they seem to delight in crossing the contours, down to small streams and half washed away bridges, up the other side. I follow the GPS track blindly until I have to admit that I have inputted the route incorrectly and retrace my steps to follow lanes that seem to go the right way.The GPS sulks, flashing red and buzzing with suppressed rage but I cannot follow its instructions.

I have lost track of where I am although I can hear the distant roar of the A30 to my right and I know Truro is somewhere to the left. Even the lanes I know seem different today. houses I have never noticed before, farms that were not there last time I came this way erode my confidence that I know where I am. The GPS reports my speed and distance but has gone into passive-aggressive mode on navigation, simply stating that I should have turned left some time ago.

I have plenty of daylight so I just keep going, watching the hedges and walls pass and very occasionally being bothered by a car and at one point a large peloton of bright coloured cyclists coming the other way, taking up the road and forcing me to stop as they pass, buffeted by the wind of their passing. They greet me so cheerily I start to think they must know me but then they are gone in a whir of pedals and a flash of Castelli.

I regain my planned route just as I hit the old A30, now a gated cycle path, the old road surface visible beneath puddles and blown debris from the busy road a few metres away but hidden by a thick hedge of blackthorn and elder trees.

The GPS flashes with approval and beeps happily. We are reunited in common purpose. I have crossed three of the five valleys now and there are some more hills and drops to come. Dirty lanes, no traffic, a few isolated houses, I spin contentedly apart from a deceptively steep hill that takes me by surprise as it continues bend after bend, unrelenting. The GPS reports that it is a 16% hill but offers no congratulations as I crawl over the summit.

Back into Truro, suddenly. A quiet lane that leads into the town and I am back into Christmas again, traffic and people, families out for walks with barely restrained dogs, rain sodden decorations hanging limply and holding out for New Year. I am thinking about what I have accomplished with this ride, seeking to make sense of the compulsion to ride out in a circle only to arrive where you started, muddier and more tired. What is the sense of exultation that cycling engenders, the feeling of having seen places that you could possibly see from a car, but not experience as a cyclist does, the immediacy of sensation. This is a slow enough journey to allow me to see things that are hidden from the rush of a car based trip, the sudden views from field openings across the valleys, the green depths of woods and the patterns made by streams and yet it is a fast enough journey that I do not get bored with the same vista for too long, always another bend beckoning me on, to see what lies beyond, moving quickly enough to keep the sensations rolling in, feeding my mind, filling my senses. Even a deep flooded puddle does not daunt me, moving quickly enough not to fall over, slowly enough to keep water away from the bottom bracket.

Madame Crow is out when I return and our guests have left. A slow, hot shower and then tea gives the GPS time to talk to to my MacBook, comparing notes on my inability to follow instructions and then laying out my route for me. A red line through the countryside, wavering and wandering and returning from where it started. I have now done 480km of red lines this month, scrawled across the map of mid Cornwall, an untidy scribble of lung busting effort, brake tight descents and long meandering winter lanes between dead hedges. It must all mean something.

 

[hondated]

I suppose most of us riding in circles of various diameters regularly but whether its an age thing or not I very often I find myself spotting something I have never noticed before. Yes being in a car can have some advantages like being warm and out of the weather but it never gives me the warm glow I get from being wrapped up from the elements and at 5.30 am on a Sunday morning cycling with no one else around.

 

[hondated]

Boxing Bah Humbug Day. And it started well. Decided to head off in the rough direction of Wetherby, took the geared bike and pedalled towards Holbeck.

Not much changes there, along Water Lane and onto Great Wilson Street towards Crown Point Bridge. Quiet, to be expected I suppose, and all the traffic lights were green until the turn onto Roseville Road. Then Roundhay Road, which is up in this direction and by the time I reached the clock at Oakwood I seemed to run out of legs. Stopped for a couple of minutes, then continued for more up on Boot Hill. Which went fairly well. Cross the Ring Road and carry on along the A58 for a while then turn left onto Whin Moor Lane.



Felt a bit of a wobble just before Shadwell Main Street, put it down to road surface and turned left to carry on to Slaid Hill. Turn right at the lights onto Wike Ridge Road, down the dip then up. Wobble again. Stopped. Some time ago a spoke in the back wheel had broken, and I replaced it. But I wondered, as you do. Anyway, the back wheel was spinning true, I looked around the rest of the bike and saw nothing wrong so continued. Through Wike, take the right turn for Scarcroft and could have been in a lower gear for that first rise. Next rise, correct gear but all over the road. Stopped and looked, broken frame.

Two pictures in the wrong order

View attachment 497943

View attachment 497944

That is a bit of a facer. Not exactly what I said at the time, but close. Almost twelve miles to walk home, which gave me plenty of time to recover, and think about stuff. It was good to reach my front door though. And I still have the fixed to ride.

Liked but not liked if you get what I mean. Whatever caused that !

 

[twentysix by twentyfive]

Turkey and cake burner today. Standard route circling around the hills. Not much to report other than flocks of Redwing, a Kestrel, a Buzzard and a Nuthatch. The lane at Bromsberrow was flooded so I used the little dodge. All good and back in time for daughter's arrival. 39 smiles

 

[hondated]

Merry Christmas.

After a late-ish bedtime around 11.30 I planned on getting up and out for about 7 or so, an hours spin say, and back home in time for the usual festive preparations. It didn't work out like that. I woke at around 2.15 and I knew it was going to be a long night.
Nothing on my mind, no worries, no bizarre nightmares, nothing to disturb the peace. I was just 'awake'. I tried to get back off without much success and after twisting and turning and drifting in and out for two and a half hours I decided enough was enough.
So it was up at an ungodly 4.40am and I was dressed and out on the bike for 5am. I thought to use roads I rarely use so I headed into the city. As you might expect it was quiet. Roads normally cluttered with cars, vans, lorries and buses were empty and silent. More urban foxes than people. Unlike me I passed through the forest of red lights. I did take it steady and checked of course but it was so quiet I would have heard a car anywhere within 200m.
Round by the Playhouse, City Loop by the bus station, and along The Calls, under the Dark Arches to the station and City Square passing close to the lowest spot in Leeds City Centre.
From there it was up hill. Past Bank House, the only subsidiary office of the Bank of England, across The Headrow, the starting point for a couple of peculiar cycle races in recent years, up passed the Leeds General Infirmary and on and up and across Woodhouse Moor towards Headingley, passing the university on route.
On the Otley Road now and it takes me through Headingley and not far from the cricket ground. During the day and evening this road is non stop traffic and so riding it in near silence would make a nice change, if I were to ever cycle this way, during the day, which I don't, because of the traffic.
So err.. well, it was ok anyway and I am sure if I ever did ride this way, during the day, it wouldn't be so pleasant.
Once through Headingley I was heading through Weetwood and eventually to Lawnswood where I crossed the ring road. No sign of a car anywhere. After passing the ring road I headed left and up towards Cookridge and Cookridge Tower. Reputed to be the highest spot in Leeds.
After the tower is was downhill and across the Otley Road again taking the back roads through Adel and Long Causeway to do some huffing and puffing down and up Stairfoot Lane. In the remotest, darkest part of the ride surounded by trees and not much else. I was passed by my first car (only car) of the morning.
Back into urban Leeds and down to the ring road at Moor Allerton, up and across Scott Hall Road to Harrogate Road and into Chapel Allerton. Then a swift down and not so swift up the other side of Gledhow Valley and a short loop to bring me back home. With just enough time to have a cuppa, do some veg, post this and and to shortly take Mrs Colly up a cup of venerable brew. So a not too shabby start to Christmas day.

18.5miles and 1400ft of up.

Have a great day one and all.



View: https://ridewithgps.com/trips/43054336

Colly that frequently happens to me as well but I have to say once I am out there riding 9 times out of 10 love it. Mind you, you have to stay alert as a couple of times would have taken me out on roundabouts.

 

[Supersuperleeds]

Up at 6am, the plan to head out around 7am to do a 50 mile loop with a stop at Sutton Wharf for a bacon butty and a coffee.

Started watching the news and promptly fell asleep, woke up at 08:30 and dragged myself out of the door and onto the ride.

Glad I went, 53 cloudy but mild miles. Bit more traffic on the roads than the last few days, skipped the cafe stop and got home about 12.

https://www.strava.com/activities/2959688599

 

[hondated]

Monday 23 December Ring-a ring a - Roseland

The Roseland is secret Cornwall. Not secret because anyone is keeping it secret; but because it changes shape and moves its lanes around every now and then, so that the road you thought you took from St Michael Penkevil to Ruan Lanihorne is not where it was the last time. Villages move. Lanes take you out one way and then return you to the same place, an endless Groundhog Day where left and right and north and south have no meaning.

This means that people go looking for the hotel or pub they went to last year but can't find it again but do end up somewhere else which may be just as good - or perhaps not. Or it may be the same place but somehow different. In the middle of the Roseland is the quiet, almost deserted village of Tregony that advertises itself as the 'Gateway to the Roseland' although the main road bypasses it in a hurry to get to St Mawes.

The Roseland is a peninsula made of peninsulas, a bony hand cut through by water and hidden valleys that may hold a stream or may not depending on how the valley feels that day. It is a shape shifting, bewitching, hidden and utterly beautiful part of south Cornwall somewhere between Truro and St Austell. Or at least that is where it was today. So the journey I describe may not be there by next summer, new lanes may mysteriously appear and others vanish. Or it may be my long promised GPS (Santa has it) will bring 21st century exactitude to this medieval landscape and cause it to behave. Perhaps I just need to use the map better.

View attachment 497609


Nobody seems to live on The Roseland. There are squat houses and cob cottages, decaying manors, green streaked granite farmhouses and incongruously a few short terraces of 1960s build council homes located on lonely crossroads, close to the farms but nothing else. But no one actually lives here in winter or if they do, they are inside keeping warm or Christmas shopping. I see one dairy farmer, shiny green waterproofs and manure streaked wellies who waves a weary hand as I pass. I am passed in turn by a dirty white Peugeot van who announces his presence by sounding his horn causing my heart to stop. I think he was being kind.

View attachment 497608


The lanes pass through small copses and larger woods, all part of Lord Falmouth's land. All the large farms here are either Duchy of Cornwall or belong to Cornish aristocracy. The small tenant farms are struggling to manage with beef suckler herds or dairy for the local ice cream manufacturers. The large estates grow tea for Londoners, camellias and azaleas for the Eden Project, winter wheat and cabbage and daffodils. In an hour of cycling through this secret, medieval landscape, the tarring of the road is the only thing that has changed in hundreds of years. The poor remain poor, the rich remain rich.

View attachment 497612

The plan is to head out of Truro and cross into the Roseland by a new lane I found on the map last night, that looked less up and down than the last route I tried here. It is a lane that I have never found before - and will probably not find again. It does the Cornish thing of 150 to 200 feet of reasonably steep uphill, confined between tall hedge-walls, the granite blocks hidden by straggling and bare ash and sycamore bushes and small trees. Then at the top a brief glance at the view before plunging down between deep hedges, the lane sinking into mud and debris and puddles until I am again back to the height where I started. It is important to be patient about this. It is the price of admission to The Roseland that you endure this dragons back trail, this lack of apparent progress, this sense that you are fighting gravity all the time.

On though the village of Philleigh, no vehicles in the pub car park, houses with curtains drawn and everything dripping, trees bedraggled and denuded from the coastal storm last night. The lane is more open now until the helter-skelter descent down the steep sides of the Fal valley arriving at the King Harry Ferry, named after Henry VI who had it built to carry pilgrims on their way to St Michael's Mount.


View attachment 497611

This is the place where Tristan, a knight of Cornwall and Brittany and Iseult, a Queen of Cornwall made a legendary crossing of the river. Tristan was having an affair with Iseult, who was wife of King Mark, monarch of Cornwall and chunks of Brittany. It wasn't Tristan and Iseult's fault they couldn't keep their hands off each other as they had accidentally swallowed a love potion disguised as wine. That still happens now at Christmas parties. It appears that King Mark suspected something was going on and summoned Iseult from the woods on my side of the Fal (where she had been dallying with Tristan) to a trial by fire. Iseult being pretty cunning arranged for Tristan to disguise himself as a labourer and to meet her at this river edge and carry her across the river on his shoulders. She was then able to pass the ordeal by fire because it was truthful when she said that only King Mark and the labourer who carried her across the river, had ever been between her legs.

I have told this story in the past to Madame Crow who has little patience with legends and history - 'its all been and gone, it doesn't matter'. . She contemplated the river, narrowed her eyes and asked why Iseult didn't just take the ferry. She also pointed out that the river is about eighty feet deep here so Tristan must have had long legs.

These are the things going through my mind as I puff up the steep road on the other side of the Fal, breath rasping and legs cold after waiting for the ferry. Once at the top I continue downhill (again) to Feock following a route I have done before that takes me at sea level along the edge of Devoran Creek, with views across to the Carrick Roads and then joins the coast to coast cycle path. Yes, Cornwall has a coast to coast cycle route. Eleven miles sea to sea, twenty two if you come back afterwards.

View attachment 497613

I only follow the cycle path for a mile as it becomes more challenging later on, large stones and small drops and places where the Carnon River has burst its banks flooding the path. Instead it is on and along the Bissoe Valley, trail riders sounding like demented chain saws on the hillside opposite where an old mine working has left a spoil heap of red stained rubble. I stop and watch for a while, admiring the skill with which the trail bikes ascend the steep slopes and then hurtle perpendicularly down the other side. They are the first signs of life all day apart from the odd car that has passed and a dog that followed me for a while.

As I climb the lovely wooded valley from Twelveheads, trees still in leaf in this sheltered dell, that leads up to the mining village of Chacewater I decide that I am not tired enough yet and add some miles to the day. Now it is up Kerley Hill once again, legs pumping and then a fast lane, almost flat that takes me onto a circuitous series of lanes north of Truro, dirty, clogged with mud and glinting wetly in the winter sun. More hills, more descents. I cross the grain of the land, ascending down to bankfull or flooding streams in the bottom of the valley and then puffing my way up the other side.

I am close to Truro now and a right turn would take me home but I have other ideas and turn left instead, extending the ride up through St Allen and Trispen and then along the high ridge, back southwards, from where I can see the hills and clay spoil heaps of St Austell to the east and the long, green valleys that lead to Truro and the west on the other side. This is fine cycling, a little up and down, some bends, a few wooded copses to break up the view. Easy cycling and I know that I am nearly done so can let go of the reserves and pedal fast - as fast as I can. I keep thinking I am about to be overtaken by another cyclist but it is only my shadow, elongated in the low light that races towards me and then away as the land dips and rises.

A fast downhill, the road greasy and green under overhanging trees and I need to be careful. But something has taken control of my spirit and I let go of the brakes, exulting in speed, careless of consequences, leaning into the bends, eyes wide, hands tight. I emerge into Tresillian village like a cork from a bottle and have to brake hard for the junction. An easy pedal home now, just a couple of hills, no more than 3% and 220 uphill feet. This is the hill that was as much as I could manage last Spring. It was my ultimate test in April to ascend the hill without stopping. Now I can breathe all the way to the top and although I will not be challenging the Strava KOM, I take a pleasure in the evidence of improvement.

I had sent my older son, usually in Hong Kong but this week in Cornwall, a text with the picture of King Harry ferry and asked him to guess where I was. He responded in seconds. "Dad we are starting to worry about all this cycling in circles you do. Why don't you do Lands End to John o' Groats instead?'.

I have read articles by people who have done that journey and admired them in much the same way I admire the people who are astronauts or Olympic athletes. Not for me. Too hard. Superhuman qualities required. But now a worm is stirring.....maybe, just maybe, in the summer when the weather is kind.... I could do.... Bristol to Truro. Hmm...that feels as if it would be downhill.

Oxford to Truro? East to west, Lowestoft to Lands End?....I begin to compose what I will need to say to Madame Crow as I walk up the garden path.

View attachment 497604

View attachment 497606

Brilliant description of your ride and You've made me aware of the different types of farming that are in the area and the economic differences in them . As someone said every days a school day.

 

[footloose crow]

Brilliant description of your ride and You've made me aware of the different types of farming that are in the area and the economic differences in them . As someone said every days a school day.

I used to be a geography teacher!...... thank you for the feedback. I recommend visiting the Roseland if in Cornwall. If you can find it.

 

[derrick]

Four wheels today .https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heYAGCg2U4E

 

[Andy in Germany]

I went for a walk, does that count?

Well, you're getting pictures anyway...

Notice several are black and white: That's art that is, when it's black and white.