tribanjules
Guru
- Location
- Birmingham
Short shake down ride only this evening after picking bike from LBS
Your ride today....
- Thread starter gbb
- Start date
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footloose crow
Veteran
- Location
- Cornwall. UK
1 May (Un)Magical Mystery Tour
If you don't like the first weather forecast, find another one. If that fails, go for the shipping forecast or the one for inshore waters. There is so much sea and so little land in Cornwall that the sea state means more than the BBC forecast, that always seems to be for Exeter, not here. It says 'north westerly 4-5 occasionally 6 later'. When I owned a yacht I would have stayed indoors with that forecast. Unless I was feeling brave - wind from the land means a flatter sea and with reefed sails the boat would be on her ear and creaming a wake long enough to reach both sides of the Channel. Sometimes that was fun.
However I am rarely brave, so today I slink out on my bike watching the clouds appearing and then vanishing above the trees, regiments of water vapour marching coast to coast, lines of sunlight in-between. The birch in the front garden is trying to do a downward dog. The cat looks nervously at the bike as I wheel it past him and runs into the shelter of a bush from where he gives me a look - the one that says 'why are you going out when it is this windy and cold?'. He learnt that look from Madame Crow.
I have no idea where I am going today except that it has to be uphill at first as we live on a no through lane at the bottom of a very steep hill and the only way is up. Sometimes I cycle up it. Well once I did. Today I walk up it, like most days.
The next stage is downhill as it has to be as I am now on top of the hill and all roads lead down. Down through Truro on its busiest road, a boulevard with two lanes and traffic lights. I remember talking to a work colleague who said she didn't like driving in the city as it's too busy. I agreed that London and Exeter and Bristol were hard to drive around if you didn't know the streets well. "Oh no" she said "I mean Truro". Yes we have a cathedral and a boulevard, thus we are a city. And this boulevard should be full of cars but we are cycling through the age of Corona and I have a lane to myself and both me and the van next to me make the speed limit sign flash. It is important at the bottom of a hill to know where you might go next and the only way now is up - but which up? I choose Lemon Street up past the Georgian terraces of dentists and chiropractors and small private schools, puffing and spinning slowly on the 8% bit past the Truro version of Nelson's column, except ours has a Victorian explorer of Africa upon it who is famous for finding the Nile. The Egyptians surely knew where it was a long time before him and by rights we should have Tutenkamun or one of his family on that plinth.
Reaching the top, winded, chest hurting, legs hurting, wondering why this isn't getting easier, the only choice is downhill again along the old coach road that used to be the main road out of town roughly at the time period that Cornishmen were discovering where the Nile is and is now a fast downhill lane with big houses set back behind huge hedges and long drives. The road surface is rough and sets my teeth chattering and the handlebars jumping. Braking would be sensible and I am not brave - the discs take the strain until I pop out in the hamlet of Calenick where there is a creek at high tide, although well hidden with trees and behind a line of whitewashed cottages. From here it is up - you can begin to see how this ride is going to go. There will be hills. I still have no real plan.
Up past Kea Primary where music is playing and there are six cars in the car park, all parked three spaces apart. Cars must socially distance too. It is good to see life in the school. The hill is longer than I remember with a 10% section in the middle and a false summit just before a bend reveals more upnesss. My head is pounding now and I worry if I will survive the ride. I often have medical worries on a ride. I rehearse what to do if I have a heart attack just here. What to say to the paramedic. How to tell Madame Crow. I go through every detail obsessively. It is very tiring being this worried all the time. On through the village of Playing Place and I try to leave my gloomy thoughts to fall back down the hill, get blown away with the wind that is physically pushing me back towards Truro right now. The wind comes and goes according to the thickness and height of the hedges but the clouds pass overhead at a uniform gallop, a dash to get from the north coast to the south coast and back over sea again. My ears are full of roaring air.
From Playing Place I have no choice but to head southwards with the wind almost behind me on a rolling road where finally I get to use the larger cog on the front. It is good to have some pace at last, to have a rhythm, to get the breathing under control. The cold wind and the exertion have given me rhinorrhrea. Genuine medical term. Thats what the towelling part of the mitts is for.
A fast downhill under old beeches, dark green and quiet at ground level but the topmost branches are moving in the wind. Now I am at the seaside - or at least an arm of the Fal estuary. Devoran Creek, where once there were shipyards building wooden boats and a railway line to bring copper and tin from the mines and be loaded for export. This was a major industrial area at one time but is now left for small boats and big houses with far reaching estuary views and whimsical names. Does staring at the sea every morning get boring? I look in vain for a house called 'Dunbirdwatching'. The predominant theme for the newer houses is white walls, large amounts of glass, grey aluminium frames, a zinc sheathed roof. The older bungalows are slowly being eaten by developers but a few still sit in neglected gardens between the newly arrived.
A flat, flat, flat lane that follows the creek edge upstream past the low tide islands of silt where once there were copper mines in the middle of the creek. That must have been dangerous work mining beneath the river. Flat is so unusual in Cornwall that I can't decide whether to go faster because I can, or slower so it lasts longer.
Now I am on the cycle trail that runs south to north, coast to coast, along the old railway line or mining tracks. I have my 32mm Panaracer Gravel King on the front wheel to try it out but still a 28mm slick on the back. I wonder about punctures but they both roll happily over the wet, hard packed grit and gravel. I can't tell the difference in feel. Hey I am gravel biking! But not for long. I take a left turn from the trail along a road I have never cycled on before and inevitably once around the bend it is an unrelenting 9% slope. I had been feeling good for a while but quickly the lung and a bit I have left (from cancer) is struggling, my heart is pounding and I cannot get my breath in quickly enough. I could stop of course and do consider it all the way up but there is a stubborn streak in me that it seems would rather I died than put a foot down.
Cornish hills may be frequent and sharp but they are never long and 500 feet is as long as ever they go on for and this one is not that long. Into the village of Perranwell. The sort of village where dentists and solicitors live I decide. Houses hidden behind hedges and arthitecturally pleasing fencing - not the sort of fence you get in Wickes. Then another hill and a lane that I follow blindly although I keep my eyes open. It is my mind that tends to fall asleep, watching the shadow patterns of the spokes on the verge and trying to identify the trees as I pass them at 14mph. A crash of brakes, not mine, wakes me up. A car has pulled up onto the verge, one wheel on tarmac and the other canted up the verge. It is still quivering. The driver looks cross. I surmise I may have been failing to keep an adequate look out, as my yacht master instructor used to say to me. Sometimes it is best to wave, look apologetic and carry on. This may not have been one of those occasions but too late for regrets as I am fifty yards past now. Still processing what happened. The shakes come later.
The hills keep coming. I am now completely lost. I do not recognise any of the lanes and the signposts are contradictory telling me Redruth is either north of here or south of here. I don't have a map. The Wahoo shows lines but not where they go. There are signs to places I have never heard of before that turn out to be two or three houses, sometimes a terrace of white washed cottages sitting in the bottom of valley, overhung with old oaks and looking neglected. It is very pretty: the land is responding to the heat of April and the rain of the last few days with vigorous growth, a bright green flush of new leaves, the hedgerows filled with blue bells pushing up shyly between the white froth of wild garlic. I try to relax and appreciate the loveliness of it all but I have a nagging anxiety. I like to know where I am. The lanes go in every direction. I take turnings to the right that head east, back to Truro but soon find myself heading north or even west again. Like the Cornish themselves, nothing is direct, all is done in its own time, in its own way. 'Dreckly' as we say here which is like mañana but less urgent. These lanes will get me there dreckly but I want quickly. Ideally today.
Occasionally from the top of a hill I can see for a bit further, across fields of newly growing barley or fresh grass for the recently released cows bellowing for their calves who have been sold already, across to the next line of hills. But then it is downhill again, into the dense woods of the valley floors. I cannot conceive how Cornwall Council keeps on top of these roads, even remembers where they all are and which one is which. Some have names that give a clue to the past, like 'Harris's Hill' and you wonder who Harris was and why he had a hill named after him. Another is called 'Racing Hill' and I appreciate the irony of its name through gritted teeth as I grind up it at a sedate but sweaty 7mph.
The wind is swinging around or may be it is me swinging around it, sometimes holding me up and sometimes catching me sideways causing that lurch as I pass farm gateways or open stretches of hedge and not often enough it comes behind and lends a helping hand although usually I am going downhill at this point anyway. Winds are not helpful on the whole I find.
It is an hour before I recognise a lane I have been on before. Just a week ago. I know the way home now and the wind is definitely behind me as the lanes head east. Wahoo says I have done 22 miles and I know there are only six miles from here to home. My stubborn mind insists that we do a 50k today so we can tick that challenge off for May. That means a diversion away from the lanes leading home to add on the extra miles but it is OK because I know a way that is mainly downhill.
Only it isn't. There is downhill on it but there are a number of hills I have forgotten about, not noticed in the joy of heading in the other direction. Each hill remains a challenge, a sweaty, raw throated, chest burning challenge where I fight for breath like a drowning man. But I don't stop. Except once to take a photograph to remind me of the way the clouds were lit up by the sun and the air was crystal clear, washed clean by last nights rain.
Once more I drift off. Watching the clouds. The lanes have been empty of traffic since I met that car. I try not to think about that car. I feel an idiot for causing someone to have to pull up the verge for me. I follow the mental lanes of my mind, turning left and right automatically at junctions, relying on memory and instinct to find the right way, ticking off the landmarks and cursing the hills I forgot about. Halfway up a long and steepening hill I become aware that I have never been this way before. Loath to turn around I continue up the hill and find myself on the A30. Normally I would avoid the A30 - the ruta del muerte for cyclists- but this is not a normal time and traffic is light. Along the A30 for a mile and then into Zelah from where I do know the way home. Only three more hills. One is 8%. Average 8%. I can now tell you exactly how slow you can go without actually falling over. Wahoo keeps asking if we have stopped. No we haven't Wahoo, my legs are still turning. I just need more gears.
Scraping back down the steep lane that leads home, discs complaining and glowing, I am pleased that I went out. I wasn't sure at first. Not feeling up to much today. A mystery tour but without any magic. Later, watching through the window as the trees shake and twist, I can see that the promised Force 6 has arrived. Glad I missed it. Wonder where to go tomorrow. I hate repeating routes I have done before but always starting from home means that I have left a dense network of electric snail trails across mid Cornwall. Maybe time to go further....need to get a bit fitter first though. Age isn't all its cracked up to be. I am not getting any wiser but definitely finding it harder.
If you don't like the first weather forecast, find another one. If that fails, go for the shipping forecast or the one for inshore waters. There is so much sea and so little land in Cornwall that the sea state means more than the BBC forecast, that always seems to be for Exeter, not here. It says 'north westerly 4-5 occasionally 6 later'. When I owned a yacht I would have stayed indoors with that forecast. Unless I was feeling brave - wind from the land means a flatter sea and with reefed sails the boat would be on her ear and creaming a wake long enough to reach both sides of the Channel. Sometimes that was fun.
However I am rarely brave, so today I slink out on my bike watching the clouds appearing and then vanishing above the trees, regiments of water vapour marching coast to coast, lines of sunlight in-between. The birch in the front garden is trying to do a downward dog. The cat looks nervously at the bike as I wheel it past him and runs into the shelter of a bush from where he gives me a look - the one that says 'why are you going out when it is this windy and cold?'. He learnt that look from Madame Crow.
I have no idea where I am going today except that it has to be uphill at first as we live on a no through lane at the bottom of a very steep hill and the only way is up. Sometimes I cycle up it. Well once I did. Today I walk up it, like most days.
The next stage is downhill as it has to be as I am now on top of the hill and all roads lead down. Down through Truro on its busiest road, a boulevard with two lanes and traffic lights. I remember talking to a work colleague who said she didn't like driving in the city as it's too busy. I agreed that London and Exeter and Bristol were hard to drive around if you didn't know the streets well. "Oh no" she said "I mean Truro". Yes we have a cathedral and a boulevard, thus we are a city. And this boulevard should be full of cars but we are cycling through the age of Corona and I have a lane to myself and both me and the van next to me make the speed limit sign flash. It is important at the bottom of a hill to know where you might go next and the only way now is up - but which up? I choose Lemon Street up past the Georgian terraces of dentists and chiropractors and small private schools, puffing and spinning slowly on the 8% bit past the Truro version of Nelson's column, except ours has a Victorian explorer of Africa upon it who is famous for finding the Nile. The Egyptians surely knew where it was a long time before him and by rights we should have Tutenkamun or one of his family on that plinth.
Reaching the top, winded, chest hurting, legs hurting, wondering why this isn't getting easier, the only choice is downhill again along the old coach road that used to be the main road out of town roughly at the time period that Cornishmen were discovering where the Nile is and is now a fast downhill lane with big houses set back behind huge hedges and long drives. The road surface is rough and sets my teeth chattering and the handlebars jumping. Braking would be sensible and I am not brave - the discs take the strain until I pop out in the hamlet of Calenick where there is a creek at high tide, although well hidden with trees and behind a line of whitewashed cottages. From here it is up - you can begin to see how this ride is going to go. There will be hills. I still have no real plan.
Up past Kea Primary where music is playing and there are six cars in the car park, all parked three spaces apart. Cars must socially distance too. It is good to see life in the school. The hill is longer than I remember with a 10% section in the middle and a false summit just before a bend reveals more upnesss. My head is pounding now and I worry if I will survive the ride. I often have medical worries on a ride. I rehearse what to do if I have a heart attack just here. What to say to the paramedic. How to tell Madame Crow. I go through every detail obsessively. It is very tiring being this worried all the time. On through the village of Playing Place and I try to leave my gloomy thoughts to fall back down the hill, get blown away with the wind that is physically pushing me back towards Truro right now. The wind comes and goes according to the thickness and height of the hedges but the clouds pass overhead at a uniform gallop, a dash to get from the north coast to the south coast and back over sea again. My ears are full of roaring air.
From Playing Place I have no choice but to head southwards with the wind almost behind me on a rolling road where finally I get to use the larger cog on the front. It is good to have some pace at last, to have a rhythm, to get the breathing under control. The cold wind and the exertion have given me rhinorrhrea. Genuine medical term. Thats what the towelling part of the mitts is for.
A fast downhill under old beeches, dark green and quiet at ground level but the topmost branches are moving in the wind. Now I am at the seaside - or at least an arm of the Fal estuary. Devoran Creek, where once there were shipyards building wooden boats and a railway line to bring copper and tin from the mines and be loaded for export. This was a major industrial area at one time but is now left for small boats and big houses with far reaching estuary views and whimsical names. Does staring at the sea every morning get boring? I look in vain for a house called 'Dunbirdwatching'. The predominant theme for the newer houses is white walls, large amounts of glass, grey aluminium frames, a zinc sheathed roof. The older bungalows are slowly being eaten by developers but a few still sit in neglected gardens between the newly arrived.
A flat, flat, flat lane that follows the creek edge upstream past the low tide islands of silt where once there were copper mines in the middle of the creek. That must have been dangerous work mining beneath the river. Flat is so unusual in Cornwall that I can't decide whether to go faster because I can, or slower so it lasts longer.
Now I am on the cycle trail that runs south to north, coast to coast, along the old railway line or mining tracks. I have my 32mm Panaracer Gravel King on the front wheel to try it out but still a 28mm slick on the back. I wonder about punctures but they both roll happily over the wet, hard packed grit and gravel. I can't tell the difference in feel. Hey I am gravel biking! But not for long. I take a left turn from the trail along a road I have never cycled on before and inevitably once around the bend it is an unrelenting 9% slope. I had been feeling good for a while but quickly the lung and a bit I have left (from cancer) is struggling, my heart is pounding and I cannot get my breath in quickly enough. I could stop of course and do consider it all the way up but there is a stubborn streak in me that it seems would rather I died than put a foot down.
Cornish hills may be frequent and sharp but they are never long and 500 feet is as long as ever they go on for and this one is not that long. Into the village of Perranwell. The sort of village where dentists and solicitors live I decide. Houses hidden behind hedges and arthitecturally pleasing fencing - not the sort of fence you get in Wickes. Then another hill and a lane that I follow blindly although I keep my eyes open. It is my mind that tends to fall asleep, watching the shadow patterns of the spokes on the verge and trying to identify the trees as I pass them at 14mph. A crash of brakes, not mine, wakes me up. A car has pulled up onto the verge, one wheel on tarmac and the other canted up the verge. It is still quivering. The driver looks cross. I surmise I may have been failing to keep an adequate look out, as my yacht master instructor used to say to me. Sometimes it is best to wave, look apologetic and carry on. This may not have been one of those occasions but too late for regrets as I am fifty yards past now. Still processing what happened. The shakes come later.
The hills keep coming. I am now completely lost. I do not recognise any of the lanes and the signposts are contradictory telling me Redruth is either north of here or south of here. I don't have a map. The Wahoo shows lines but not where they go. There are signs to places I have never heard of before that turn out to be two or three houses, sometimes a terrace of white washed cottages sitting in the bottom of valley, overhung with old oaks and looking neglected. It is very pretty: the land is responding to the heat of April and the rain of the last few days with vigorous growth, a bright green flush of new leaves, the hedgerows filled with blue bells pushing up shyly between the white froth of wild garlic. I try to relax and appreciate the loveliness of it all but I have a nagging anxiety. I like to know where I am. The lanes go in every direction. I take turnings to the right that head east, back to Truro but soon find myself heading north or even west again. Like the Cornish themselves, nothing is direct, all is done in its own time, in its own way. 'Dreckly' as we say here which is like mañana but less urgent. These lanes will get me there dreckly but I want quickly. Ideally today.
Occasionally from the top of a hill I can see for a bit further, across fields of newly growing barley or fresh grass for the recently released cows bellowing for their calves who have been sold already, across to the next line of hills. But then it is downhill again, into the dense woods of the valley floors. I cannot conceive how Cornwall Council keeps on top of these roads, even remembers where they all are and which one is which. Some have names that give a clue to the past, like 'Harris's Hill' and you wonder who Harris was and why he had a hill named after him. Another is called 'Racing Hill' and I appreciate the irony of its name through gritted teeth as I grind up it at a sedate but sweaty 7mph.
The wind is swinging around or may be it is me swinging around it, sometimes holding me up and sometimes catching me sideways causing that lurch as I pass farm gateways or open stretches of hedge and not often enough it comes behind and lends a helping hand although usually I am going downhill at this point anyway. Winds are not helpful on the whole I find.
It is an hour before I recognise a lane I have been on before. Just a week ago. I know the way home now and the wind is definitely behind me as the lanes head east. Wahoo says I have done 22 miles and I know there are only six miles from here to home. My stubborn mind insists that we do a 50k today so we can tick that challenge off for May. That means a diversion away from the lanes leading home to add on the extra miles but it is OK because I know a way that is mainly downhill.
Only it isn't. There is downhill on it but there are a number of hills I have forgotten about, not noticed in the joy of heading in the other direction. Each hill remains a challenge, a sweaty, raw throated, chest burning challenge where I fight for breath like a drowning man. But I don't stop. Except once to take a photograph to remind me of the way the clouds were lit up by the sun and the air was crystal clear, washed clean by last nights rain.
Once more I drift off. Watching the clouds. The lanes have been empty of traffic since I met that car. I try not to think about that car. I feel an idiot for causing someone to have to pull up the verge for me. I follow the mental lanes of my mind, turning left and right automatically at junctions, relying on memory and instinct to find the right way, ticking off the landmarks and cursing the hills I forgot about. Halfway up a long and steepening hill I become aware that I have never been this way before. Loath to turn around I continue up the hill and find myself on the A30. Normally I would avoid the A30 - the ruta del muerte for cyclists- but this is not a normal time and traffic is light. Along the A30 for a mile and then into Zelah from where I do know the way home. Only three more hills. One is 8%. Average 8%. I can now tell you exactly how slow you can go without actually falling over. Wahoo keeps asking if we have stopped. No we haven't Wahoo, my legs are still turning. I just need more gears.
Scraping back down the steep lane that leads home, discs complaining and glowing, I am pleased that I went out. I wasn't sure at first. Not feeling up to much today. A mystery tour but without any magic. Later, watching through the window as the trees shake and twist, I can see that the promised Force 6 has arrived. Glad I missed it. Wonder where to go tomorrow. I hate repeating routes I have done before but always starting from home means that I have left a dense network of electric snail trails across mid Cornwall. Maybe time to go further....need to get a bit fitter first though. Age isn't all its cracked up to be. I am not getting any wiser but definitely finding it harder.
cyberknight
As long as I breathe, I attack.
- Location
- Land of confusion
1st non turbo since monday as its been universally pishing it down most of the week, yeh yeah i know waterproof etc but my circulation is shocking and getting cold and wet is not my idea of fun, i do itfor commuting but not for fun.Just a quick 25 today in between trying to get kids to study
Seevio
Guru
- Location
- South Glos
I went on what started out as a rather short ride which involved unpaved and as it turned out, slightly flooded roads. As I neared home i found I felt a bit "light" and realised that I no longer had my wallet. Cue retracing the entire ride in rapidly fading light. This was made a bit more difficult as on the paved sections, I was on the other side of the road.
Said wallet was later found next to my bed.
Said wallet was later found next to my bed.
Knightly85
Well-Known Member
I've set my self a route of 10 miles (this is just shy) I've done this route 3 times now. Yesterday I took my first rest day and today thia was my cycle, 12 mph average speed!!! My highest before this was 10.7 im well happy.
Seevio
Guru
- Location
- South Glos
You might go a little faster if you pedalled more than once a minute.
Or maybe your cadence sensor isn't working.
Knightly85
Well-Known Member
That always says 1You might go a little faster if you pedalled more than once a minute.
Or maybe your cadence sensor isn't working.
Landsurfer
Veteran
Wath on Derne to Toll Bar this morning. As usual lovely weather lol .....
Longggg ..... gentle .... climb ..... into a roaring head wind !!!
Breakfast near the romantic East Coast Mainline .... not .....
Between Wath and Denby Ings....
Longggg ..... gentle .... climb ..... into a roaring head wind !!!
Breakfast near the romantic East Coast Mainline .... not .....
Between Wath and Denby Ings....
Following my Saturday routine of out early to do the food shop so was out the door at 1030 decided to head for the hills for today's hours ride . Newtown Linford to the first climb of Sharpley hill which was dispatched in the big ring . A descent down Warren hill then up and down past Swithland woods on to the steady climb up Brand hill then a drop into Woodhouse Eaves . Time for Maplewell rd a climb with multiple false summits and several steep ramps . A quick descent then more climbing up the first steep ramp of Priory lane and quick descent then the second ramp which starts steady but steepens all the way to the top were it's about 12%. Turned up Whitcroft lane which feels flat after Priory lane left up a the end up to Copt Oak . Then a quick up and down to the other end of Priory lane and up the evil 15% ramp and the rapid descent of the bit I'd climbed earlier then back up the long drag to the bottom of the lane and that's most of the climbing done . Home via Newtown Linford 16.2 miles in 1hr 4 mins with 1875ft of upness at 15.2 mph quite happy with that . The whole ride as either up or down virtually no flat when I got home I realised I managed to get round with unclipping due to the lack of traffic
gavgav
Legendary Member
Totted up my April total mileage, this morning, which amounted to 234 miles, from 16 rides, which are both records for me in a calendar month. The short rides, during lockdown, are so much needed and keeping my mileage well above last year.
Out for my first May ride, with a good amount of roads that I’d not ridden before, all still within about 10km radius of my house. A cool and cloudy morning, with a keen breeze.
Set out through Meole Brace (where a woman, walking dogs, looked towards me, saw me and just decided to cross the road in front of me anyway! Emergency stop required) Radbrook and Gains Park. Lots of people out for walks and a chap on a bike, that I followed through Meole, we then went separate ways and ended up together again through the new estate at Radbrook.
First bit of new territory was along Calcott Lane, to Bicton, where I went to the church and spent a few minutes at my Nan’s grave. She would have been 101 yesterday. Next was the climb up and lovely descent down, to Montford Bridge, where I turned left and along the next bit of new territory, through Preston Montford, to the junction with the A488. That is an extremely busy main road and the main holiday route to North West Wales, so i’d normally go nowhere near it on my bike. But with lockdown, I decided to brave the 1/2 mile stretch, down to Ford, and only had 2 cars pass me, both with good clearance.
Continued the new exploring, by turning off at Ford and heading up lanes, to Shoothill and down to Nox, where I rejoined roads I knew, to Lea Cross, Arscott, Annscroft and Stapleton. The roads were starting to get a bit busier, now, with cars, but still pleasant riding through Condover, along Lyons Lane, to Betton Abbott’s and home.
My longest lockdown ride, so far, at 25.06 miles and 13.4mph avg
Out for my first May ride, with a good amount of roads that I’d not ridden before, all still within about 10km radius of my house. A cool and cloudy morning, with a keen breeze.
Set out through Meole Brace (where a woman, walking dogs, looked towards me, saw me and just decided to cross the road in front of me anyway! Emergency stop required) Radbrook and Gains Park. Lots of people out for walks and a chap on a bike, that I followed through Meole, we then went separate ways and ended up together again through the new estate at Radbrook.
First bit of new territory was along Calcott Lane, to Bicton, where I went to the church and spent a few minutes at my Nan’s grave. She would have been 101 yesterday. Next was the climb up and lovely descent down, to Montford Bridge, where I turned left and along the next bit of new territory, through Preston Montford, to the junction with the A488. That is an extremely busy main road and the main holiday route to North West Wales, so i’d normally go nowhere near it on my bike. But with lockdown, I decided to brave the 1/2 mile stretch, down to Ford, and only had 2 cars pass me, both with good clearance.
Continued the new exploring, by turning off at Ford and heading up lanes, to Shoothill and down to Nox, where I rejoined roads I knew, to Lea Cross, Arscott, Annscroft and Stapleton. The roads were starting to get a bit busier, now, with cars, but still pleasant riding through Condover, along Lyons Lane, to Betton Abbott’s and home.
My longest lockdown ride, so far, at 25.06 miles and 13.4mph avg
DCBassman
Guru
- Location
- The lumpy far South West
Another ride out to Clearbrook on NCN270/27.
At Yelverton
Dartmoor across Clearbrook
Humbugs and baby Humbugs...
17.5 miles at 9.6 avg. That would have been over the 10 mark, but far too busy out there...
MMR still giving no elevation figures. Grrr...
Nice ride, bike going well.
At Yelverton
Dartmoor across Clearbrook
Humbugs and baby Humbugs...
17.5 miles at 9.6 avg. That would have been over the 10 mark, but far too busy out there...
MMR still giving no elevation figures. Grrr...
Nice ride, bike going well.
CanucksTraveller
Macho Business Donkey Wrestler
- Location
- Hertfordshire
A first ride out for my daughter on her new, larger wheeled Trek bike which she got yesterday and has been itching to ride. We rode part of the Garden City Greenway, down to Willian village under lovely dappled cloud with her getting used to the (new to her) trigger shift, she really liked it eventually once she got the hang of it and she was shifting far more often than when she had a twist shift. I think the triggers are more intuitive for her.
A quick drink under the trees at Willian and then back the same way, total just 7 miles, but very nice.
A quick drink under the trees at Willian and then back the same way, total just 7 miles, but very nice.
Chromatic
Legendary Member
- Location
- Gloucestershire
First ride since 25th April.
Longford to Norton and Wainlode, then on to Tirley where I stopped off at the church for a pic. Then headed back towards Gloucester through Ashleworth, Hartpury and Maismore, where I stopped off at the church for another pic before heading back to start. Pics will be in the your bike in front of a church thread.
Didn't look at how many miles etc, not a great amount traffic seen, quite a lot of cyclists though, so all good.
Longford to Norton and Wainlode, then on to Tirley where I stopped off at the church for a pic. Then headed back towards Gloucester through Ashleworth, Hartpury and Maismore, where I stopped off at the church for another pic before heading back to start. Pics will be in the your bike in front of a church thread.
Didn't look at how many miles etc, not a great amount traffic seen, quite a lot of cyclists though, so all good.
All uphill
Still rolling along
- Location
- Somerset
What was intended as a one hour ride for exercise turned into 90 minutes because of several pleasant chats with other cyclists and horse riders, as well as a visit to Staple Fitzpaine church.
I rescued a novice cyclist who had a flat tyre and then took a quick photo of the road that appears to go almost vertically up the small hill.
I rescued a novice cyclist who had a flat tyre and then took a quick photo of the road that appears to go almost vertically up the small hill.
