Well done @EltonFrog impressive mileage I snuck over the 1000 (1002) today and thought I was doing well
Your ride today....
- Thread starter gbb
- Start date
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Donger
Convoi Exceptionnel
- Location
- Quedgeley, Glos.
Can I at least claim the veterans' superheavyweight record for the month?
Two ABC rides to catch up. Yesterday the intent had been to do "N","O" and "P" but the morning slipped by and then the wind increased again so it was 7pm as the wind started to diminish that the Defy turned a wheel in anger and "N" only was the target. Nidd would have been too easy and still an unpleasant ride with the amount of cross wind still about so instead south to Burn Bridge, and west along Brackenthwiate Lane. I hoped the remaining wind would result in some PRs but the one along the length of this surprised me as I had stopped to switch the rear light on as the sun was a bit blinding looking along the road and then on a level stretch of road the chain and rear mech had a falling out, and as soon as that was fixed the front mech decided it was its turn. The sun did get screened by some trees in time to show the start of the steeper climb which peaks at 16.8%
Looped around to Almscliffe Crag, 8pm on a Saturday evening and people atop
And then north east to the "N" of North Rigton, as I turned the corner at the junction in the village I realised I had forgotten about Rigton Hill, 9.7% avg 16.4% max
Back home via Beckwithshaw, down Pot Bank and up, down and up the successive Oaker Banks.
So this morning "O" and "P" were the targets; set off to go to Penny Pot via Burley Bank but just as I turned off the A59 the realisation dawned that Penny Pot could be closed due to the up to 2 hours worth of queueing traffic for the recycling site so a quick U turn and west along a HGV free A59 to join the western end of Penny Pot. Then via Fewston, across the reservoir dam and up the climb away. Heading south turned onto Snowdon Carr Road to avoid Snowdon Bank, a narrow road that decends into the Washburn Valley with Norwood Edge prominent on the opposing valley side.
The big snag of this road is the subsequent climb onto Askwith Moor – never managed it before and I did hope with a 34 cog on the rear cassette and a favourable wind direction things might be different but I found myself on the 34 with the road steepening noticeably in front so opted for the use of Shank’s Pony once again, but still got a PR! The shot looking down the steep bit has the clear characterises of the local landscape evident
Soon Askwith Moor gave way to the long decent to the "O" of Otley where the Wharfe was crossed. Suppose someone could use it for an "L" as well given the Leeds Metropolitan confusing welcoming. Left in an easterly direction on the A659
Found a nice shady entrance with a low stone wall to have lunch, bit miffed to find it was just an Apple and a fruit and nut bar as I distinctly remembered wrapping some sandwiches in cling film. Then immediately to the "P" of Pool-in-Wharfedale
Carried on east on the A659 through Arthington, part of the road has been surfaced dressed but enough traffic had been along it for it not to be an issue. Back over the Wharfe by the way of Harewood Bridge and north on the A61.
Nearing a right turn traffic increased noticeably and for the first time since the start of lockdown the Zefal Spin mirror was unearthed from below the drop bar to play spot the gap in the approaching traffic. Then up to Kirkby Overblow
along the A658 and Rudding Lane where amazingly once again the lights on narrow bridge stayed on green. Wetherby Road into Harrogate was busy although not of the stationary traffic nature pre lockdown but nevertheless I decided to take traffic avoidance route homewards.
Saturday – 18.85 miles @ 12.3mph avg 1844ft climbed, Sunday – 35 miles @ 13.7mph avg 2484ft climbed. May (excl ebike) 488.69 miles 33456ft climbed
Looped around to Almscliffe Crag, 8pm on a Saturday evening and people atop
And then north east to the "N" of North Rigton, as I turned the corner at the junction in the village I realised I had forgotten about Rigton Hill, 9.7% avg 16.4% max
Back home via Beckwithshaw, down Pot Bank and up, down and up the successive Oaker Banks.
So this morning "O" and "P" were the targets; set off to go to Penny Pot via Burley Bank but just as I turned off the A59 the realisation dawned that Penny Pot could be closed due to the up to 2 hours worth of queueing traffic for the recycling site so a quick U turn and west along a HGV free A59 to join the western end of Penny Pot. Then via Fewston, across the reservoir dam and up the climb away. Heading south turned onto Snowdon Carr Road to avoid Snowdon Bank, a narrow road that decends into the Washburn Valley with Norwood Edge prominent on the opposing valley side.
The big snag of this road is the subsequent climb onto Askwith Moor – never managed it before and I did hope with a 34 cog on the rear cassette and a favourable wind direction things might be different but I found myself on the 34 with the road steepening noticeably in front so opted for the use of Shank’s Pony once again, but still got a PR! The shot looking down the steep bit has the clear characterises of the local landscape evident
Soon Askwith Moor gave way to the long decent to the "O" of Otley where the Wharfe was crossed. Suppose someone could use it for an "L" as well given the Leeds Metropolitan confusing welcoming. Left in an easterly direction on the A659
Found a nice shady entrance with a low stone wall to have lunch, bit miffed to find it was just an Apple and a fruit and nut bar as I distinctly remembered wrapping some sandwiches in cling film. Then immediately to the "P" of Pool-in-Wharfedale
Carried on east on the A659 through Arthington, part of the road has been surfaced dressed but enough traffic had been along it for it not to be an issue. Back over the Wharfe by the way of Harewood Bridge and north on the A61.
Nearing a right turn traffic increased noticeably and for the first time since the start of lockdown the Zefal Spin mirror was unearthed from below the drop bar to play spot the gap in the approaching traffic. Then up to Kirkby Overblow
along the A658 and Rudding Lane where amazingly once again the lights on narrow bridge stayed on green. Wetherby Road into Harrogate was busy although not of the stationary traffic nature pre lockdown but nevertheless I decided to take traffic avoidance route homewards.
Saturday – 18.85 miles @ 12.3mph avg 1844ft climbed, Sunday – 35 miles @ 13.7mph avg 2484ft climbed. May (excl ebike) 488.69 miles 33456ft climbed
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Shearwater Missile
Veteran
Mrs S and I are quite envious of the photos of the aqueduct and the river Dee. We have been there quite a few times and also been over it on a canal boat. It never fails to impress. Thanks for the photos.Lovely ride around Dee Valley this morning, how blinkin nice is it out there?
Stopped off at Pontcysyllte aqueduct not far from Wrexham, designed by Thomas Telford 1790's, an engineering marvel at the time.
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Serious tempted to go for a dip, particularly after traversing some of the killer hills either side of the valley, glad i didn't go out too late at least.
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28 miles, some of the best countryside i have seen in a while as well.
derrick
The Glue that binds us together.
- Location
- On the edge of London
Another ride today with my other half and a mate. Nice and easy in the sun.
Check out my activity on Strava: https://strava.app.link/xg7lxyKCW6
Check out my activity on Strava: https://strava.app.link/xg7lxyKCW6
Grant Fondo
Guru
- Location
- Cheshire
Yes the first time you walk across is a big surprise, you just don't realise how high it is. Not one for heights so i rode around
EltonFrog
Legendary Member
Wow, @EltonFrog ! You must have a backside of steel. 1,400 miles in a month!700 miles completely wrecked my undercarriage!
SORRY! that’s a typo! That should be 1400 miles for the year. Now edited. I’m not that good! Apologies.
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Jenkins
Legendary Member
- Location
- Felixstowe
I was up early (for me) this morning and decided to take advantage of earlier easing of the lockdown by doing something I've not done since February - start a ride from somewhere other than home. Also I was hoping that by going inland a bit, the easterly wind blowing in off the North Sea wouldn't be quite as strong. So I stuck the PlanetX into the boot of the car and drove up to @Shearwater Missile territory for a repeat of a loop out of Stowmarket that I did back in January, taking advantage of the free Sunday parking, cheapskate that I am!
The ride started from the area around the rail station and headed north up to Old Newton and then east to Debenham through Gipping, Mendlesham Green and Mickfield. Here it became apparent that the only difference going inland made to the easterly breeze was that it was warmer, while being just as strong as near the coast. From Debenham I headed north to Thorndon, past the Aspall cider factory, and then finally picked up the benefit of the easterly wind on the long, mostly westish drag through Gislingham
Finningham (good to see the grain crops growing well in this area - the local to me fields are mostly doing potatoes at the moment and seem to need constant irrigation)
Then Walsham le Willows, Badwell Ash and into Pakenham, down to Thurston and back into the wind for a short bit to Norton, down again to Tostock. Here the run back to Stowmarket started - all into the headwind which had strengthened a bit - from Beyton to Woolpit Green with a diversion for a quick look at the two sail less windmills almost next to each other
After that that it was a non stop run through Shelland and Onehouse into Stowmarket to where the transport home awaited
https://www.strava.com/activities/3541225620/
The ride started from the area around the rail station and headed north up to Old Newton and then east to Debenham through Gipping, Mendlesham Green and Mickfield. Here it became apparent that the only difference going inland made to the easterly breeze was that it was warmer, while being just as strong as near the coast. From Debenham I headed north to Thorndon, past the Aspall cider factory, and then finally picked up the benefit of the easterly wind on the long, mostly westish drag through Gislingham
Finningham (good to see the grain crops growing well in this area - the local to me fields are mostly doing potatoes at the moment and seem to need constant irrigation)
Then Walsham le Willows, Badwell Ash and into Pakenham, down to Thurston and back into the wind for a short bit to Norton, down again to Tostock. Here the run back to Stowmarket started - all into the headwind which had strengthened a bit - from Beyton to Woolpit Green with a diversion for a quick look at the two sail less windmills almost next to each other
After that that it was a non stop run through Shelland and Onehouse into Stowmarket to where the transport home awaited
https://www.strava.com/activities/3541225620/
AndreaJ
Veteran
There are certainly some amazing views in this part of Shropshire and plenty of quiet lanes to explore.
Drove my poor shafted old car back to the homestead yesterday, where it can legitimately be stored off-road before being broken and scrapped 
On it's likely final voyage the car was loaded up with a load of stuff I needed to take back; jobs and my bike.
After a fairly productive day or so I set off back to the city on the bike earlier. I followed the same route as last week; rural roads and NCR5 to Woodstock. Unfortunately the cycle path was more popular this time and I got abused by a bloke for close-passing him; however the clear width of the path was probably less than 1m wide and he'd already pushed his kids into the nettles as far as they seemed willing to go (while I was well over into the undergrowth on the other side) so I'm not sure exactly what he expected me to do.. I figured it was probably in all our best interest to get by quickly but felt a bit bad afterwards.
Likewise at another point I should have waited for a guy on an MTB coming the other way to get out of the skinnier section but tbh I was in the zone and my mind was elsewhere - apologies if this was you! Rightly or wrongly I usually feel a fair bit of solidarity for other cyclists and while I usually go out of my way to be respectful and courteous feel I've let the side down a bit on this occasion. That said I suspect the chances of getting infected by being within 1m of someone for a fraction of a second whilst outside are vanishingly small..
Displeased with my own behaviour I smashed it down through Yarnton and Begbroke; although wasn't as quick as last week and the journey was less pleasant on account of my mindset and greater traffic volume which made maintaining speed and flow more difficult. I stayed on it all the way to the city centre; setting a load of Strava PRs and recording a mean heart rate of 175bpm over the 2.5ish mile length of the Woodstock road (180bpm / all zone 5 for the last 1.5 miles); which pretty comprehensively ruined me and I think is probably the longest time I've spent at this level of exertion.
After that I stopped for a rest in the shade outside the Sheldonian (took some pics, they were crap) before clocking up another 16ish miles just moseying around the city and outskirts, with the occasional short burst of high output thanks to my travelling partners Dom and Roland
I rode the length of Port Meadow and back, holding gates open for a good few fellow cyclists on a couple of occasions (isn't it so much nicer to be able to float straight through rather than get off and juggle the gate and bike?). Everyone was really happy, friendly, appreciative and ready to reciprocate - which made it all the more pleasant and offset my guilt about earlier indiscretions.
All in all a bit of a non-descript bitsa of a ride really, made a bit more special by it's partially functional nature and the exertion intensity at points. It's hard to gauge the change in my fitness since I started riding a lot more near the beginning of Lockdown, but I have noticed that I seem to recover faster after big efforts and my endurance also seems better. Can still feel today's ride in my glowing legs though!
Anyway, today was around 38 miles (about 25% of which was off-road) and 865ft at 14.4mph and 142bpm. This brings me to 120 miles for the week and 560 for the month, which is easily the most I've done. In other news I've now covered around 860 miles on the CdF since I got it a little over six weeks ago and I'm still really enjoying it
My dinner of Fish fingers and salad with a strawberry yoghurt chaser unsurprisingly went down very well, this with my soft-boiled breakfast suggesting that today's ride should have contributed towards an energy deficit of at least 2000kcal and further encourage the belly to do one
Once I've recovered from this one I intend to chuck the pedals back on my Boardman and see how much of a performance difference I can notice between it and the Genesis, as well as between now and when I last rode it many weeks ago.
I'll try and make the next post a bit more about the scenery and less about me
On it's likely final voyage the car was loaded up with a load of stuff I needed to take back; jobs and my bike.After a fairly productive day or so I set off back to the city on the bike earlier. I followed the same route as last week; rural roads and NCR5 to Woodstock. Unfortunately the cycle path was more popular this time and I got abused by a bloke for close-passing him; however the clear width of the path was probably less than 1m wide and he'd already pushed his kids into the nettles as far as they seemed willing to go (while I was well over into the undergrowth on the other side) so I'm not sure exactly what he expected me to do.. I figured it was probably in all our best interest to get by quickly but felt a bit bad afterwards.
Likewise at another point I should have waited for a guy on an MTB coming the other way to get out of the skinnier section but tbh I was in the zone and my mind was elsewhere - apologies if this was you! Rightly or wrongly I usually feel a fair bit of solidarity for other cyclists and while I usually go out of my way to be respectful and courteous feel I've let the side down a bit on this occasion. That said I suspect the chances of getting infected by being within 1m of someone for a fraction of a second whilst outside are vanishingly small..
Displeased with my own behaviour I smashed it down through Yarnton and Begbroke; although wasn't as quick as last week and the journey was less pleasant on account of my mindset and greater traffic volume which made maintaining speed and flow more difficult. I stayed on it all the way to the city centre; setting a load of Strava PRs and recording a mean heart rate of 175bpm over the 2.5ish mile length of the Woodstock road (180bpm / all zone 5 for the last 1.5 miles); which pretty comprehensively ruined me and I think is probably the longest time I've spent at this level of exertion.
After that I stopped for a rest in the shade outside the Sheldonian (took some pics, they were crap) before clocking up another 16ish miles just moseying around the city and outskirts, with the occasional short burst of high output thanks to my travelling partners Dom and Roland
I rode the length of Port Meadow and back, holding gates open for a good few fellow cyclists on a couple of occasions (isn't it so much nicer to be able to float straight through rather than get off and juggle the gate and bike?). Everyone was really happy, friendly, appreciative and ready to reciprocate - which made it all the more pleasant and offset my guilt about earlier indiscretions.
All in all a bit of a non-descript bitsa of a ride really, made a bit more special by it's partially functional nature and the exertion intensity at points. It's hard to gauge the change in my fitness since I started riding a lot more near the beginning of Lockdown, but I have noticed that I seem to recover faster after big efforts and my endurance also seems better. Can still feel today's ride in my glowing legs though!
Anyway, today was around 38 miles (about 25% of which was off-road) and 865ft at 14.4mph and 142bpm. This brings me to 120 miles for the week and 560 for the month, which is easily the most I've done. In other news I've now covered around 860 miles on the CdF since I got it a little over six weeks ago and I'm still really enjoying it
My dinner of Fish fingers and salad with a strawberry yoghurt chaser unsurprisingly went down very well, this with my soft-boiled breakfast suggesting that today's ride should have contributed towards an energy deficit of at least 2000kcal and further encourage the belly to do one
Once I've recovered from this one I intend to chuck the pedals back on my Boardman and see how much of a performance difference I can notice between it and the Genesis, as well as between now and when I last rode it many weeks ago.
I'll try and make the next post a bit more about the scenery and less about me
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Absolutely - I'm just waiting for a reasonable used pair of A600s to come up as I'm getting on with them OK now on the CdF
Absolutely - I'm just waiting for a reasonable used pair of A600s to come up as I'm getting on with them OK now on the CdF
They’re my pedal of choice, I’ve been using them for years.
Mr Celine
Discordian
- Location
- Waxing my moustache
Sunday's ride. Hot and sunny but with a stiff and cool easterly breeze, so headed in that direction to get a tailwind home. At my furthest easterly point I made a short off road detour to have a look at some islands in the River Tweed at Fireburnmill.
The other side of the water is an island large enough to have a field in it. The other side of the island is the main channel and where the border runs, the hill in the background is in England. I carried on along the track for another couple of hundred metres...
... and stopped beside a fishing hut.
At this point the island on the right is in Scotland, the beach in the background is another island which is in England. The building in the background is in the Northumberland village of Wark.
Now heading west again the expected tailwind appeared to be absent, or more likely I was too knackered to take advantage of it. I made one more stop in the shade beside Kelso Abbey.
The map-
52.7 miles @ 15.4mph, 623m up.
The other side of the water is an island large enough to have a field in it. The other side of the island is the main channel and where the border runs, the hill in the background is in England. I carried on along the track for another couple of hundred metres...
... and stopped beside a fishing hut.
At this point the island on the right is in Scotland, the beach in the background is another island which is in England. The building in the background is in the Northumberland village of Wark.
Now heading west again the expected tailwind appeared to be absent, or more likely I was too knackered to take advantage of it. I made one more stop in the shade beside Kelso Abbey.
The map-
52.7 miles @ 15.4mph, 623m up.
