- Location
- Shrewsbury, Shropshire
Wednesday: @gavgav had arranged a day off and asked if I would join him for a metric century. I went over on the Raleigh and we met up shortly after the morning rush to start off on the usual meandering route out of Shrewsbury and heading for Upton Magna and the climb across Haughmond Hill. We went at a brisk sociable pace as this is training for Gav's upcoming big ride. We had an unexpected hold up at Ebreywood where a telegraph pole was being replaced. I did ask whether we could walk the bikes through but the rather miserable looking crew weren't having that this time. Fortunately they weren't far off being done so it was just a few minutes wait.
After crossing an unusually quiet A53 we got along swiftly through Astley, Hadnall and Harmer Hill, enjoying having a bit of a tailwind. The average speed seemed disappointingly low though and I think that hadn't been helped by the stop-start riding as we left town.
From Myddle we followed the same route as a previous ride to Weston Lullingfields, Bagley and Lower Hordley. The road had been really quiet but as usual traffic picked up a bit after passing the ABP Meats plant. At Rednal we took to quieter lanes through Grimpo and West Felton. My bike started making a knocking again that I could feel through the pedals and at a junction near Woolston I had a check: the cranks are tight, maybe the new bottom bracket is faulty?? There is no play or roughness. It's difficult to judge as the knock stopped when we got going again.
Through The Wood towards Maesbrook we found more traffic than I usually see on this lane. Our lunch stop was taken by the church at Melverley where the weather was so nice I could have just stopped and enjoyed the quiet location for the rest of the afternoon. There were still a lot of miles to cover though so we pressed on through Crew Green, Halfway House, Westbury and Minsterley. We had a pub stop planned for late on in the ride and at Pontesbury I gave my brother a call to see if he was free and if he wanted to meet us. He was and did so we did the last stretch through Plealey, Hook-a-gate and Nobold with that anticipation helping.
In Nobold a BMW driver ignored a passing space and squeezed past at the narrowest point of that lane.
It was good therefore to have a polite driver make up for it a little further down the road. We reached The Beacon to find Doug waiting - he bought a round and we sat and chatted in the sunshine and warmth. I don't know about Gav but I felt quite mellow when we set off again. We decided to drop into town and ride through The Quarry rather than take the direct route back - much more scenic.
68.1 miles by the time I got back with 13.3 mph average. Strava seems to have added more than 3/4 of a mile over what my speedometer says.
It claims 2406 feet of climbing on this one.
While doing some maintenance on the Raleigh a couple of days afterwards I found that the rear tyre had a cut which has rendered it scrap after only 140 miles. Not really happy with that and nobody local seems to stock the Goodyear Eagle Sport so I've refitted the Vittoria Voyager Hyper tyres I had for this bike and will think again when they wear out.
We were concentrating on riding so the photos are a bit random on this one:
Some pics from our lunch stop at Melverley. The current church (built 1406) replaced one that was burned down by Owain Glyndwr's men.
Back to Shrewsbury and a view across the Quarry to the new St. Chad's church (built 1792 after the old church collapsed).
After crossing an unusually quiet A53 we got along swiftly through Astley, Hadnall and Harmer Hill, enjoying having a bit of a tailwind. The average speed seemed disappointingly low though and I think that hadn't been helped by the stop-start riding as we left town.
From Myddle we followed the same route as a previous ride to Weston Lullingfields, Bagley and Lower Hordley. The road had been really quiet but as usual traffic picked up a bit after passing the ABP Meats plant. At Rednal we took to quieter lanes through Grimpo and West Felton. My bike started making a knocking again that I could feel through the pedals and at a junction near Woolston I had a check: the cranks are tight, maybe the new bottom bracket is faulty?? There is no play or roughness. It's difficult to judge as the knock stopped when we got going again.
Through The Wood towards Maesbrook we found more traffic than I usually see on this lane. Our lunch stop was taken by the church at Melverley where the weather was so nice I could have just stopped and enjoyed the quiet location for the rest of the afternoon. There were still a lot of miles to cover though so we pressed on through Crew Green, Halfway House, Westbury and Minsterley. We had a pub stop planned for late on in the ride and at Pontesbury I gave my brother a call to see if he was free and if he wanted to meet us. He was and did so we did the last stretch through Plealey, Hook-a-gate and Nobold with that anticipation helping.
In Nobold a BMW driver ignored a passing space and squeezed past at the narrowest point of that lane.
It was good therefore to have a polite driver make up for it a little further down the road. We reached The Beacon to find Doug waiting - he bought a round and we sat and chatted in the sunshine and warmth. I don't know about Gav but I felt quite mellow when we set off again. We decided to drop into town and ride through The Quarry rather than take the direct route back - much more scenic.68.1 miles by the time I got back with 13.3 mph average. Strava seems to have added more than 3/4 of a mile over what my speedometer says.
It claims 2406 feet of climbing on this one.While doing some maintenance on the Raleigh a couple of days afterwards I found that the rear tyre had a cut which has rendered it scrap after only 140 miles. Not really happy with that and nobody local seems to stock the Goodyear Eagle Sport so I've refitted the Vittoria Voyager Hyper tyres I had for this bike and will think again when they wear out.
We were concentrating on riding so the photos are a bit random on this one:
Some pics from our lunch stop at Melverley. The current church (built 1406) replaced one that was burned down by Owain Glyndwr's men.
Back to Shrewsbury and a view across the Quarry to the new St. Chad's church (built 1792 after the old church collapsed).
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