Your ride today....

[sevenfourate]

Another ride after work. Grabbing the sun, fresh air and opportunity while I can……

52 mins / 12.4 miles / 14.3 mph.

…….with a very common; but ever enjoyable ride coming back home via the East Suffolk Coast.

Weekend is meant to be lovely too. Could be a 5-day riding streak. Which would deffo be a new PB for me in adult life 😁

 

[sevenfourate]

4th day in a row I’ve ridden after work. I think I might have equalled my PB 😂

Horrid time to ride - with traffic in Town. And there may have been a couple of dozy (I don’t say that flippantly) drivers who I voiced an opinion at 🙄

Overall a nice way to de-stress after a pretty awful back end of the week work wise though….

**I see the ride got me a Local Legend on Strava. Is that like an attendance award for giving something a go pretty often; but showing no actual performance doing so ?🤣

 

[gbb]

Just my now becoming normal 10 mile ebike ride, a mix of brickpit pathways, cycle paths and back roads. A bit chillier out there than I first thought but enjoyable all the same. Trying to switch off assist whenever possible but have to be mindful of not putting too much pressure through the hips.
Roe deer seen on the edge of the old brickpits...looks like he was just waking up

Edited to add...it was like 'watching you, watching me'. We were about 50ft apart, me watching for a minute, him watching me, apparently unconcerned.

 

[Alex321]

**I see the ride got me a Local Legend on Strava. Is that like an attendance award for giving something a go pretty often; but showing no actual performance doing so ?🤣

More or less, yes, though you can get both that and performance "awards". It just means have ridden that segment more often in the last 90 days than anybody else.

 

[cwskas]

I have succumbed to a lot of excuses so far this year. But I finally got a break in the weather this week to steal a bit of riding time.

When I have gotten out of shape, it is the breathing that is always the weakest, followed by my leg strength. So I like to work on pushing hard up hills which helps with both. The stronger of y’all will find it amusing that ‘pushing hard’ for me ended with an average speed of 10.5 mph over 26 miles and only about 300 meters of climb! But it was great to get out.

My trusty stead, I now have over 1500 miles on two wheels. My last ride on the trike was The Natchez Trace Parkway last April.

The last time I was on this stretch of road was in my car and it was really rough gravel. I found out this week that it had been chip sealed. So, while I am not a fan of chip seal, it was much better than it had been and quite a pleasant ride.

The North Bosque river is between the hills in the distance and where I am, but it was never visible during my ride after I crossed it leaving Clifton. The sky was overcast most of the time and the grass was much greener in the field for the cows than it looks.

This creek shows the evidence of several floods we have had in the last 6 months.
A lot of downed trees on the side and in the stream bed.

More happy cows.

If one could go straight to that cell tower and then the same distance beyond it,
you would arrive at my house, but it was about 5 miles of cycling.

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[HLaB]

A pretty intense group ride to the cafe quite a bit of it into a strong west wind. It was cold but bright and dry though ☀️





Lol, the minute we decided to sit outdoors the sun disappeared.







It was a wee bit more relaxed after the cafe when we had mostly tail wind. Three folk went straight back to Pottyboro/Nassington



As we were getting closer to town and it got busier I went to the front and upped the pace again before a more intense push into the wind.

 

[geocycle]

A windy day! With a strong northwesterly forecast I was a bit constrained on direction today. My usual get out of jail card when it’s windy is to pedal out with a tailwind and get the train home, unfortunately no trains north of Preston put paid to that wheeze. Instead, I decided to head north to Sizergh Castle on a sheltered and shortish route to the national trust estate. The outward journey was lovely through the woods of the Arnside and Silverdale AONB. Trees were still leafless but wild daffodils brought colour to the verges. Lots of cyclists of all shapes and sizes out for rides despite the wind. The highlight of the return leg was crossing the River Kent with its rockbed being used by wagtails. Overall, 72 km with 890 m of climbing.

Pictures are of Dallam Tower trees, the Bela entering the estuary and the Kent.

 

[Donger]

One of the reasons I bought the Marin was to make use of its enormous gear range to help get this 300lb pensioner up the hills that I used to be able to climb without resorting to the walk of shame. So today I put it to the test and did one of my favourite climbs up into the Forest of Dean. I started off at Westbury Water Gardens, making use of the lay-by alongside. I've never really seen the point in paying to get in, as what you see over the fence is pretty much what you would see if you paid:

After a few hundred yards of busy main road I turned off towards Flaxley Abbey:

.... where the gradient picked up through the woods along one of my favourite valleys. On a quiet day like today (virtually zero traffic on the minor roads) you can hear the bubbling stream down in the valley, along with the screams of buzzards circling overhead.

At Green Bottom I hung a left for the rest of the climb up to Littledean:

At the top, I cut across town, following signs for Newnham on Severn. Right at the top there is a little gate that leads through to one of the best views in Gloucestershire.

I parked up and took a moment to drink in the views from the hilltop down towards Newnham and the whole spectacular bend of the River Severn

Unfortunately it was almost straight into the sun, so the pictures don't really do it justice. In the distance is the Cotswold edge. I retraced my route back down to Flaxley before heading through Northwood Green and uphill again (though more gradually) as far as Birdwood, where I put up with a mile or so of the busy A40 as far as the Red Lion at Huntley, where I turned left and dropped back downhill past Upper Ley and Northwood Green and back to Westbury on Severn. Into the sun all the way, so only one picture, though this sums up the peace and quiet of the completely empty roads:

Just the 21 miles today, but an absolutely magnificent little ride. Loving the Marin mountain bike.

 

[roubaixtuesday]

40 mile circuit of the Forest of Bowland en tandem.

Chilly, bright but damn that was a helluva headwind up the Trough.

1200m climbing

 

[VinSumRox]

Wee circuit in Eastern Borders with friends, pretty breezy.

 

[HLaB]

Out with the local cycling group for a ride to Thrapston then I decided to bag a OS tile, and being a sunny day with extra daylight I then decided to round it up to a ton. I should have went further west after the tile grab as the wind done me in.

 

[Willd]

I decided to see if it was possible to ride from Rugby to Leamington Spa along the path of the old railway

Rugby - railway to nowhere

Heading towards Leamington the first bit is a paved cycle path, then it gets a bit more sketchy

then you get to a Sustrans bit (National cycle Route 41)

I'm not Evel Knievel

Shortly after this I met a couple walking their dogs who said it was impassable, so I thought I'd see what it was like on the return journey
Route 41 then goes on the road until you meet the Grand Union Canal

Some of which is even downhill - woo hoo

Canal then joins the old Leamington to Weedon Railway line - continued in next post...

 

[Willd]

then a detour for HS2

Then back onto the railway, canal and road to Leamington

On the way back I stuck solely to the Leamington to Rugby Railway route - spot where the money ran out...

Then after a lovely new smooth bit

I then met another young couple with a baby who said it's impassable - this time I carried on

After getting wet feet and finding out it was about 8 inches deep, I walked a bit higher up on the cutting:

 

[Willd]

chucked the bike over a couple of fences, walked over a farm track and back down to the railway route - this is the bit the dog walkers gave up at.

So it's certainly possible, but not easy

 

[CarbonClem]

Took advantage of the great weather yesterday to do one of my favourite rides, out through the lanes to Monmouth where there is the superb climb upto the village of Staunton, the back through the Forest of Dean, via Cinderford where I checked out the new blue plaque honouring the band EMF.
Nice tailwind back from Monmouth which helped after the headwind out and the climbs. 62.5 miles 3547ft.