Your ride today....

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It was damp and cold, I was very slow and it was only about 6 miles. And I'm bushed. But it was my first ride since November, and represents another rung on the ladder of getting fit again.
Wish I could be as optimistic about my loss of form. Induction at local gym today and after tried out a Wattbike. Depressed about my form. However as well as time off due to shoulder fracture, I am also just over a virus infection, something like Norro virus.
 
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cosmicbike

Perhaps This One.....
Moderator
Location
Egham
Wish I could be as optimistic about my loss of form. Induction at local gym today and after tried out a Wattbike. Depressed about my form. However as well as time off due to shoulder fracture, I am also just over a virus infection, something like Norris virus.
You've been off the bike for quite a while with the shoulder injury, and to have virus on top of that can't be fun. Perhaps a slow and steady approach to getting back on the bike, especially at this time of year...
 
Flat!!! I must have been in the wrong location

You can just about make out Femes in the picture, left hand valley which is 5.5 miles away and climbs to over 400 meters
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View from the top
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Another route was up to Timanfaya National Park, a tough climb up but the 50 mph crosswind on the road back down made for a scary descend at speeds topping 47mph... Not fun
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45 miles in relentless Scotch mist today. Never really wet, but never dry either. A rather depleted Kingsway CC Intermediates club ride today, with Darren, Ollie, Rich and Matt:
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The ride was from Quedgeley (South of Gloucester) over to Much Marcle via Newent and Dymock and back via Kempley, Newent again and Taynton & Tibberton. The highlights were the nice warm cafe stop at the Weston's Cider Mill at Much Marcle (where coffee and cakes were hoovered up in no time) and the quiet, rolling country lanes from there back to Tibberton ... including a nice quiet tarmac bridleway that Rich showed us as a way of avoiding a bit of the busy main road. Would have been great if a couple of horsey types had had even the remotest idea how to keep their excitable whippets under control. We ran the gauntlet, and came out the other end without any dog bites.

On the outward journey, we briefly demonstrated the combined skills of the Kingsway CC Formation Track Standing Ensemble at the traffic lights in Newent. (A truly fine sight as, to a man, we kept it going right from the lights going red to them turning green again, and then moved off smoothly in formation).

Nice to get out there and work off some of the mince pies. Let's hope the weather dries out a bit soon .... so far in two rides I've done 108 miles this year, and every single damn one of them in the wet. Bring on the Spring!
Cheers, Donger.
If anyone doesn't get enthusiastic about getting out on their bike after seeing this photo then they might need to question if cycling is the sport for them.
Clearly everyone was enjoying themselves and dressed to face the weather. Thanks everyone.
 

Hugh Manatee

Veteran
Wow, 100 pages since my last ride. Motivation has gone! Tonight though I got out. An experiment to see if it helped my breathing which has been rubbish.

Lights charged and tyres pumped up, all I had to do was get changed and go. I then made a terrible mistake. Readers of a more sensitive nature may want to skip to the next entry....

....For those still with me, I find that a liberal application of mega-death-heat warm up balm helps my knees cope in the winter. So, trousers down and a healthy dollop on each knee, use one hand to rub in and immediately off to the bathroom to wash hands. This task safely negotiated, off with the under-crackers and on with the cycling shorts. A bit of a struggle, well,mother are tight and on they went followed quickly by bib-tights and jacket. Shoes, shoe covers, gloves and winter bobble hat complete the look and I'm ready to go.

Outside with the bike and the familiar intense warmth is spreading through my knees. This is followed at the top of the road, by a less welcome stinging burning feeling in areas I wouldn't mention in mixed company! Being a man, I decide it will be temporary and to cycle through the pain.

It takes only 500m or so to make me think a more long term solution is required. A quick U turn in executed followed by a smart sprint home. A frantic knocking at the door brings the wife rushing thinking I have crashed already. Oh, but how I wish it was merely a crash!

The pain is now at a level that makes me frightened to look down lest I see flames. I'm not going to go into the treatment here, but, let's just say I will need to go up to the shop now before the kids can have their bedtime glass of milk!

Dairy therapy and a different pair of shorts later and I'm on my way. A lovely clear night with a bright nearly full moon. No wildlife tonight. I might have heard an owl but this might just have been the breath wheezing into my lungs. Here is a picture of the bike complete with fresh dirt from the 25 miles I managed just to show I did it. Not quite as slow as I feared. I have a winter long big ring embargo. Maybe my scalded nether regions added a little oomph to my speed?

Let me sign off by saying, apply embrocation AFTER you have donned your shorts.

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Old jon

Guru
Location
Leeds
Six degrees! That’s almost warm. Cannot not ride, in the worst possible English. North and a bit west seemed reasonable, and I was not after a big ( for me ) ride. In the end 29.1 miles were covered in weather that improved all the way along.

Holbeck Triangle for a start. Not aircraft but jobs went missing there, but the ride through warms up the legs a bit, and is one way on to the towpath, which I pedalled along to Viaduct Road, travelling this way means Cardigan Road and the tedious climb out to Lawnswood. It is not that steep, but drags on and on. There’s nowt to look at except the outside of big old houses. And the traffic.

Today, carry straight on past Golden Acre Park and through Bramhope, no nadgery downhill today just the simple joy of turning right at the Dyneley Arms and some downhill swoopery on Pool Bank.



After the end of the video, carry straight on to Otley, into quite a breeze today, and then its payback time, the Leeds Road up and back towards home. As the ever obliging Garmin shows, I turned right in Headingley, down the hill to Kirkstall and a trundle back down the towpath, through a neglected lump of Hunslet and home. Grin still in place.

Ever obliging, still in the building,

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Nice(in the end) commute today but took a while to get going with some headwind in some parts not helping:bicycle:.

Was the usual 20p road run in to Cambridge via Histon and then turning down Kings Hedges and through Chesterton,then over and along the river before coming out on Newmarket Rd and then down Coldham's Lane.

Good temperature and got the clothing about right;got a bit warm with a couple of efforts over Histon Bridge and along Kings Hedges Road.

https://www.strava.com/activities/827072253

Yesterday was a short hop from Waterbeach on the mongrel as I had a few things to take to work.

https://www.strava.com/activities/826063593
 

Jon George

Mamil and couldn't care less
Location
Suffolk an' Good
An experimental pootle out to The Trimleys and back to see if an adjustment in layers works (gilet under winter jacket, rather compression top). It does - though if the weather changes too much over the next few days, this kind of micro-management will go out the window. :whistle:

A pic of some beet near Bucklesham. I went for what I considered to be the best composition, rather than the long, long heap of unrefined sugar that extended across the field.

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OP
OP
gbb

gbb

Squire
Location
Peterborough
:smile: First roper ride I think of 2017, done a bit on the turbo and maybe a short ride on the hybrid but today I surprised myself....
Been harbouring a chest cough since Xmas, my shift this last weekend so there hasn't been many opportunities for a ride. Doctors this morning to get my chest checked out, seems OK but she sent me for an x-ray anyway, shopping, home....turbo ?....bike ?...it's blooming blowy out there, I sense myself chickening out...get a grip man, bike out.
Just 19 steady miles given my chest is still a bit ropey, hard work on the out run, lovely on the return, just nice to spend some time outside while the sun was shining...occasionally. it's a right mixed bag out there.:whistle:
 

twentysix by twentyfive

Clinging on tightly
Location
Over the Hill
Wow the wind was strong. 40 mph gusts. Scary. Rich B and I headed for the shelter of the lanes. That worked. Hedges are a superb invention. We worked our way down to the Marsh where the wind helped us across to more shelter on the other side. The Hams are a bit exposed in places but although we had a mostly cross wind there was a component helping. We decided to miss out on Woolridge today. There would be strong winds up there. Not long and we arrived at the cafe. Lovely soup, tea and chat.

Ralph R had planned to join us here. Winds on the open main roads forced him to abandon. Another reason to avoid main roads. We rode upwards to Brand Green with the woods giving us shelter. Then we dropped and climbed to Redmarley. Rich decided we would go by Pendock. The choice wasn't so important now as the wind was moderating noticeably. We looped back to Castlemorton but took the Brotheridge Green route to keep the wind at bay. That worked too but by now Rich was tiring so he tucked in on my wheel over the last 5 miles. No worries. A lovely 51 smile outing with my pal.
 
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