Your ride today....

[Dave 123]

I decided to take my mountain bike out today to get a bit of shelter from the wind.
From Hardwick to Caldecote across the fields, a farmer was taking the windy opportunity to burn stuff that smelled like tyres, naughty boy.

On the hill into Kingston I had to turn round to take this pic, a great illustration of the last few hours. 'We're still up at the top of the pole, but only just!'

Along the Wimpole Way, muddy in places from the rain. At the top of the ridge I took this gloomy picture looking toward Royston

I zoomed down the hill and into the estate, taking the obligatory pic

Out of the Arrington gate and up the winding lane through the village. The wheat field made me stop and admire the view

Before climbing the steep hill up to Hayley I went off road to see Clopton medieval village. A few soil mounds and stuff....

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clopton,_Cambridgeshire

Up the hill I went and then took a bridleway that eventually brought me out at the Red House. On the way I was stopped by these good lookers...

This bracket fungus made me put my brakes on sharp, it was impressive!
Here is another pic for scale

Between the Red House and Bourn I gave it some welly, luckily there was nobody around, I was flying.

More wheat fields were making me take photos

https://www.strava.com/activities/1028075888

A nice, blowy 26 miles.

 

[cosmicbike]

Ride from Wednesday as we were coming home yesterday

It was rather a sad visit to Devonn as the main pupose of our stay was to see Mrs S's brother who is very ill and who ended our stay in hospital
We also met up with family who were visiting which took much of the time.

With poor weather, I only managed 3 rides

Went on a loop to Slapton Ley alongside the lake and up the very steep hill. inland and back again.
27.59 miles with 2635 feet of climbing
11.9 mph average

Was managing the steep climb out of Slapton Village until rear wheel hit some dirt and spun out to one side. No chance of getting started again.
However though all rides were short with lots of clmbing did reasonably well.

https://www.strava.com/activities/1024987402

The 3 rides totalled only 68 miles with 7582 feet of climbing

Like for the ride @Stonechat not the reason for being there.

 

[cosmicbike]

A much nicer ride home at 0300hrs this morning, the wind had died off a bit, no rain and quite mild. Amusingly I nearly dozed off whilst riding along, only happened once before now, not sure it's possible to actually fall asleep whilst riding mind...
Woken far too early by DPD delivering a fridge for the campervan, but once I'm awake there's no going back to bed so out with the Brompton and off to Sainsburys for some mushrooms (smaller than @Dave 123 s I might add). Have now fettled the loose headset on the Boardman CX during one of those short sharp showers, another 60 miles and it's time for a new chain and cassette.

 

[srw]

Amersham to Guildford on the touring tandem, via Windsor Great Park and Woking.

It's a heavy bike!

 

[Simontm]

So Accuweather got its forecast back to front and I got soaked. The planned 20 miler curtailed to 15 as I thought sod this for a lark. As I got home the sun appeared and blue skies abound, but since my feet were now swimming I called it a day.
And carbon doesn't melt, fancy that

 

[twentysix by twentyfive]

I was a bit late heading out today. But I did make the effort. Quite windy out there so I took to the lanes on the way south to avoid some of it. Then I had it relatively easy out to The Mythe and on up to Bredon. Even the ramp to Conderton seemed fairly easy. Surely I'd pay for this I thought. Still no trouble to Pershore but as I'd picked the Croome route back I was expecting to be exposed on the open ground on the way to Upton. So it proved as my average pace began to drop away. Even so I made it across the River for the run back from Upton. My pace actually rose again. Now that was a good one today. 53 smiles

 

[gavgav]

The relentless rain and gales finally gave way to some warmer sunshine and so I got out for a short ride after work. Still windy, but nothing like it has been for most of the week.

Headed through Meole and out onto the road to Hook A Gate and Annscroft, before turning out of the wind to Stapleton. Called at dad's for a chat and then pressed on to Condover, where I patiently waited at the roadworks for a green light. They turned to green, I set off and a stupid woman in a Chelsea Tractor came up to the opposite end of the roadworks, decided she couldn't possibly wait and stormed through on red at a ridiculous speed But of course it's only us cyclists that jump red lights isnt it .

Continued on at good speed to Betton and home, with 14.7 miles done and a average speed of 14.1 mph, the first time I've ever broken the 14 mph average speed barrier

 

[Shut Up Legs]

I had the toughest time finding this thread! I hadn't viewed it for a while, and just assumed it would be in one of the cycling-related sub-forums.

Anyway, this morning I did another training ride for my European Alps trip, for which I leave on Wednesday week. I got up at 6 and left at 6:35, returning home around 12pm. Given that it's winter here, it doesn't even start getting light until about 7am, plus it was freezing cold. My Garmin GPS computer said it got as low as -0.5°C on the way to the mountain. Even during the ride, it stayed mostly below 6°C.

I live only 15km from the start of the nearest climb up Mt Dandenong, conveniently enough. It's ideal for climbing training, with at least 4 major roads leading up it, and several minor variations, with grades ranging from an easy 4.5% to a punishing 25%, depending on which road you choose. The suburbs around it are all at about 180m elevation, and the mountain summit is 633m, so one climb is typically about 500m climbing (no, not 450m, because there's a bit of descending in there too).

I'm now sitting here with that pleasant ache in my legs meaning that I gave the legs a jolly good workout without overdoing it. I rode up the mountain 3 times, for a total of about 88.5km with 1775m climbing. If I do this enough times between now and Wednesday week, it will definitely help on the trip, because over 14 days of riding, the trip will see me averaging about 80km and 2000m climbing per day, so today wasn't too different from that.

Also, the average grade over just the climbing part of today's ride (I have an application which measures this) was about 7.35%, which isn't that different to some European Alpine or Pyrenean climbs.

When I got up to the summit the first time (about 9am), Melbourne was visible in the distance, with the area around the mountain covered in mist:

To put the above in context, as I said, Mt Dandenong summit is 633m up, and Melbourne is at about 20m, and about 35km away in a straight line.

Elevation and temperature profiles are below also, for those who like diagrams :

 

[Aravis]

A good opportunity yesterday for a ride I've had planned for a while. It was still pretty windy so frequent changes of direction were definitely a good thing. The final total was 120.3 miles, and an outline which I think is recognisable:

Once of the nice things about creating an artistic outline is that it forces you to find local roads you've never used before. This was particularly true yesterday in the dorsal fin area. Completing the nose meant two crossings of the Malverns at quite a late stage. That was fun too, I think. At the top there was the reward of this view:

There was some promise yesterday that the wind might slacken later on so I rode in a clockwise direction. However, as seemed likely, any softening of the wind came too late and the final 25 miles from Worcester turned into a real battle. This may sound a bit feeble, but I never like to see a moving average speed on Strava below 20km/h, and I could tell it would be touch and go. I did get there, with a couple of tenths to spare.

The altimeter seems to have me finishing belong sea level, suggesting that atmospheric pressure rose during the day. Does that make it noticeably harder to pedal into the wind? Often I think it does. Or maybe moist, humid air is easier to slip through.

 

[Simontm]

Short 25 today. Round Kingston, Hampton, up to Laleham via Shepperton Studios then a nice stroll back down the river to Chertsey, Weybridge, Walton then into a parade waiting to start in Molesey cue much excuse me's, sorries etc then home.

 

[biggs682]

A very nice 45 miles earlier this morning on my Panasonic decided to head up towards Kelmarsh .

And find some new roads and Villages like Thorpe Underwood I also found some small slopes .

Homeward leg was mostly new to me roads is Haselbeach, Cottersbrook, Creaton, Brixworth, Spratton, Church Brampton and then Boughton , Moulton.

After Moulton came Overstone and Sywell then home via the mad mile.

Dry to start with a few short showers and the wind started to pick up towards home .

 

[jayonabike]

Saturday morning ride

I was meeting up with a mate to do a few miles at 9.30, but as I was ready by just after 9 I thought I'd get a couple of miles in to warm the legs up. I did a little loop my side of town and got 5 miles in by the time I met up with Dave.
He had plotted a route today of 45 miles (he had to get back fairly early) mainly country lanes looping through Hertfordshire & Bedfordshire. Lovely route as it goes, took me down some lanes I've never cycled.
As we neared home I left him and got another five miles in to give me 55 for the ride. I would of carried on for a bit if it wasn't for the blustery endless wind.
Nice ride.

 

[Dave 123]

Out on the tandem this morning in warm, windy conditions. The sun was out too!

In Knapwell it must have been 'National wave at the tandem day'. Even motorists were waving a pleasant hello!

Up over the hill from Elsworth and on to Hilton, a mile with a tail wind. Then we turned to a SW direction and a mile of lovely headwind!
It took forever to cross the A428 at Croxton today, but it gave my bum a rest. Some days the tandem saddle and me don't get on.

In Abbotsley the road had just been surfaced dressed, then had bitumen put over the top, we could hear a quite gluey noise from the tyres and the road. We kept rolling.

At Waresley we stoped for food, panini all round. We then returned home with a tail wind.

Coming in to Hardwick somebody wanted to stop at the pub, who am I to argue?
A nice pint was had before the 1 mile ride home.

https://www.strava.com/activities/1029703550

 

[Biff600]

I did my normal Saturday 27 mile run around the north of Peterborough, but today was the first time on the new bike.

What a difference, so much easier to ride, way faster than the Cannondale, to the point of knocking 2 minutes off my previous best time.

It was very blustery, and although I had a back wind for the initial part of the ride, I did have a strong gusting headwind to contend with for the last 8 miles.

I'm off to a wedding reception this evening, so depending on how much I drink tonight, depends on how far I'll venture out tomorrow !!

 

[srw]

Back home from Guildford with Mrs W on the back of the tandem. With thanks to @SandySnake for his suggestion of a route around the east of Virginia Water, which was probably easier in terms of climbing than our usual route across Brenda's back garden to the west past the polo field. The stoker's saddle has now been adjusted, so with luck it'll be closer to the right place than it was...