Your ride today....

Page may contain affiliate links. Please see terms for details.

Rickshaw Phil

Overconfidentii Vulgaris
Moderator
A disaster day today. First roadworks are still a nightmare, then on the B4404 workmen have covered the road in gravel. They will go over it with hot tar. Total no no for the bike, so turned round and headed for home. Only 6 miles done and the weather looked decidedly errr unfriendly as well.
View attachment 360807
Have a like for the report anyway.
 

pawl

Legendary Member
Lovely ride today, with a good friend.
After an 01:00 finish from w*rk, I was happy with an 09:30 meet up time to start our ride.
No particular route planned, but the bikes of choice were our CX's.
As the route panned out, we should have taken the MTB's :whistle:

We headed, via tarmac and gravel, around the Washlands and the fisheries there, to Little and then Great Houghton. Normally, the hill up there is a bit of a tester, but possibly due to quite a few road miles recently, it seemed a bit easier.
On towards Salcey Forest, I bagged a TP that I'd passed numerous times, but never investigated.

View attachment 360745

As we were nearby, a circuit of Salcey Forest seemed in order, but as we were a bit early, we didn't stop at the cafe this time.

Once over the M1 into Hartwell, we were in @Drago territory but didn't see anyone resembling him so carried on towards the canal banks via Bozenham Mill and Grafton Regis for several miles along rough canal banks to Stoke Bruerne.

View attachment 360782

With a stop for coffee and an Italian chicken Punani there, we rode slightly better off road sections back towards Northampton.

A visit from the p*ncture fairy, as expected on the canal banks, happened, but after a re-inflation or two over several miles, I decided to change the tube once we were in a suitably shady spot.

View attachment 360783

Within 7 or 8 miles of home, the Woodbridge cafe beckoned, and tea was ordered, plus a Strawberry Split lolly :okay:
Most welcome in the hot and humid weather.

With a few deviations, we were back near home on 42 miles, and I was ready for a a pint of........... Ice cold Lemon Barley!! (Dang, run out of beer!)

https://www.strava.com/activities/1070407559

:smile:
 

Supersuperleeds

Legendary Member
Location
Leicester
After no riding for two days as I've been fishing with my dad, today was the chance to catch up some miles and to bag some more squares for the Veloviewer explorer squares.

Left the house at 6am, gloriously warm. The plan was to ride towards Nuneaton and bag some tricky squares off the A5. This did mean doing a couple of miles on the A5 which I wasn't looking forward to, as it turned out it was too bad and for half of it the traffic was slow enough for me to keep pace with it.

For those that are interested the picture below is the sort of stuff I take the road bike down to bag squares. This was the first of three tracks I road down today, the other two were loose gravel.

WP_20170707_07_31_10_Pro.jpg


After grabbing the squares I wanted around Nuneaton it was back on to familiar routes due North through Market Bosworth and Asby de la Zouch to get to East Midlands Airport to bag some more squares.

Going into Melbourne I hit an 11% decent and enjoyed the ride down, to only notice I had missed a track I needed to go down, so turned around and dragged my rear back to the top. On the plus side I got to go down the hill again.

I skirted around the airport and headed west through the delightfully named Gotham - yes it is the place that inspired Gotham City in the Batman comics. Had a brief stop in Gotham to refill a water bottle, drink a can of coke and eat some fruit loaf me mam had given me.

Then onto the even more delightfully named village of Bunny, didn't see any though. From there it was too far to my planned stop at Nice Pie. Pear and Lemon cake devoured here along with a pot of tea big enough to get three cups out of. Suitably refreshed it was time to head towards Waltham (home of pedigree pet foods) and bag the last squares of the day, after which it was a descent into Melton Mowbray and back once again onto familiar roads.

At this point I decided to ignore the route and do a couple of extra miles by going the lazy way through Leicester. This meant slowing down as I went though the parks and used cycle paths.

As it turned out this was a good idea as when I got to the space centre there were loads of kids out on bikes, must have been 30 or 40 of them. One lad said to me he liked my bike, which I replied I liked his, this got him a big cheer from his mates ^_^

When I got to Abbey Park there was another big group of kids on bikes. Obviously it is the annual lets get the kids on bikes day for Leicester schools. :laugh:

By the time I got home the originally planned route of 125 miles had turned into 134 miles and is my 3rd longest ride :becool:

https://www.strava.com/activities/1071908614
 
Last edited:

cosmicbike

Perhaps This One.....
Moderator
Location
Egham
I had planned to have a go at my first imperial century today, but time constraints stopped that. Instead I headed out with a workmate up to Velolife café via Cookham. A nice, planned route that would have seen me to 63 miles, except I suggested a change of route home to avoid going over roads already covered. By the time I got home I'd done 72.3 miles, the most I've ever done, so quite pleased with that. I'll likely be found asleep on the sofa after posting this...
 

Glow worm

Legendary Member
Location
Near Newmarket
A nice 'warm up' ride of only 17 miles today from Breda to Baarle Nassau before tomorrow's mammouth (for me) 70 odd miler back to Hook of Holland for the boat to Blighty.

IMG_2070.JPG


The small lumps are storks- the first I have ever seen in the wild. This is from the extremely pleasant riverside cycle path heading south out of Breda.

IMG_2073.JPG


The riverside path soon becomes a forest path. Just lovely.

IMG_2075.JPG


Then onto a road for a bit.

IMG_2079.JPG


Destination reached after the most effortless ride I can remember.

Baarle Nassau is a town half Dutch and half Belgian. In fact there are about 30 'exclaves' of Belgium within Holland. The Belgian bit is called Baarle Hertog.

IMG_2080.JPG


The border.

IMG_2081.JPG


It runs through the middle of this shop! You can see from the wall, the building has two addresses!
IMG_2085.JPG


Had lunch at the table behind the flowers. Table in Holland and I could reach into my panniers on the bike in Belgium.

IMG_2088.JPG


All houses here have either a Dutch or a Belgian flag depending on where they are. This is my Band B in Holland. Next door is in Belgium. Love it.

Tommorrow I turn the bike around and head back west. Shame, I quite fancy pointing it east and carrying on until I hit the Pacific. Another time perhaps.
 
Last edited:
I got out for a 72 miler today, into the South Downs.

IMG_4863.JPG

View from Droxford

IMG_4869.JPG


Top of old Winchester Hill

IMG_4870.JPG

Stunning view today.

IMG_4874.JPG

Hambledon cricket club.

IMG_4876.JPG


The Bat and Ball at Hambledon.

IMG_4894.JPG


Beer and a view

IMG_4896.JPG

Pavilion at Hambledon cricket club site.

IMG_4897.JPG


This is where Cricket originated.

A lovely ride, except for the cretins that thought they would move my bike from the bench where I had it propped up in the pub garden, then sit where I was, whilst I was getting a beer.

I wasn't happy, I made sure they were fully aware of this fact, hopefully they won't touch anyone's bike in future.

Anyway, 120 Kms completed and some stunning scenery.

https://www.relive.cc/view/1071902857
 
Out again today, probably none again until Mon.

Based mainly on familiar roads
Went via some hills (Prune, Tite, and Crimp) through Windsor Great Park, and round most of the Drift Road Loop.

Then down the Western edge of the park, on the switchback road, and chose the wrong way through Egham, the scandalous wait of over 15 minutes for 4 trains to pass throw at level crossing, yet it Wales last year I saw an automated barrier that opened for just 48 seconds.

Anyway good ride apart again from some traffic queues and roadworks slowing the speed
33.83 miles at 15.4 mph

1414 feet climbed

https://www.strava.com/activities/1071767818
 
Last edited:

gavgav

Legendary Member
Got my half century challenge ride bagged for the month, but should hopefully have a few more chances to get some bigger miles in July as well, after the rubbish last 2 months, illness permitting!

Warm and only a gentle breeze for the first time in what seems like months, as I took the Carbon on its hilliest ride so far. Began by heading to Betton, Berrington and Cound, then beginning the climb up Kenley Bank. It's a steep pull up there and the gearing means it's a stand on the pedals job, but set my fastest time up there so far and so that proves it's not all down to low gears to get you up a hill.

I then turned along the lumpy section to Church Preen, before dropping down to Gretton and a lunch stop. Passed through Cardington, where it was village fete day, before the long pull up Folly Bank. The descent to Comley was great fun on this bike, as I hit 33mph and continued to set a good pace to Longnor, Frodesley, Acton Burnell, Pitchford, Cantlop and Betton.

I hadn't quite got enough miles in the bag and so I looped through Sutton Farm estate, where I had the 1 numpty of the day, giving me a very close pass about 600 yards from home :thumbsdown:

31.6 miles at 12.8mph avg
 
@Racing roadkill, didn't realise there was a stone at Broadhalfpenny Down to commemorate the Hambledon club. Might have to plan a way of seeing it!

Today's ride was one of those lovely ones where there were little other plans so I could do a ride of my own choosing (and bag some veloviewer squares). Two routes were available and I took the route out toward Melton. Some superb roads round the north of Burrough Hill were ridden out toward Whissendine and only found one impassable road on the route near Burton Lazars but thankfully didn't need it for the square.

From Asfordby, I headed north toward Ab Kettleby up a lovely incline. Enough to raise a sweat but not enough to really tire me. Stopped at Nice Pies for an early lunch just after 11 and had some of the pear and lemon cake that @Supersuperleeds mentioned a few posts ago. It was lovely! Down the ridge to home and a quick loop to bring up the metric ton.

Splendid day for riding!
 
Top Bottom