gavgav
Legendary Member
A glorious sunny Good Friday morning for a bike ride. Looks like the rest of the weekend is a washout!
I was meeting @Rickshaw Phil and his brother Doug down the road at 8am, but had a bit of a rush to get ready after setting my alarm for 06:45.........on Saturday instead of Friday, meaning I woke up at 7:10 instead
I was there a few minutes early in the end and they arrived shortly, so we headed up the poorly maintained cycle paths to Shelton and then out on the road to Bicton and Montford Bridge, before turning onto lanes to Shrawardine. We were into the westerly breeze for the first 15 miles or so and it was quite hard going at times, despite it being fairly flat through Pentre and Melverley.
We saw a few cyclists, one of whom was my boss out on his road bike for the first time this year
.
We crossed into Wales and out onto the busier main road at Crew Green, but all the traffic was well behaved and we made good progress to Princes Oak, where we stopped for a few minutes to take a photo and learn some historical information that I will leave @Rickshaw Phil to pass on.
View towards the Berwyns (where I was climbing in 3 ft of snow 3 weeks ago!)
There is quite a climb up Pecknall Lane, around 500 ft to the top, but we all coped fine and at the top we saw 3 chaps doing some DIY pothole repairs which had included setting fire to the grass verge
! We then enjoyed the downhill section to Halfway House, crossing the busy A458 fairly easily, and then on to Westbury, before some more climbing up Hinton Lane. What goes up must come down and there is a fast downhill section to Adderley before we turned off towards Edge. A chap came out of his house, on a bike, just in front of us, more about him later!
It's a bit lumpy along this section and Doug was starting to feel it a bit, with this being his longest ride since October, but he still did extremely well.
We passed the chap on his bike, on the lanes and then negotiated the nasty crossing at Lea, before he then passed us again as we began the short steep climb towards Arscott. We stopped for a quick snack and Phil had found a rear bike light on the road and so he said he would head on fast to catch the chap and see if it was his. It was! Good deed done for the day.
We pressed on to Annscroft and then joined the busier road to Hook-a-Gate, which with the wind behind us was a fast few miles and again all traffic was well behaved
We had a quick stop after Doug had a bit of a moment with his lace getting caught in the chain! before arriving back at Nobold and branching off through Meole Brace. We went our separate ways at Meole Island and I arrived home having done my 50k ride for the month finally, on a very enjoyable ride.
33.3 miles at 11.3mph avg
I was meeting @Rickshaw Phil and his brother Doug down the road at 8am, but had a bit of a rush to get ready after setting my alarm for 06:45.........on Saturday instead of Friday, meaning I woke up at 7:10 instead
I was there a few minutes early in the end and they arrived shortly, so we headed up the poorly maintained cycle paths to Shelton and then out on the road to Bicton and Montford Bridge, before turning onto lanes to Shrawardine. We were into the westerly breeze for the first 15 miles or so and it was quite hard going at times, despite it being fairly flat through Pentre and Melverley.
We saw a few cyclists, one of whom was my boss out on his road bike for the first time this year
.We crossed into Wales and out onto the busier main road at Crew Green, but all the traffic was well behaved and we made good progress to Princes Oak, where we stopped for a few minutes to take a photo and learn some historical information that I will leave @Rickshaw Phil to pass on.
View towards the Berwyns (where I was climbing in 3 ft of snow 3 weeks ago!)
There is quite a climb up Pecknall Lane, around 500 ft to the top, but we all coped fine and at the top we saw 3 chaps doing some DIY pothole repairs which had included setting fire to the grass verge
! We then enjoyed the downhill section to Halfway House, crossing the busy A458 fairly easily, and then on to Westbury, before some more climbing up Hinton Lane. What goes up must come down and there is a fast downhill section to Adderley before we turned off towards Edge. A chap came out of his house, on a bike, just in front of us, more about him later!It's a bit lumpy along this section and Doug was starting to feel it a bit, with this being his longest ride since October, but he still did extremely well.
We passed the chap on his bike, on the lanes and then negotiated the nasty crossing at Lea, before he then passed us again as we began the short steep climb towards Arscott. We stopped for a quick snack and Phil had found a rear bike light on the road and so he said he would head on fast to catch the chap and see if it was his. It was! Good deed done for the day.
We pressed on to Annscroft and then joined the busier road to Hook-a-Gate, which with the wind behind us was a fast few miles and again all traffic was well behaved
We had a quick stop after Doug had a bit of a moment with his lace getting caught in the chain! before arriving back at Nobold and branching off through Meole Brace. We went our separate ways at Meole Island and I arrived home having done my 50k ride for the month finally, on a very enjoyable ride.
33.3 miles at 11.3mph avg
While I'm reading the notice and group of 6 riders stop then three motorbikes they certainly missing some trade . The six rider make for a cafe further from home but I think there's a cafe in Harby so I go for that one .Get to the end of the lane and there's two female riders stopped waiting .I ask them if there heading for Dove cottage they say they are so I break the bad news that the second closed cafe for them I tell them where I'm heading for and they say they will try it when the others there waiting for catch up. So back to Harby and praise be the cafe open and is full of cyclists So a coffee and sausage cob 
and sit outside and share a table with the ladies who had followed me there.Lovely snack with great company and its time to head home .So out to Stathern and the climb out of the Vale which is a bit of a brute . So retracing my route back to Home via Landdyke land to Ab Kettleby and back up the Wreake valley passing loads of riders it seems everyone out in the sunshine
).
