England : West Yorkshire Hilly ride from Hebden Bridge, 66 km (41 miles), Sat. 31/01 or 7/02?

[Dadam]

Realised there was no update on this so thought I'd post a summary. No photos though sorry.

Enjoyable ride with @ColinJ and very welcome motivation to actually get the 50km a month off the ground on the last possible day. Without it there was an evens chance I'd have blobbed on the day.

So was it chillysoggytastic? More like chillytastic. Soggy came later after the cafe stop but overall we were very lucky with the weather, even having patches of sunshine in the morning! At one point I was debating shedding a layer but it clouded over ominously about lunchtime and the wind on the tops kept the chill on. The clouds threatened but never quite delivered rain until leaving Craggies. The ride down the valley into freezing drizzle was a bit grim but we knew it was the last leg.

I found it hard work even with the ebike. I had to stop for a breather twice on the way up towards Hardcastle Crags. After the first break the bike had auto shut off after 2 minutes. I turned the bike on but forgot it defaults to no assist (level zero). I didn't realise for a minute or two until I ground to a gasping halt! The motor is really quiet and I probably didn't notice over my panting I just thought my fitness had got even worse than I realised!

Kudos to Colin though, for a septuagenarian he's a machine! He just keeps going and going, steady away. I usually end up going ahead on a long uphill. That's partly because my hub motor can bog down when the going gets slow, but also when the speed is 4mph or below I'm a little bit more wobbly.

 

[Dadam]

Also a day of technical challenges of the electronic kind. My ebike wouldn't charge the night before so I had to make do with the 85% it had in the tank. Luckily this was fine, getting back to the car with about 15%. Turns out there's an issue with either the charger or BMS, where it charges fine up to 85% then stops with a red flashing light on the charger. I'm thinking the cells have gone out of balance.

Other issue was my Garmin wouldn't sync with my phone. The issue here was I hadn't loaded the route. I'd just remembered to do it in the faffing around before we set off in the station car park, but the phone could not see the device at all. In the end I sacked it off and relied on Colin's navigation. There were only 2 occasions where I went past a turning and luckily was either still in sight and thought to stop just in case.

Turns out that it's a known issue and the latest version of Garmin Connect app has a tendency to forget the devices. I sorted it by unpairing it from the phone's bluetooth settings and then re-pairing it through the app. A bit more pre ride preparation the night before would have been in order, but no matter.

 

[ColinJ]

Kudos to Colin though, for a septuagenarian he's a machine!

Haha!

I forgot to come back on here to update the thread, distracted by the fact that the niggling sore throat I'd had before the ride turned into a proper cold late on Saturday evening.

Yes, your titanic surge up the second half of the steepish gravel climb from Hardcastle Crags was funny to watch! You used up all available lung capacity in less than 10 seconds and ground to a gasping halt ahead of me.

I thought the clipless pedal problem-induced sideways topple was also pretty funny once I realised that you and the bike were ok because you had performed the manoeuvre onto a soft grass verge!

I felt pretty rough yesterday so I had a very quiet day in.

One thing that I was going to test yesterday was RCS messaging from my Android phone to your iPhone. I could see that some of the messages between us had been sent as SMS and some as RCS. I started composing my test message to you and attached a photo and a video clip but while writing the text itself the RCS indicator flipped to SMS and my attachments were lost. It seems that you almost have RCS capability but not quite. It might be worth you checking that out when you have a free moment?

I am still having that MacBook problem that I was talking about. I hadn't realised that I need to use the laptop every day otherwise after 2 days it reverts to disabling the fingerprint ID reader. I get confused because I have different passwords for the laptop and Apple services and then it won't accept either of those passwords for iCloud syncing. The device had been completely reset by its previous owner so I don't know what is going on!

Well, I should drag myself out of my sick bed and see whether I feel any better with a brunch inside me.

Weather-permitting, I will arrange another ride in 2 or 3 weeks time. I am thinking of my scenic (lumpy!!) loop from Hebden Bridge via Haworth and Laneshaw Bridge. That would be 55-60 km and probably around 1,300 m of ascent.

 

[Dadam]

Yes, your titanic surge up the second half of the steepish gravel climb from Hardcastle Crags was funny to watch! You used up all available lung capacity in less than 10 seconds and ground to a gasping halt ahead of me.

Was that the one just preceding the clipless fall? Was it only ten seconds? It felt a lot longer, like forever!

I thought the clipless pedal problem-induced sideways topple was also pretty funny once I realised that you and the bike were ok because you had performed the manoeuvre onto a soft grass verge!

I'd forgotten to mention the 2 clipless falls. My first 2 ever! The second one was because I couldn't get going up a later hill, ironic as I'd recently been saying the motor pickup is reasonably quick compared to a lot of hub motor bikes!

You were asking me about the elevation gain my computer was picking up. I've just noticed the data on Garmin Connect, I think there may be an issue with its elevation sensing!

 

[ColinJ]

Actually, you probably managed twenty to thirty seconds but it sounded funnier as ten!

Your tech definitely had a major glitch. My Wahoo had a more minor one. If you look at the elevation profile below you will get a more accurate picture! (That includes the extra distance that I rode before and after Hebden Bridge.) The minor glitch is the boost in the ascent figure which is way bigger than the descent figure despite me starting and finishing at my front door.

 

[Dadam]

Fixed it. That looks a bit more accurate. (The temperature is a bit off though, it makes it seem like a pleasant spring day!)

We were discussing on the ride that it should be fixable by an app setting. This doesn't help you with your Wahoo device but for a Garmin, in the Garmin Connect web app (not the phone app), go into activity, then click on the gear icon top right and Change Elevation Source, select Digital Elevation Model (DEM)

 

[Dadam]

Zoomed in the elevation plot. A weird little drop to 100m about halfway.

 

[ColinJ]

Zoomed in the elevation plot. A weird little drop to 100m about halfway.

View attachment 799206

That is in Cornholme just where we came back down to the valley. If you remember, we turned right and went under a railway bridge. The Garmin probably lost the satellite signals for a moment?

My Wahoo gave a much more realistic temperature profile...

The first spike is the device cooling down from leaving my house. The second one is it warming up inside my pannier at Craggies. You can also see a couple of peaks of 3-5 C which were probably those nice sunny spells that we had. You can clearly see how the temperature plummeted in the freezing rain after we left the cafe and how it was still damn chilly when I added my extra loop at the end to get to 50+ miles.

 

[Dogtrousers]

Zoomed in the elevation plot. A weird little drop to 100m about halfway.

View attachment 799206

pothole?

 

[ColinJ]

Nice write up, I was out in the morning (not on the bike) and noticed it was cold and got quite damp in the afternoon. I kinda regret not coming but I think I made the right decision.

We have both lost a lot of fitness and found it pretty tough going.

We shortened the route by about 7 km and took some easier alternatives within what we did do. The original route might have been a bit much and we definitely wouldn't have got to Craggies in time. We got there only 20 minutes before closing time.

The next ride will be shorter, but still hilly - around 1,100 m of ascent in 53 km.