Official CycleChat Jersey's Relay - Journal

[longers]

Only a week after dragging the jersey out of Yorkshire it was time to send it back in that direction.

This coincided with a ride organised by Marinyork so five of us met at the Devils Plughole at Ladybower Reservoir on a fine spring day.

It was a bit misty early on but the sun shone as we met up.

View down the reservoir.

The Devils Plughole.

We set off in sunshine and headed off to our first cafe at Eyam. An excellent selection of cakes were on offer and it comes highly recommended.

It was a bit hazy but we were still able to enjoy the beautiful scenery of the Dark Peak and it changing to the very different geology of the White Peak as we headed towards Ashford, we did seem to turn into Fools on the way though.

Alun being a fool

Bokonon being a fool

Me being a fool

We managed to get through the bustling metropolis of Bakewell unscathed which was very busy indeed. No time for a tart though. Our dinner stop was to be at Flagg which meant a very decent hill out of Bakewell to Flagg via Monyash up which hill Bokonon led the way again closely followed by his brother again.

Another excellent cafe stop at a cyclist friendly establishment where we only missed another forummer by dint of him not being on his club run.

From there we headed to the city of Tideswell to do the swapover of the jersey, I thought the Cathedral would make a better backdrop than the misty fields we'd been passing so a kindly passerby was collared.

From left to right: Alun, Bokonon, Me, Bokonons brother who very occasionally posts on here - I think he goes by the name of Jellymould but a very decent fellow he is in real life and the ride organise just in front - Marinyork.

From there we made our way back to the finish back at the start. A great day out in good company on a lovely day, thanks to Marinyork for organising it.

Special marks to Bokonon for riding it fixed and showing us all a clean pair of heels up the hills and to everyone for not getting any punctures.

 

[Arch]

Northern Jersey:

Not sure if I should do the write up, since I wasn't really handing over or recieving... Anyway, for now, here's the handover pic. As it's hoped it'll head even further north, we decided to take it at this homage to the Forth Rail Bridge, on the edge of York.

View attachment 2567

Admin is standing in for Calum, who actually brought it along, but who had peeled off by the time we remembered to take the picture. Picking up the baton, so to speak, is TheLoafer.

We had a great ride (50 miles +), glorious weather, and a nice pub lunch. What more do you need to know?

PS - for the third time, the jersey visited York Minster before the handover. It's getting to be a bit of a habit...

 

[theloafer]

yes arch was a really great day sorry i had no time to have tea and cakes ...by the way how was the bran flake loaf i left with admin going to arange a time and meet up with col..in darlington so he can sign the jersey before it heads further up north... would you be able to e-mail me some copies of the pics taken on the day as i thought i had left my camera at home but found it in the bottom of my bar bag after i took out the loaf..dohh

 

[Bokonon]

Northern Jersey:

Having only just got the picture of my phone, I will now put this thread in disarray by posting Thursday's hand-over report after Sunday's.

The Northern Jersey was passed on to Calum at Mr Foley's pub in Leeds on the evening of Thursday 26 March. The hand-over was witnessed by colly. 7 pints of the finest ales were consumed. colly then returned to work , I went home to a bowl of chilli con carne and Calum, being of the student persuasion, left to carry on drinking elsewhere.

The attached picture is of Calum with the jersey.

 

[theloafer]

jersey handover

meet up with fnaar and graham56 at newcastle this morning 10-30ish.. took handover pic then we had a rideover the milennium bridge and graham with his excellent local knowledge lead us south of the river on the ncn14 to the pedestrian tunnel..then back to newcastle on ncn72 and part of hadrian cycleway was amost excellent day out... thanks to graham and fnaar.

LtoR graham56-fnaar-theloafer

 

[Fnaar]

Started off as a foggy morning in Northumberland, and I needed lights on as I headed towards Newcastle. Ended up nice 'n' sunny, though. As Loafer said, nice ride heading east along south bank of Tyne, to cyclist/pedestrian tunnel. As Loafer's pic shows (see below) it was used by 20,000 people a day at one time... blimey... Headed beack west along north bank of Tyne to start point at Millennium Bridge (the blinking eye one). Good to meet Graham56 (again) and The Loafer... cheers fellas!

1st Pic: Graham 56 and the Loafer
2nd Pic: Fnaar and Graham 56
3rd Pic: the tunnel

 

[Fnaar]

Onwards to Scotchland

The jersey had languished in my wardrobe for long enough, and so the day came for it to continue on its journey north. It was warm enough for me to wear my short-sleeved Cycle Chat jersey as I headed out from home, passing through some of Northumberland’s finest scenery, and through or past places with such wonderful names as Dyke Neuk, Netherwitton, Nunnykirk, Snitter, Lorbottle, Callaly, Weetwood and Doddington. One wrong turn added half an hour to my journey, but I was soon back on track, and the “rolling” scenery provided enough entertainment and hilly challenge.
Just out of Doddington, now heading north-west towards the border and Coldstream itself, a call from behind alerted me to Graham56, who’d been at work that morning, got a lift some of the way, then caught me up; and so we headed on, through Fenton and Milfield. Milfield is eight miles from Coldstream, and there’s a bit of a climb before you roll down towards the Tweed. We stopped to put on waterproof tops, and it was at this point that the gathering dark clouds threw their worst at us; I can only describe that last section as bloody hard work, with sideways wind and sideways rain. We arrived at Coldstream freezing cold and very wet, and headed for a caff to warm up. The caff was hosting a kids’ birthday party (either that, or it doubled as a nursery) and the much-needed tea was a while coming!
I checked into my hotel (more on this later) and put on something warmer. A quick phone call to Hairy Jock later, and we met (also Mrs HJ and Scoosh) by the bridge over the Tweed; HJ arrived in kilt, which was a nice touch (if you see what I mean!)
After the handover and photo-opportunity on the bridge, we said goodbye to Graham (who was heading off home) and I arranged to meet the others later for dinner. My hotel was a typically British vaguely grubby place, with a lingering smell of feet, and ominously, a board outside proclaimed that evening’s “disco party” in the public bar… at dinner, the others told me of their idyllic B&B, with shoes drying by the Aga, bowls of sweets lying around, rose petals drifting through the air, piped easy-listening music and tame baby rabbits to sleep in your slippers and keep them warm (I may have jazzed up the details here, but it sounded a lot nicer than my place )
Dinner was good (Scrumpy Pork, Moroccan Chicken, you know, typical Scottish fare), and it was good to meet/have a chat with people who had hitherto been just names on a forum.
Back to the hotel… disco party in full-swing below, till about 1am, so not the best night’s kip. It was sort of countered by possibly the biggest fry-up breakfast I’ve ever had. I have a feeling I was the only guest… Journey home was good, weather was actually sunny and warmish most of the way (two brief rain showers) and I took it easy, as I was a bit knackered.
Mrs HJ was official photographer for the event, so HJ will no doubt provide some pics, but I can offer you this fibreglass cow at Doddington, and this humpty-back bridge at Weetwood.

 

[graham56]

The jersey had languished in my wardrobe for long enough, and so the day came for it to continue on its journey north. It was warm enough for me to wear my short-sleeved Cycle Chat jersey as I headed out from home, passing through some of Northumberland’s finest scenery, and through or past places with such wonderful names as Dyke Neuk, Netherwitton, Nunnykirk, Snitter, Lorbottle, Callaly, Weetwood and Doddington. One wrong turn added half an hour to my journey, but I was soon back on track, and the “rolling” scenery provided enough entertainment and hilly challenge.
Just out of Doddington, now heading north-west towards the border and Coldstream itself, a call from behind alerted me to Graham56, who’d been at work that morning, got a lift some of the way, then caught me up; and so we headed on, through Fenton and Milfield. Milfield is eight miles from Coldstream, and there’s a bit of a climb before you roll down towards the Tweed. We stopped to put on waterproof tops, and it was at this point that the gathering dark clouds threw their worst at us; I can only describe that last section as bloody hard work, with sideways wind and sideways rain. We arrived at Coldstream freezing cold and very wet, and headed for a caff to warm up. The caff was hosting a kids’ birthday party (either that, or it doubled as a nursery) and the much-needed tea was a while coming!
I checked into my hotel (more on this later) and put on something warmer. A quick phone call to Hairy Jock later, and we met (also Mrs HJ and Scoosh) by the bridge over the Tweed; HJ arrived in kilt, which was a nice touch (if you see what I mean!)
After the handover and photo-opportunity on the bridge, we said goodbye to Graham (who was heading off home) and I arranged to meet the others later for dinner. My hotel was a typically British vaguely grubby place, with a lingering smell of feet, and ominously, a board outside proclaimed that evening’s “disco party” in the public bar… at dinner, the others told me of their idyllic B&B, with shoes drying by the Aga, bowls of sweets lying around, rose petals drifting through the air, piped easy-listening music and tame baby rabbits to sleep in your slippers and keep them warm (I may have jazzed up the details here, but it sounded a lot nicer than my place )
Dinner was good (Scrumpy Pork, Moroccan Chicken, you know, typical Scottish fare), and it was good to meet/have a chat with people who had hitherto been just names on a forum.
Back to the hotel… disco party in full-swing below, till about 1am, so not the best night’s kip. It was sort of countered by possibly the biggest fry-up breakfast I’ve ever had. I have a feeling I was the only guest… Journey home was good, weather was actually sunny and warmish most of the way (two brief rain showers) and I took it easy, as I was a bit knackered.
Mrs HJ was official photographer for the event, so HJ will no doubt provide some pics, but I can offer you this fibreglass cow at Doddington, and this humpty-back bridge at Weetwood.

Personally i would have said "absolutely numb and effing soaked,with enough water in my shoes to float a carrier". Still, i enjoyed the ride and better still the company.

 

[HJ]

Well so far I have managed to write a blog post of the first part of our bimble in the Borders to pick up The Jersey. So it is time to give a summary of the first part here.

Three of us, Skoosh, Mrs HJ and my self, set out with some little trepidation from Edinburgh. We had been watching the weather forecasts all week and knew there was supposed to be an area of high pressure moving in, but would it arrive in time? Well, it didn't. As we set out the wind seemed fairly benign, a light westerly. We headed off through Holyrood Park along the NCN 1 route south, which we left just before Whitecraigs and headed off across country towards Gifford, where we planned to make a cake stop.

As we approached East Saltoun, a car with an amber flashing light came the other way, being chased down by a crowd of roadies.

This turned out to be the Musselburgh RCC British Eagle 62 mile road race, which had just started from East Saltoun.

This early part of the ride was easy going and we were making good progress, so we dodged round Gifford and headed for the Lammermuir Hills without the cake stop. As we climbed above Danskine, we started to notice that the wind was somewhat stronger that we had been led to expect, over 20mph gusting over 40 mph. We stopped for a bite of lunch before tackling the first big climb of the day up Wanside Rig, a mere 17% gradient. Unfortunately on the steepest part of the climb the road turns westerly, straight into the wind, and we were all forced to stop. Even so we decided to stick with the plan and take the high route, so began a titanic battle with the elements.

The Lammermuir Hills might only be 500 m high, but there is a good reason why they are popular with developers of wind farms, as we were about to find out. As we cycled across the tops, we had to keep to the middle of the road, so as not to be blown off the side in the gusts. After crossing Herd’s Hill, the road drops on a 15% gradient. I set off at speed, half way down I was travelling at over 50 Km/h (>30 mph), but had the disconcerting experience of being hit by a gust of wind which reduced my forward speed to 10 Km/h!

Having successfully crossed the Heights unscathed, we dropped down into Longformacus, here we caught up with a weather front, also slowly making its way south. At first I thought it was just a passing shower, but the time we made Duns it was seriously heavy rain. Fortunately the front managed to get away from us a few Km south of Duns, and we mostly dried out again over the remaining 15 undulating Km to Coldstream, with only our shoes still wet.

Having arrived in Coldstream, we booked into our B&B, the very cycle friendly Haymount House. We were given the use of a garage to store our bikes, the landlady offered to dry our wet gear on the Aga in the kitchen, gave us slippers to wear in the house so we could dry our shoes and would have lit the fire in the guest lounge if we had wanted, typical Scottish hospitality. I tried to phone Fnaar who we had come to meet, only to find I had missed a digit when storing the number in my mobile phone. Fortunately two minutes later he phoned me to say that he and Graham56 were ready to meet us at the bridge and hand over the relay jersey.

So after a cup of tea (and some home baking, sweeties, etc...) we set off again for the bridge. There, standing mid way over the River Tweed, on the border between Scotland and England, the Jersey was handed over. We then went to the “Welcome to Scotland” sign (there are no Welcome to England signs) for some more photos, agreed to meet Fnaar for dinner (Graham56 having pedalled off back towards Newcastle), and returned to the B&B for a long hot bath to sooth the aching muscles, before dinner…

A map of the route we took can be found here,

and the Stats are:

• Distance cycled - 86.3 Km
• Time spent riding - 04:35:24
• Max Speed - 55.7 Km/h
• Ave Speed - 18.8 KM/h
• Vertical climb - ca. 930 m

 

[HJ]

From the border to Edinburgh

Having successfully picked up the CycleChat Relay Jersey the day before and had a good nights sleep, we rose to a splendidly sunny day. After a hearty breakfast we set off from Coldstream towards Edinburgh, as the weather showed signs of changing with clouds bubbling up and the wind in the east. We jinxed our way along a sequence of side roads to Duns, this was pleasant easy cycling. The Scottish Borders are often described as being a cycling paradise (mostly by the Tourist Board) due to the number of quiet wee roads. We were surprised by the number of big houses about, it seemed that everywhere you looked there was a castle here and a mansion there. Ok, so that maybe a wee bit of an exaggeration, but it was obvious there was a lot of old money about.

From Duns we swung East along the A6112, which was quiet for an A road, here again the cycling was easy. After a couple of Km we turned off north onto the B6365 and left the traffic behind. Until this point we had been gently climbing, but the road now turned downhill, which was a wee bit disconcerting as we knew that there was a lot of climbing ahead. Still, there was nothing to do but enjoy the ride, so off we went and sure enough after a couple Km, at Milburn Bridge, the road started to go up again. The hill wasn’t steep but it was long climbing 100m over 2Km. Then another short downhill to Ellemford Bridge, here the road turns and follows the Whiteadder Water up stream. Passing Cranshaws, we lamented the fact that the tea rooms there have closed, as there was no chance for a cake stop before the big climb. At this stage we were climbing but it was gentle easy stuff.

As we approached the dam wall of the Whiteadder Reservoir, we prepared for the short steep climb up the Hungry Snout. This is then followed by a slightly shorter but equally steep drop down the other side. Then there was a gentle pedal along side the Whiteadder Reservoir, contemplating the big climb up to the top of Wanside Rig. Again this wasn’t a steep climb but a long one, gaining 190m in 3.5Km. I had come down it a couple of weeks before reaching a top speed of 69.4Km/h (43 mph in old money) and was fully aware that I wasn’t going to be doing anything like that speed on the way up. Ominously there were dark clouds gathering ahead, we had seen the odd rain shower in the distance, but so far nothing had hit us. So before starting the climb in earnest I stopped and put on a waterproof jacket, then about half way up I had to stop again and take it off again as I getting to hot. As I reached the top, the storm finally burst, throwing rain and hail at us, so there was a scramble to put waterproofs back on again.

The hill conquered, we were back on the road we had come on the way out, and we headed down the hill we had struggled up the day before. This hill is unfinished business and I heard Skoosh shout “I’ll be back”, just like the Styrian Quercus. The road being newly wet and there being a sharp bend half way down, no speed records were set. We then headed straight for Gifford, taking in the Danskine dip along the way, this is 17% downhill followed sharply by a 17% uphill, which is much more fun going north. Arriving in Gifford we took the opportunity for a cake stop at “Love Coffee and Food”.

Try as hard as we could, we couldn’t quite manage to finish the chocolate cake (and we did try hard), it was very nice. Talking to the owners of the café, they told us that cyclists were their favourite customers, as they were always the happiest people. Skoosh put forward a theory that cyclists, when they reach a cake stop, are on an endorphin high and therefore happier than the average member of the population. Cake stop over, we pushed on to Edinburgh following the mixture of wee roads and off road paths we had used on the way out. Then before the parting of ways, we had one last photo stop in Holyrood Park to celebrate the arrival of the Relay Jersey in Auld Reekie, the Athens of the North.

A route map of the journey is here

The stats:

• Distance cycled - 89.9 Km
• Time spent riding - 04:26:48
• Max Speed – 56.0 Km/h
• Ave Speed - 20.2 Km/h
• Vertical climb - ca. 860 m

So there we have it, the Relay Jersey cycled all the way, with none of that take the bikes in a car and go for a pootle round a country park for a few photos, malarkey. Not that anyone here would be wimpy enough to engage in that sort of behaviour would they?

 

[Scoosh]

After a hearty breakfast we set off from Coldstream towards Edinburgh, as the weather showed signs of changing with clouds bubbling up and the wind in the east. We jinxed our way along a sequence of side roads to Duns, with a short, sharp hail shower to wake us up; this was pleasant easy cycling.

Great posts, HJ, just as I remembered it too

Photo credits to Mrs HJ, the delightful Ulli

 

[ArDee]

The southern jersey has started its travels again , after languishing on my kitchen work surface; its been sitting there since last year when I picked it up from The Doctor.

I passed the jersey to stevevw yesterday evening.

There are no pictures; as neither of us cycled to the exchange and I, at least, was embarrassed not to have done , the exchange was hence conducted clandestinely, under the cover of darkness, in stealth mode.

Stevevw is hoping to pass it on at the FNRttC this evening. Perhaps he will feel more at ease as he will, at least, be on the bike.

 

[redjedi]

SteveVW did bring it along with him and passed it onto me at the halfway stop on the FNRttc.

It was signed by SteveVW, myself, Sigsilverprinter, Redflightuk and Origamist. I'm afraid I forgot to take any pics as I was too busy eating and trying to warm up.

I carried it the rest of the way to Brighton, before offloading passing it on to arallsopp. Hopefully he will be able to pass it on the next CC member sometime soon, any excuse for a ride

In the space of one night the number of signatures must have tripled. We've got some catching up to do on the northern one.

 

[stevevw]

A couple of pictures of the hand over to Redjedi. As you can see my camra was very wet by this stage.

 

[arallsopp]

I have the jersey. As Jedi says, the handover was just after dawn, at the end of a very wet Friday Night Ride to the coast. I got home, fell asleep and *only just* rescued it from the wash. Phew... Almost lost the signatures!

Wife was feeling sorry for me so decided to wash my kit for today's commute. She couldn't understand why anyone would be out on a bike, on a night like that, with a long sleeved jersey, without wearing it.

On the plus side, she evidently believes us all to be extremely fresh smelling.