The 2024 Half Century (50km or 50 mile) Challenge Chatzone

[Spartak]

February... ✅

Dropped daughter off at school then headed out for this month's challenge ride.

Early start meant passing lots & lots of commuting traffic...!!!
Rode to Severn Beach for a breakfast at Shirley's Cafe, unfortunately it wasn't open until 10:00 so I carried on along the new gravel path that links the two Severn Bridges.
I then headed over the 'old' bridge to the Tesco Express at Bulwark for a coffee & almond croissant. The rain had now started so I put on my rain jacket and headed back over the bridge. I took thd more direct route back via Olveston & Bradley Stoke.

Nice route which I'll do again hopefully in drier conditions.

 

[UphillSlowly]

February... ✅

Dropped daughter off at school then headed out for this month's challenge ride.

Early start meant passing lots & lots of commuting traffic...!!!
Rode to Severn Beach for a breakfast at Shirley's Cafe, unfortunately it wasn't open until 10:00 so I carried on along the new gravel path that links the two Severn Bridges.
I then headed over the 'old' bridge to the Tesco Express at Bulwark for a coffee & almond croissant. The rain had now started so I put on my rain jacket and headed back over the bridge. I took thd more direct route back via Olveston & Bradley Stoke.

Nice route which I'll do again hopefully in drier conditions.

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Like the graffiti/mural!

 

[Slick]

February... ✅

Dropped daughter off at school then headed out for this month's challenge ride.

Early start meant passing lots & lots of commuting traffic...!!!
Rode to Severn Beach for a breakfast at Shirley's Cafe, unfortunately it wasn't open until 10:00 so I carried on along the new gravel path that links the two Severn Bridges.
I then headed over the 'old' bridge to the Tesco Express at Bulwark for a coffee & almond croissant. The rain had now started so I put on my rain jacket and headed back over the bridge. I took thd more direct route back via Olveston & Bradley Stoke.

Nice route which I'll do again hopefully in drier conditions.

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I've always liked a gratuitous bridge picture.

 

[bluenotebob]

I had a poor second-half to February as far as this challenge goes – almost incessant wind and rain, storm Louis + a power cut (22nd Feb), and another un-named storm with a 3+hour power cut (26th Feb) – all contrived to make cycling any distance very difficult. One dry day (19th Feb) allowed me to do a 100+km ride – reported in the Lunacy Distance challenge – and to get my points total up to 11.

I did do a lot of shorter rides this month – and following my best-ever December (713km) and my best-ever January (856km), I’ve managed 932km this month – which is also my best-ever February. I doubt if I’ll keep this run going – I’d need to exceed 1207km in March to achieve that and, after a short spell of dry weather forecast for the start of March, it looks like the wind and rain will return. Oh, great…

I added a new gravel bike to the collection last week – a KTM X-Strada (already named herself as Katie-Mae – we’ll see if the name sticks). Just got back from an hour’s ride on her this morning in 18mph winds and driving rain and she handled it all perfectly. I have a couple of photos of the new bike but they’re not very good – I’ll post a better one soon: hopefully when she gets off the mark in this challenge.

 

[13 rider]

January 30th : Gloucester - Westbury-on-Severn - Huntley - Highnam - Newent - Highleadon - Staunton - Gloucester. 50.7 miles, 2 points.
February 29th : Gloucester - Harefield - Whitminster - Eastington - Fretherne - Gloucester. 32.6 miles, 1 point.

You like leaving it late , good job there's an extra day this year 😁

 

[13 rider]

Well done @bluenotebob ,1st poster for February, I hope the weather in France was a bit better than the UK

 

[Jenkins]

Well done @bluenotebob ,1st poster for February, I hope the weather in France was a bit better than the UK

Can't have been any worse based on my view from the bike shed this afternoon.

 

[13 rider]

What a difference a day makes ,24 little hours , From 💦 to 🌞
Marchs banker ride done 32 miles in glorious sunshine bit chilly but lovely to be out , pushed on up the last hill to duck under 2 hours just because I could 😁 ,1.58 .10

 

[Domus]

After my last ride which did for me, I went out this morning with a little trepidation, kept the climbing down to 300 ish metres and managed it without any problems.
I have cut my snacking out this week hoping to shed a few Kgs (5) before summer, doing Couch to 5K (again). Probably won't do the full programme but get to week 4 or 5 and keep repeating. The last two times I did the full programme I injured myself running 5 K so hopefully keeping it sensible will prevent injury. I am a pensioner, you know.

 

[Bazzer]

Despite the benign weather, albeit there was frost over the cars and fields when I left this morning, today's ride was a challenge. My brain wanted the endorphins of the ride and the comfort of March's ride being done and dusted. My legs on the other hand, went biblical on me and decided after the first mile or so, that they would prefer a day of rest. Thus followed 30 odd miles of pick an easier route and many distraction techniques.

 

[Jon George]

February in the bag. A trip out to Nacton (via The Post Office) and back for some eggs on Patsy #3 The Hybrid; an immediate trip into town and back (on the same bike) after squaring away the eggs; and, after swapping my shoes for SPDs and the bike for Pasty #6 The Brompton, got the distance in. (Really happy with this one - four weeks ago I came off and gave my left knee one hell of a bang. It took a couple of weeks for the penny to drop that the kneecap probably wasn't just badly bruised, but might have sustained a hairline crack.)

 

[13 rider]

Early February round up . We have 32 riders fully posted up . That leaves 3 riders with a January ride in but yet to post ,1 of those I'm fairly certain hasn't done a ride as I follow them on Strava

 

[ColinJ]

I am visiting my sister in Devon. It was miserable on Monday so I didn't leave the cottage all day but sunny all day today (Tuesday), and very 50-worthy so I set off into the sunshine and...

... after I had ridden 1 km the rain started! Fortunately, it only lasted about 10 minutes. After that, very pleasant weather conditions.

The road conditions were not so great, however... It has rained a lot down here over the past couple of months. The little lanes that I was riding along were covered in grit, mud, deep puddles, and in a couple of places even small floods!

Exactly 50 km ridden, with just over 700 metres of ascent.

I will probably do more 50s this month and will make 1 post in the challenge thread at the end of the month to detail them.

 

[Domus]

Blooming cold wind in Rossendale today, headwind all the way up the valley from Rawtenstall to Bacup, then crosswind into Rochdale where a BMW driver ignored the mini roundabout I was half way round and cut across my front wheel from right to left. Not happy as I had earlier had a message from a friend who had been left hooked by a Range Rover and knocked to the ground before driving off.

As they said on Hill Street Blues "Be careful out there"

 

[ColinJ]

Blooming cold wind in Rossendale today, headwind all the way up the valley from Rawtenstall to Bacup, then crosswind into Rochdale...

It was the same in Devon. I had a very chilly headwind from Exeter to Exmouth, where I persuaded my niece to join me on a little loop through Budleigh Salterton. We had warm doughnuts back in Exmouth, washed down with ice cream milkshakes. Apparently, the ice cream shop is normally very busy but there were no queues today!!

I was a bit late getting back, with the sun setting and no lights on the bike, otherwise I would have been tempted to do an extra loop of nearby lanes to get a metric century in.

My Garmin's battery ran out of charge so I am not exactly sure how far I rode. I reckon it was about 81 km but will check on a map later.