Your ride today....

[Donger]

Coming to the end of my Ardennes holiday, but I just had time for a little spin before starting to pack. Just the 9 miles this time, but covered a few little lanes near to the gite and discovered a lovely little village nearby as well as doing the tour of Lavacherie itself. All quite lumpy, as most of the Ardennes region is. Some photos:

So that's it for this holiday. 83.3 miles in 4 rides, all arranged around our schedule of day trips in the car. Loved all the quiet country lanes and the amazing RAVeL network of cycle tracks. In traditional manner, I recorded it all on "Flatnav":

Sadly, as we've now seen pretty much everything there is to see in Wallonia in our 5 holidays here, this will probably be my last chance to do any cycling around here. I 've never done any actual cycle touring in the area, but have built up a little network of opportunist 15-30 mile trips over the years. See next "Flatnav" image for my all-time rides in the Ardennes ... mostly Belgium but including a few little trips in Luxembourg and dipping my toe into Germany:

Can't recommend it highly enough, everyone. Over and out.

 

[Elybazza61]

Pleasant little 12km pootle around the City this morning on the Trek Multitrack, all glitches and noises gone too.

Down by the river;

Allotments;

Bypass river flyover walkway and bench;

Cathedral view from the park;

Picking up nom pastries to have with a coffee at home ;

 

[wafter]

Having managed to achieve marginally more than the usual bugger all this morning, an egg run was squeezed in on the Ragley.

Choosing to ignore the ominous storm front rolling in from the west on the radar in favour of what I could see / sense on the ground, I threw everything together and got out as quickly as I could.

Thankfully the rain held off for the most part; culminating in some lightish drizzle a few miles from home which was actually fairly welcome as I’d left myself somewhat over-trousered in my haste and was cooking a bit on some of the climbs. The strong wind made things pretty visceral but seemed appropriate for the season.

For a change the gods appeared to have been smiling on me; the ground still mostly cracked and dry despite the recent rain, the eggs plentiful (even if I could only fit one box in the rucksack) and the gate at the end of the forbidden track open - avoiding the need to yoink the bike over its barbed-wire wrapped top bar.

Returned via the park for a de-compressive dangle after yesterday's relatively heavy upper body session; yielding a few pops from the usual areas.

A nice 10 mile jaunt providing some very welcome respite from all the crap weighing on my mind and helping buoy my mood upon my return.

Very glad to get another chance to enjoy my growing appreciation of the Ragley before it inevitably goes away for the winter.

 

[wafter]

Pleasant little 12km pootle around the City this morning on the Trek Multitrack, all glitches and noises gone too.

Down by the river;

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Allotments;

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Bypass river flyover walkway and bench;

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Cathedral view from the park;

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Picking up nom pastries to have with a coffee at home ;

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That looks like a proper utility weapon - what's the rack / basket please?

 

[HLaB]

Quite a fast 4 up last night, two are really strong and I wanted back for a silly football game. We dropped the third guy a few times and held up to let him get back but he made a strong recovery to outsprint us all at the end :-)

View: https://youtu.be/5wSFRGp4Erw?is=xYEi-l6VBzxmC3R8



View: https://youtu.be/rcP1PvO1Jps?is=xbvm03MdxQNxFesk



View: https://youtu.be/D09JoQbEB1A?is=YlfgNm-rvEKPBbf4

 

[YMFB]

Longest ride so far on the new to me MTB, 21.16 miles of mainly droves.

 

[Elybazza61]

That looks like a proper utility weapon - what's the rack / basket please?

The rack is an old 80's Nimrod and the basket is a Wald with a Wizard Works bag.

Bike itself is a USA made Trek Multitrack with Tru-Temper tubing ,TRP mini v's and Shimano levers, XT/Altus 9-spd gears, Old square taper cranks with Hope chainring, original stem and seat post, Bontrager bars with Ergon grips, damaged Brooks Cambium, Mavic/Deore rear and SP/Halo front wheels,Terravail Cannonball tyres and Supernova lights with the rear fitted with a Drust mount.

It's all parts I had kicking about apart from the rear light hanger, can also fit a Topeak rear rack if needed.

It does ride really nicely now it's all dialled in, will stay as is at the moment but I may look for some nicer cranks (used Middleburns etc) , XT shifter and see if I can get a matching front Mavic rim; there's also the possibility of nicer stem and bars (will have to talk nicely to Sam at Freshtripe for that) but there's no rush.