Your ride today....

[Pat "5mph"]

Only a short but enjoyable trip across Glasgow to Hampden.
Scottish League cup final today.
7:5 miles there with a hint of drizzle but thankfully arrived dry.

Home run was a bit different. Crowd and coaches to deal with for the first mile or two , with heavy cold sleet and rain thrown in.
Home safely and happy, my team won.
Just 15 miles, but quite a few challenges.

At the same time you were leaving Hampden to go back to the west end, I was leaving Rutherglen headed into town.
For the non locals: @pjd57 and I were headed in the same direction on parallel roads, he got the live football crowds, I got the rowdy ones spilling out from the numerous pubs en route.
The motorized traffic I avoided by using the cycle path, but I think the drunks can be worse than the cars!
Anyhow, yes, it was freezing, raining heavily, really dark and a bit misty too at around 5pm on Sunday.
I was heading into town to meet friends, toyed with the idea of taking a bus, immediately discarded it, donned my waterproof trousers and my new waterproof socks (review coming soon!), then needlessly rode up and down a hill in town because I couldn't find the meeting place
This ride is memorable because two unusual things happened:
my waterproof trousers were stolen from my panniers - I had taken out everything else, but did not want to bring the soaked kit into the pub, then,
on the return trip I finally managed to be number one cyclist passing through the cyclist counter in the Green after midnight.
I wanted to be that number for ages, always someone beat me to it, be it late at night or early in the morning.
Shame it was to dark for a picture!

 

[Spiderweb]

A day off today so the first ride for 2 weeks. It was raining this morning so out a lunchtime, lots of standing water but a lovely bright December day. A steady pootle out to Cawood on the old winter steed, 20.5 miles in total with an average of 15.1 mph, lovely spin out.

 

[Katherine]

I finally managed to be number one cyclist passing through the cyclist counter in the Green after midnight.
I wanted to be that number for ages, always someone beat me to it, be it late at night or early in the morning.
Shame it was to dark for a picture!

What is the cyclist counter? Do you always get counted? What's the highest number you've achieved?

 

[Pat "5mph"]

What is the cyclist counter? Do you always get counted? What's the highest number you've achieved?

It's (well, we have several, in key cycling routes), a large sign that tells the time and the number of cyclists that have crossed the sensor in a 24 hour period.
It also shows hoe many cyclists have passed the point since the beginning of the year.
The sensor crosses the path, if you pass the sensor twice a day, like I could do if I take the same route home from work, you are counted twice.
The highest number in a day is probably the 5,000 odds that passes the Meadows in Edinburgh on the annual day of Pedal on Parliament.
The sensor resets at midnight, my aim was always to be number one, now I have achieved this
I want to try if I can be number one for 2019, then immediately turn and be number two

 

[colly]

After a miserable ride yesterday......tonights was good. Enjoyable.

It was cold but dry so setting off just before 7 I took a route just going round and about. Mostly out in the sticks. Out via Moortown Corner along Shadwell Lane then Wigton Lane and Alwoodley Lane, down to the ring road along and back up to Slaid Hill, through Shadwell across the A58 to Thorner. Out past bramham Park and back round by Hetchel Woods, through Thorner again and back home via Bramley Grange and Red Hall.
A lovely cold fresh evening with lots of visible stars in a black, black sky.

Just over 25 miles with 1350ft of up. Fixed.

View: https://ridewithgps.com/trips/29969888

 

[Katherine]

It's (well, we have several, in key cycling routes), a large sign that tells the time and the number of cyclists that have crossed the sensor in a 24 hour period.
It also shows hoe many cyclists have passed the point since the beginning of the year.
The sensor crosses the path, if you pass the sensor twice a day, like I could do if I take the same route home from work, you are counted twice.
The highest number in a day is probably the 5,000 odds that passes the Meadows in Edinburgh on the annual day of Pedal on Parliament.
The sensor resets at midnight, my aim was always to be number one, now I have achieved this
I want to try if I can be number one for 2019, then immediately turn and be number two

Brilliant! Good Luck!

 

[galaxy]

Well. Our move into the Country to work less and enjoy our selves and Hobbies really isn’t working. Love it hear butt although I should not complain I’m working too much. So Monday was a early finnish. So grabbing a hour took out the Montain bike. Road biased tyres. A nice 14 mile circuit. Only gentle. The smile factor was huge. Once home didn’t feel guilty about a cuppa and homemade Fruit Scone with cream n homemade Strawberry Jam.

 

[MikeG]

[QUOTE 5459742, member: 9609"]normal service resumed after the misery of yesterdays rain - just a beautiful day to be on the road, warm sun and no wind.........[/QUOTE]

You always take such beautiful photos. I assume you aren't using a phone, but a proper camera. Is that right? If so, what have you got?

 

[Heltor Chasca]

What is the cyclist counter? Do you always get counted? What's the highest number you've achieved?

This sounds great fun. A bit like tile collecting on Veloviewer. Go on. Start a new thread for the city folk. Us country folk need a reason to dream of reasons to want to live in the city. I’ll start one on the fastest speed you have passed sheep sleeping on the road on Dartmoor.

 

[cosmicbike]

After a day of rest yesterday where I commuted to a different place of work for a change, today was back on the bike to the same place as yesterday. Took about the same amount of time too, such is the rush hour traffic. Nice to pedal somewhere different for a change.

 

[8mph]

I plotted a route of 42 miles, taped my phone to my stem and set off in quite mild weather. About two miles in, a bump in the road put paid to my makeshift phone mount at which point it ended up in my pocket. I'm absolutely dreadful at navigation and what with having to stop and remove gloves every time I wanted to check my location I soon ended up off-piste and in the back lanes of Wiltshire. I endeavoured not to cut any corners to shorten the route and backtracked several times. Got home and the brand new bike computer (£6) says I've done 46.6 miles. The ride has taken 4hrs 20 but I must have stopped about 30 times to get the phone out. Average speed says 13.6 which is what I wanted to see, roughly 40 miles in 3 hours if I know where I'm going. I'm going to keep on trying to improve my navigation skills, the ride itself was dark and rainy but quite a fun mix of roads, lanes and city streets.

 

[twentysix by twentyfive]

Mrs 26 and I met up with with John B and Pete M at Newland. We headed out along the Leigh Brook and onto the climb for Acton Green. With more than 10 miles done Mrs 26 peeled off for Holloways. We three crested Acton Green and dropped to Bishop's Frome using the steep Ward Hill. The run was standard fare to Burley Gate to set us up for Westhide and Withington. We had to wait for traffic on the busy Hereford road to get across and the few hundred yards to the Radway Bridge cafe.

We spent considerable time in the cafe so that we felt a bit chilly on remounting. Lugwardine took us to the flanks of the Marcles at Prior's Frome before we could run along the Frome itself for Canon Frome and eventually Bosbury. Cradley was next before we could return to the Leigh Brook and a return to our start. Despite relatively cold weather it had been a fairly comfortable ride. 58 smiles

 

[Mike_P]

It's (well, we have several, in key cycling routes), a large sign that tells the time and the number of cyclists that have crossed the sensor in a 24 hour period.
It also shows hoe many cyclists have passed the point since the beginning of the year.
The sensor crosses the path, if you pass the sensor twice a day, like I could do if I take the same route home from work, you are counted twice.

How does it only count cyclists?

 

[Pat "5mph"]

How does it only count cyclists?

Dunno, I work in catering not in engineering, but I do know how to Google
http://trafficsolutions.ie/bicycle-people-counting-system/

 

[Aravis]

I completed the Imperial Century a Month challenge again yesterday. December's never easy, but a day that was completely dry and absolutely calm did help a bit. Unfortunately I couldn't start until almost 9am so there was always going to be some darkness.

Running aniclockwise meant I was on the A38 for the first bit, a good thing as there was no evidence of gritting despite the widespread frost. Tewkesbury is by far the best place I know for checking your reflection in the shop windows. In the morning sunshine the Avon at Eckington bridge was very high and stunningly glassy.

Approaching Stratford, the road at Welford south of the river was completely blocked by roadworks. Not even a pedestrian could get through, so I abandoned my plan to ride into the town on the old railway. In Stratford I rode past Holy Trinity Church, a member of the Greater Churches Network. A good photo opportunity was elusive, and I didn't want to hang around. But it was one of my main objectives, so here it is:

There's a good route out of town towards Wilmcote and Alcester past Anne Hathaway's Cottage. I'd vaguely assumed this was something of a music-hall joke, a small nondescript cottage famous only for its former occupant, and so another photo opportunity? In the event, it looked more like a theme park and it was far from clear which building was actually "it", so I moved on.

Heading eastwards from Stratford one of the nice features is the way the hills continually come in and out of view. They can look completely different from day to day; yesterday the views had a remarkable quality. The morning sunshine had gone but a light mist remained in the Severn Valley and the hills themselves - first the Shropshire hills, later the Malverns - appeared to be floating in the air. Eventually the chance came which I'd been waiting for:

The roadworks on the river crossing road at Upton are pretty awkward, but I was able to slot in front of a big lorry that had no chance of keeping up with even me when the lights finally changed. Absolutely terrifying was the final approach to Gloucester coinciding with peak traffic in the dark, so I was very relieved to get home, 103.16 miles and job done.