EltonFrog
Legendary Member
I cycled to Yelford last year to get my Y for the CycleChat ABC challenges, absolutely nothing there, nice tea and cake in Aston Pottery though.
Your ride today....
- Thread starter gbb
- Start date
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I cycled to Yelford last year to get my Y for the CycleChat ABC challenges, absolutely nothing there, nice tea and cake in Aston Pottery though.
EltonFrog
Legendary Member
The Fragrant MrsP wanted to go to Abingdon today for reasons I won’t bore you with, I went along for the ride. When we got to the other side of the town she told me that nearby was the remains of a Motte & Bailey castle, so after we finished her errand we went and had a butchers, nothing much left it of course, it was built about a thousand years ago by one of Billy Conker’s barons, Robert D’Oyly. It just looks like a muddy lump now where kids ride their bikes up and down it.
We then rode into town for a hot chocolate and cake in the basement of Abingdon town hall then home.
21.41 miles on a cold, grey dry day. Beat last January’s mileage by about five miles, but did more short rides so far this month.
We then rode into town for a hot chocolate and cake in the basement of Abingdon town hall then home.
21.41 miles on a cold, grey dry day. Beat last January’s mileage by about five miles, but did more short rides so far this month.
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Andy in Germany
Guru
- Location
- Freiburg im Breisgau
I always think Abingdon sounds like it should be a grimy pit village just outside Newcastle.
I also now have mental images of Saxon warriors riding BMX's, attacking a wooden castle.
EltonFrog
Legendary Member
I’ve edited the post, Abingdon is an ancient market town that used to have an Abbey, the Norman’s built the castle using Saxon slaves.
Oxford Dave
Senior Member
- Location
- West Oxfordshire
You're getting closer to me every ride, within 7 miles on that one!
twentysix by twentyfive
Clinging on tightly
- Location
- Over the Hill
Mrs 26, Pete M, John G and me at the meet. We took a very traditional route out by Defford for Eckington and the Combertons. Pete grabbed the wheels of a rapid foursome from the Worcester St Johns club. Mrs 26 peeled off for Pershore. Round at Jubilee bridge there were signs of the flooding but the river is well within its banks now.
Craycombe Farm tea rooms did us some lovely refreshments and soon it was time to saddle up again. John headed up the busy main road while Pete and I looped over the old airfield for the ford at Pinvin. Then we took the traditional run back by Pirton Church and on for Upton. That left me with my usual run back. It was getting quite misty towards the end and despite the grey skies it was an almost perfect day for a ride. Lots of other riders were out and about as well so they thought so too. 53 smiles
Craycombe Farm tea rooms did us some lovely refreshments and soon it was time to saddle up again. John headed up the busy main road while Pete and I looped over the old airfield for the ford at Pinvin. Then we took the traditional run back by Pirton Church and on for Upton. That left me with my usual run back. It was getting quite misty towards the end and despite the grey skies it was an almost perfect day for a ride. Lots of other riders were out and about as well so they thought so too. 53 smiles
NorthernDave
Never used Über Member
- Location
- The real Northern Powerhouse
First ride in over three weeks due to a combination of a stinking cold, a seemingly knackered body and a lack of general enthusiasm.
Just a loop to Thorner and back, enlivened by four sets of temporary traffic lights - quite possibly a new record and all on red.
Glad I got out and I enjoyed it for the first time in a while too. Now to start working on getting some fitness back.
8.55 miles at a slow 11mph.
Just a loop to Thorner and back, enlivened by four sets of temporary traffic lights - quite possibly a new record and all on red.
Glad I got out and I enjoyed it for the first time in a while too. Now to start working on getting some fitness back.
8.55 miles at a slow 11mph.
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Out this afternoon, into the gloomy murk, for a medium length ride. First thing I noticed, after turning East out of the estate, was that there was a very keen wind blowing from that direction.
I followed cycle paths up to Heathgates and then through Sundorne, where I slowly reeled in a chap on a recumbent trike, passing him just before I turned off onto the old canal path. Something has been down the path and finally cleaned the worst of the mud and mulch off, just a few sections that are still a bit sloppy.
I came up behind a lady taking a Horse for a walk, just as I got to Uffington and then it was out onto the road to Upton Magna, a climb up East Haughmond and then turned off down the long descending straight to Somerwood & Rodington Heath.
The section that was directly into the Easterly wind was a real battle. I’m sure it wasn’t forecast to be that strong. Turned off along the bumpy lane, back towards Upton Magna and the wind socks at the Archery Range certainly backed up the wind theory, being in a horizontal position.
Followed Pelham Rd, to Berwick Wharf, then out onto the busy road to Atcham, with lots of cars leaving Attingham Park NT. I crossed the old bridge, at Atcham, then followed lanes to Betton Abbots and home.
21.5 miles at 11:3mph avg
I followed cycle paths up to Heathgates and then through Sundorne, where I slowly reeled in a chap on a recumbent trike, passing him just before I turned off onto the old canal path. Something has been down the path and finally cleaned the worst of the mud and mulch off, just a few sections that are still a bit sloppy.
I came up behind a lady taking a Horse for a walk, just as I got to Uffington and then it was out onto the road to Upton Magna, a climb up East Haughmond and then turned off down the long descending straight to Somerwood & Rodington Heath.
The section that was directly into the Easterly wind was a real battle. I’m sure it wasn’t forecast to be that strong. Turned off along the bumpy lane, back towards Upton Magna and the wind socks at the Archery Range certainly backed up the wind theory, being in a horizontal position.
Followed Pelham Rd, to Berwick Wharf, then out onto the busy road to Atcham, with lots of cars leaving Attingham Park NT. I crossed the old bridge, at Atcham, then followed lanes to Betton Abbots and home.
21.5 miles at 11:3mph avg
fossyant
Ride It Like You Stole It!
- Location
- South Manchester
Finally got 'outside' on the MTB - not ridden outside following catching the lurgy in early December.
26 miles off road with 4 others. My word it was boggy. Two of the main descents were very muddy, one was very sloppy and wet - that much mud flying I started to lose vision from my glasses. We were all laughing by the time we got down, one lad said he just shut his eyes. Despite thelack of 'vision' I set my fastest time down the descent.
I had to remove clothes in the garage, then soak them in a bucket before they could go in the washer.
26 miles off road with 4 others. My word it was boggy. Two of the main descents were very muddy, one was very sloppy and wet - that much mud flying I started to lose vision from my glasses. We were all laughing by the time we got down, one lad said he just shut his eyes. Despite thelack of 'vision' I set my fastest time down the descent.
I had to remove clothes in the garage, then soak them in a bucket before they could go in the washer.
footloose crow
Über Member
- Location
- Cornwall. UK
25 January. Back lanes east of Truro
"I can't change time, but time changes me" was todays ear worm. David Bowie. Madame Crow says I have the wrong words again but I prefer mine. Contemplating whether I will get faster eventually or just slowly decline with passing time. Grey today, grey sky, grey world, muddy lanes, mist and drizzle. Spinning out of Truro, roads busy today with shoppers heading for the 'Bath of the West' as we like to think of ourselves, me wondering how the hills will feel today. There is a steady drip from the mist off my helmet, wetting my face and the tyres are sucking up mud and grit and throwing it at me. At least it isn't cold.
The plan today is to head east on small back lanes to avoid traffic because I worry that I won't be seen in the murk. Then when enough east is done to turn south into The Roseland then west for home. Looking at the profile on RidewithGPS last night I worried that it resembled the profile of a particularly vicious saw. The longest hill is just 300 feet but hardly anywhere is it flat. Today I am either going up or I am going down.
I decide to take the hills steadily, spinning slowly, controlling my breath. It doesn't work, I always want to push it. Listening to the video soundtrack this evening, all I can hear is my rasping breath, asthmatic gasping, like rocks scraping against each other. There is little to see, the mist creates a bubble around me of 200 yards, trees are bare, the promise of spring I saw last week in the hedgerows has been crushed by a week of deep frost.
My mind turns inwards. The beeping Wahoo is the only reality as I ride the saw's edge, up and down, across the grain of the land, down into the valley floor and then immediately up the other side, to be faced with another swooping drop. I planned this route last year when I was feeling strong and confident. I wish now I had looked at it more carefully this morning.
Hedges, wet road, broken tarmac, long lines of mud and grit along the middle of the road, overhanging trees black and dripping. The miles pass slowly, each hill hard fought for. The Wahoo shows me why it feels hard with double digit gradients in places, hitting 22% on one hill. I roll into Tregony after more than an hour, passing the school where I was headteacher from 2001-05. The past is a different country and it feels like a dream now. The faces of the children fill my mind, I wonder what they are doing now, some in their 30s now.
I zoom downhill into Tregony, keeping pace with the traffic and feeling the wind whipping past me. This evening on Strava I see I am in the slowest 10% on that hill. I am astonished. How can people go that fast through a village centre with speed bumps?
Now it is uphill again after a brief flat alongside the raging River Fal, brown and roiling, carrying the land to the sea. This is The Roseland as I know it, small lanes, isolated houses, forgotten churches, even a forgotten village abandoned in the 19th century after an earthquake. Another fast flat by the Ruan Lanihorne creek and then steeply up through backtracking bends, who needs to go to the Alps for 1 in 4 hairpins, wheels spinning on the greasy road, out of the saddle, bike sweeping from side to side, gasping for breath at my anaerobic threshold.
Up, down, more lanes, still muddy, still wet, I have lost track of where I am or even why I am here. Everything looks the same in the grey light, flat, colourless. The final swooping downhill into Tresillian and back into the real world. Traffic, people walking, I realise that I have seen little of either, been in my own damp, grey world, just the noise of the tyres and the scattered thoughts, the contemplative maundering of the solitary cyclist.
Ten minutes later I am descending the steep, green track down to our house. Madame Crow has been listening to the impeachment trial in the USA and the sonorous tones of the Republican defence lawyers fill the house. It is a jagged transformation from the last two hours spent alone in the mist and drizzle. Cycling is an escape, time out, time to think. Time passes, time changes me but I can't slow down time.
"I can't change time, but time changes me" was todays ear worm. David Bowie. Madame Crow says I have the wrong words again but I prefer mine. Contemplating whether I will get faster eventually or just slowly decline with passing time. Grey today, grey sky, grey world, muddy lanes, mist and drizzle. Spinning out of Truro, roads busy today with shoppers heading for the 'Bath of the West' as we like to think of ourselves, me wondering how the hills will feel today. There is a steady drip from the mist off my helmet, wetting my face and the tyres are sucking up mud and grit and throwing it at me. At least it isn't cold.
The plan today is to head east on small back lanes to avoid traffic because I worry that I won't be seen in the murk. Then when enough east is done to turn south into The Roseland then west for home. Looking at the profile on RidewithGPS last night I worried that it resembled the profile of a particularly vicious saw. The longest hill is just 300 feet but hardly anywhere is it flat. Today I am either going up or I am going down.
I decide to take the hills steadily, spinning slowly, controlling my breath. It doesn't work, I always want to push it. Listening to the video soundtrack this evening, all I can hear is my rasping breath, asthmatic gasping, like rocks scraping against each other. There is little to see, the mist creates a bubble around me of 200 yards, trees are bare, the promise of spring I saw last week in the hedgerows has been crushed by a week of deep frost.
My mind turns inwards. The beeping Wahoo is the only reality as I ride the saw's edge, up and down, across the grain of the land, down into the valley floor and then immediately up the other side, to be faced with another swooping drop. I planned this route last year when I was feeling strong and confident. I wish now I had looked at it more carefully this morning.
Hedges, wet road, broken tarmac, long lines of mud and grit along the middle of the road, overhanging trees black and dripping. The miles pass slowly, each hill hard fought for. The Wahoo shows me why it feels hard with double digit gradients in places, hitting 22% on one hill. I roll into Tregony after more than an hour, passing the school where I was headteacher from 2001-05. The past is a different country and it feels like a dream now. The faces of the children fill my mind, I wonder what they are doing now, some in their 30s now.
I zoom downhill into Tregony, keeping pace with the traffic and feeling the wind whipping past me. This evening on Strava I see I am in the slowest 10% on that hill. I am astonished. How can people go that fast through a village centre with speed bumps?
Now it is uphill again after a brief flat alongside the raging River Fal, brown and roiling, carrying the land to the sea. This is The Roseland as I know it, small lanes, isolated houses, forgotten churches, even a forgotten village abandoned in the 19th century after an earthquake. Another fast flat by the Ruan Lanihorne creek and then steeply up through backtracking bends, who needs to go to the Alps for 1 in 4 hairpins, wheels spinning on the greasy road, out of the saddle, bike sweeping from side to side, gasping for breath at my anaerobic threshold.
Up, down, more lanes, still muddy, still wet, I have lost track of where I am or even why I am here. Everything looks the same in the grey light, flat, colourless. The final swooping downhill into Tresillian and back into the real world. Traffic, people walking, I realise that I have seen little of either, been in my own damp, grey world, just the noise of the tyres and the scattered thoughts, the contemplative maundering of the solitary cyclist.
Ten minutes later I am descending the steep, green track down to our house. Madame Crow has been listening to the impeachment trial in the USA and the sonorous tones of the Republican defence lawyers fill the house. It is a jagged transformation from the last two hours spent alone in the mist and drizzle. Cycling is an escape, time out, time to think. Time passes, time changes me but I can't slow down time.
Andy in Germany
Guru
- Location
- Freiburg im Breisgau
I'm miles (ahaha) behind on ride reports at the moment. Local temperatures in the mornings are currently between -3 to-6°c (ca.26 to 22 °F). Despite this I’ve been riding to interviews and other official appointments quite a lot. This saves time and money and allows this introvert time to unwind, but it doesn’t always make for interesting descriptions.
Above is the touring bike on one of those trips. This was on the way back mid-morning, and it was still well below freezing. This isn’t the hardship it sounds, as the surfaced roads are dry and the cold makes any mud freeze solid so I save on bike cleaning.
Oxford Dave
Senior Member
- Location
- West Oxfordshire
Another morning ride today, headed off over the Thames at Newbridge, then turned left to Appleton, Eaton, Cumnor, Farmoor, Swinford toll bride, Eynsham, Sutton, Stanton Harcourt and home, 18 miles in an hour and forty minutes. Quite a testing hill after Newbridge, but lovely long downhill swoop from Cumnor to the reservoir at Farmoor.
The wind had got up and was in my face most of the way from Eynsham onwards, but I made it and my total for the week stands at 104 real miles, not too bad for my second week back on two wheels.
The wind had got up and was in my face most of the way from Eynsham onwards, but I made it and my total for the week stands at 104 real miles, not too bad for my second week back on two wheels.
EltonFrog
Legendary Member
Another ride to the shops and back with the Fragrant MrsP in the hybrids, along the 544 path full of phone zombies, idiots with dogs, and runners with ear buds who do not pay attention to their surroundings. I really must stop using this byway and stick to the roads.
6.03 miles. Wet and a bit windy today.
6.03 miles. Wet and a bit windy today.
cyberknight
As long as I breathe, I attack.
- Location
- Land of confusion
Proper winter club ride !
only 2 of us foolhardy enough , me just getting over my month long man flu and another one just feeling off it today , windy and chucking it down by the end !
Still got some good steady base miles in
https://www.strava.com/activities/3045373206
only 2 of us foolhardy enough , me just getting over my month long man flu and another one just feeling off it today , windy and chucking it down by the end !
Still got some good steady base miles in
https://www.strava.com/activities/3045373206
Donger
Convoi Exceptionnel
- Location
- Quedgeley, Glos.
Only two of us on our club ride today, too. Tina and I did a clockwise loop of about 34 miles, up onto the Cotswold escarpment via Nut Hill and Cranham, then down through Painswick to Stroud for coffee and cake. Absolutely superb new road surface all the way down through Painswick. We glided fast and silently, having to slow down at the speed limit sign and with only the seemingly permanent head/side wind to spoil it at all.
The forecast rain started at exactly 11.00 just as they said it would, so we rode all the way home in the rain. It didn't spoil the enjoyment, though .... just left Tina muddied and looking like she'd just ridden the Grand National. On the way home, Tina's right pedal fell off just past Stonehouse!
I'd never seen that happen before. I managed to retrieve it from the middle of the road, but we couldn't get it to stay in place. She managed to ride home with just the spindle to put her foot on. I was quite impressed that she could keep up 13-15 mph comfortably, with her foot slipping about on the bare metal.
Might just make my 250 mile target for the month after all, despite the weather.
Cheers, Donger.
The forecast rain started at exactly 11.00 just as they said it would, so we rode all the way home in the rain. It didn't spoil the enjoyment, though .... just left Tina muddied and looking like she'd just ridden the Grand National. On the way home, Tina's right pedal fell off just past Stonehouse!
I'd never seen that happen before. I managed to retrieve it from the middle of the road, but we couldn't get it to stay in place. She managed to ride home with just the spindle to put her foot on. I was quite impressed that she could keep up 13-15 mph comfortably, with her foot slipping about on the bare metal.Might just make my 250 mile target for the month after all, despite the weather.
Cheers, Donger.
