Yesterday's ride with Crazy Nick. I rode from Carlton to his home in West Bridgford at the agreed time of 10:45 but he insisted on a guided tour of his garden plus coffee and cake (both of which I politely declined) before setting off over 30 minutes later. My suggested ride along the S bank of the Trent starting at the
Hook fell foul of a barrier; all in a good cause, as it's for a new
pedestrian and cycling bridge over the river, due for opening next year. Nick led a diversion which brought us on to the bankside route close to Forest's City Ground.
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We followed the good quality path past Wilford - here's a view back downstream to Nottingham
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and stopped at the bridge over the Fairham Brook. Spot the Egret!
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Past Clifton the Trent Valley Way became more sketchy and had far too many of those A shaped barriers intended to prevent motorbike access but detrimental to ordinary cyclists. At Barton in Fabis we were back on to road, thankfully not the busy A453 but a minor road alongside. An unexpected 12% hill out of Thrumpton had me panting, but I managed it without too much difficulty, glad it wasn't longer. I had intended to go under the A453 just short of the disused Ratcliffe on Soar power station, but Nick knew of a path to keep us N of that road - here he is locating the unmarked entrance to it.
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This very good quality hard surface took us past an entrance to the power station, where Nick gorged himself on blackberries.
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Some more of Nick's navigation skills took us towards Kingston on Soar, past this disused ford.
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Ratcliffe's a bit posh, judging by the mosaics in the millennium project bus shelter, one on the wall
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and one on the floor
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We turned off just short of Sutton Bonington to stop for an excellent pint of Bass in the garden of the
Star at West Leake.
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Heading N from West Leake, towards New Kingston, I realised Nick was no longer with me. All the glorious freewheeling down Moulter Hill was now paid for as I retraced my route. When I finally got back to him he said "It worked, then.". "What worked, me coming back in a panic to see what happened to you?". "No, I sent you a message on my new phone." I checked. No message. Checked two email accounts. No message. "I thought you were behind me and had taken a wrong turning." "Come off it, I was ahead of you - you saw me going up the hill!".
The story changed somewhat. "I stopped to watch the planes going over.". (We were under the approach to EMA.) I forgave him and we continued to Gotham, Nick took a brief look inside the re-opened Cuckoo Bush and was not impressed so we went across the road to the Sun for a pint of Everards. Thence homewards via Clifton and rejoining the riverside way. No computer on this bike, but probably around 55 km.
Lately I've only ridden the Brompton, and seem to have lost the knack of graceful dismounts from this bigger machine with SPDs - fell sideways four times! No damage done, except to pride.