Your ride today....

[MikeW-71]

Well, today has turned out to be a belter! Some overnight rain left the roads wet, but it's dried up steadily all day. Bit windy, but hey-ho

Took the Defy out with the Advanced's P-SL1 wheels on it, and yep they are a night-and-day difference to the stock SR4's. Lovely!

With this being the third day in a row on the bike, I intended to keep it flatter, heading out my usual way through Wetheral and heading out past the Airport to Irthington. Popped up a climb in the village centre and dropped down the main road to turn left for Walton. This works it's way up quite steadily with the steepest bit just before the village, but it was dispatched well and I continued the climb through the village to the Hethersgill road. Turned right there and then right again to head across to Lanercost Priory.

There was my mistake, that road has a nasty little 15% climb on it and a few lumps after that before it meets the Banks Turret road. The legs surrendered and even after something to eat, I never did get them back, so I just had to make the best of it and return steadily by the least-steep route I suppose I expected that to happen, just not quite so suddenly!

34 miles though, happy with that and it is a proper 50k ride this time instead of just scraping it like last time

https://app.strava.com/activities/255728357

 

[Deleted member 23692]

@Ffoeg your rides always look fantastic !

Cheers. I'm lucky to live in a fantastic part of the county, so making it look like it is just comes naturally

 

[Saluki]

I had a short commute today. It's half term so we are low on dog walking clients as I have a lot of teachers on my books and they are all larking about, skipping in the sunshine for the half term.
Maybe not sunshine. I rode the short way to my only client today. Down the Dereham Road towards the city then headed right along a residential street, doglegging on to another one until I reached the Unthank Road. I rode along there, over the ring road and then past the road works and up the road that it closed to motorised traffic and turned left along Leopold Road.

There is a wee set of lights there and while I was waiting for the red lights to go green, another cyclist shot past me and over the junction and gone. The older chap in his convertable, next to me at the lights, saw fit to berate me about cyclists RLJing, even though I was sat there. I told him that the lad wasn't a cyclist, he was an ignorant pratt. Older chappy seemed vaguely mollified by this. After all, I was sat there all law abiding. I even had lights on, and hi-vis, plus helmet and cat-sick-yellow gloves.

After that it was an easy short ride to the client's home and I walked her very elderly dog. I took a different route home and took in the A140, the cyclepath past Eaton Golf Course, then in to Eaton itself and then along Bluebell Road and along the cyclepath home.

8.58 miles in a nice 44 minutes so averaged 11.8mph so pleased with that. The weather held despite some early mist then drizzle.

 

[thetribe]

Felt restless when I got in from work and after the slow ride with my better half yesterday I wanted to speed it up a bit today, averaged 15+mph over 15.5 of my 15.8 miles but lost it at the final incline, 14.9mph average. Although removing the warm up and cool down bits of my ride (within my strava exclusion zone) and I averaged 15.3mph so well pleased with that. Not bad after a day at work walking about 10-12miles and on my tourer which weighs in at 46lbs/21kg, I'm getting there again.


http://www.strava.com/activities/255778639

 

[PatrickPending]

108Km down to Brixworth - bit misty at first but rather nice. My 100K ride for February done then.....

 

[Donger]

....Up Horsepools I felt good and overtook @Donger heard something like "put a sack of potatoes on his back, and see how easy he finds it". Well I got up setting a PB so that was really good and I felt good at the top as I thought it was longer than it was.....

Yep .... sounds like something I'd have said. The thing is, @Dark46 is 4 years younger than me and about half my size and weight. He passed me near the top just when I thought I might have had him. (Reckon he was showboating).

I think I actually said "Come back in four years time with a sack of spuds on your back and you'll know how it feels, you little XXX!".

Naturally I apologise unreservedly for any offence caused..... until next time of course.
Got to say I do believe @Dark46 was one of the few who made it up the wall in one, by the way. We high fived at the top like he did, anyway. Kudos.

 

[fatjel]

Stopped to take a piccy out near Appledore today. None of that hilly nonsense around here
Did 101k in a new record time despite stopping twice to scrape the mud out of the front mudguard
https://app.strava.com/activities/255778115

 

[Deleted member 1258]

I actually know a lot of the villages in today's report for once!

I made the same discovery when cleaning my bike once so I am currently riding with a 175 mm right crank and a 170 mm left crank! That actually suits me because my left leg is shorter than the right one and it now doesn't have to reach down so far at the bottom of the pedal stroke.

Thats a strange one, I've not seen that before, I found a spare 165 crank in the shed this morning and changed the crank before I rode to work, looking at the crank tonight its actually OK, its been plated and the plating is coming off, the plating had cracked and lifted at one point and it looked like a cracked crank but when I scraped it with my nail the plating came off to reveal clean undamaged metal, looking at what looked like a crack across from where its cracked and has lifted the plating is cracked but hasn't lifted.

 

[ColinJ]

Thats a strange one, I've not seen that before, I found a spare 165 crank in the shed this morning and changed the crank before I rode to work, looking at the crank tonight its actually OK, its been plated and the plating is coming off, the plating had cracked and lifted at one point and it looked like a cracked crank but when I scraped it with my nail the plating came off to reveal clean undamaged metal, looking at what looked like a crack across from where its cracked and has lifted the plating is cracked but hasn't lifted.

I'm wondering if I overtightened it? I always assumed that undertightening would be more of a problem with square taper cranks because if they started flopping about then the tapers would not stay square for long!

I've just remembered snapping a crank when out on a ride. Fortunately it was not at speed or when I was standing up so I was able to stay upright. It was near Todmorden, about 5 miles up the A646 from here. I rode the bike back just using the right crank, which was surprisingly tiring!

 

[PeteXXX]

Pancake Day ride today after a late finish at w*rk this morning

Never mind, a mate or two and I had planned to meet by the Canoes on Bedford Road at 09:00. One of the chaps couldn't make it as it was too cold (he's still recovering from a serious bout of ill-health) so the remaining two of us skittered over the icy patches once we were off the main ungritted roads. We both had a few scary moments as the wheels struggled for grip in places.
After about 10 o'clock, it got a bit safer apart from the shady places.

Couldn't ask for better weather though, with the sun shining beautifully all the was round.
I finished the ride back at my place, where we tested a few pancakes each, washed down with fresh-ground coffee..

A lovely 30 mile ride..

Off to w*rk soon.... Boooo

https://www.strava.com/activities/256104901

 

[sgl5gjr]

Just got back for a hot mug of tea..... been from Here in Huntingdon...to St Ives then up the Busway cyclepath to Histon and back....with a different route back from St Ives to home..... 33.1 miles.... ... sunny and bright day... And I even went in Bib shorts.(yeah I know.... bit cool for that..lol)
The Roadie was covered in crap and needed a lovely wash down after.... trouble is ..it looks like I haven't been out on it...lol

 

[cosmicbike]

Did 3 miles yesterday to pick up an inner tube for my daughter's bike. Been down with some bug which has taken the wind out of my sails so staying off the bike for now, probate right thing even though the weather is

 

[Saluki]

Short ride today, with Hubster. I am supposed to have 20 mins exercise a day (the doc says that's it along side the diet thing as I can't eat back the used calories for 3 weeks). So I followed the cyclepath to Earlham fiveways, along Bluebell Road and then turned off up Southpark Avenue, the southern side of lovely Eaton Park, with its tennis courts, boating pond, nice grassy areas and flower beds. The end of the avenue brings us on to Coleman Road, which is part of the Norwich Ring Road. We went left and had a couple of hundred yards in the traffic and then turned left again into The Avenues.

The Avenues is great, it's part cyclepath and part road but takes us back to Bluebell Road, outside the UEA road. From there we followed the cyclepath home again but a slightly different way to the way we had come.

4.7 miles in 26:27 so averaged about 10.8mph. Hubster had a good time, the sun was shining and we could have gone much further but the doc was very firm about not doing lots of cycling for a week or two. Something about keytosis, I didn't quite understand. I have a longer ride planned next week, with friends, I might just eat a bit more and done with. One day won't hurt, I'm sure.

 

[thetribe]

Did something I don't usually do today, I headed out when it was windy. Normally I hide from the wind but today I decided to go out and enjoy the bit where the wind was at my back, didn't seem to find that bit even though I rode a circular(ish) route.

Shorter distance than usual on this route, (10.9 instead of 11.3 or so) as it seems the timer didn't start immediately when I hit start and I couldn't tell due to the Garmin searching for satellites, missed a massive 0.4miles...

https://www.strava.com/activities/256214283

Possibly last one for a couple of days as I need to find time to get it serviced.

 

[Goonerobes]

With the afternoon off work & the sun shining, it doesn't get much better in chilly February so it would have been rude not to take advantage & get out on the bike.

I decided on my "flat route" today which only has around 1000ft of climbing over the 35 or so miles & takes in the southern end of the New Forest, through Colbury, past Beaulieu & west towards Lymington. Turning left at Norley the following few miles are country lanes which loop back towards Beaulieu where I head for home via Lyndhurst & Ashurst.

The only sour point was the numpty lorry driver who felt the need to blast his horn from behind me twice for no reason whatsoever so I think his office may be getting a call in the morning.

Pancake time now!!

https://www.strava.com/activities/256192341

It looks warmer than it actually was as there was still a chilly north-westerly blowing across the forest today.

The Beaulieu Road livestock auction site along side the main line east to Southampton.