Your ride today....

[Jon George]

In preparation for watching The Superbowl on Sunday, on Friday night I stayed up until 02.00 watching a film and drinking beer - so I was a tad late getting out onto the roads, today. The intention was to pootle over to Woodbridge for lunch and a pint, but decided to veer away and ended up at The Shannon in Bucklesham for more alcohol than planned. Within five minutes I was discussing Trump, Brexit and apparently what it was like to be in your twenties in London in The Sixties. An hour-and-half later and I was discussing writing, running a pub with the new landlady, and mutual friends with her husband. My kind of pub!

About 11 miles and this at Foxhall.

 

[EltonFrog]

I went to meet some CC'ers today at Reading station on the Exurbia pub crawl ride. I drove to one of the pubs that was supposed to be at thened of the ride and rode the bike 9 miles to Readind Station, and after a bacon bap and a coffee I met up with @User21629 , @theclaud , @Fab Foodie , @StuAff, @marknotgeorge ,@robjh and a couple of others and we set off from Reading to the first pub about 4-5 miles away in Play Hatch, then onto Aston via Sonning Eye, Charvil, Wargrave, Remenham Hill to the pub in Aston, where we stopeed for food and water. I had to bail fomr the rest of the ride then and make my way back to Checkenden which we had not got to by then, but I had to get home for the doggies, who had been home a one for the duration.

I put in the wring post code to get back and got a bit lost about 2 miles from where I needed to be, but I finally realise my mistake and got back to the car in fare time.

The weather was FAB, the company was ACE, and the ride was lovely.

The meet, waiting for a couple of people.

Over the weir

The Thames

A motley bunch

It's funny what you see when you haven't got a gun.

The Foodie fella on his second pint, the feckin old lush.

The route, about 33 miles for me today, the longest ride of the year so far.

My favourites phrase of the the day: A triangle of social ineptitude.

 

[cosmicbike]

Get afew pictures of the van up.

Funny I can only find this one, Myfanwy looks a little different now she's been converted. The important bit is on in this pic though, 4 bike rack

 

[colly]

Haven't been out for week or so for various reasons. I was working this morning and was looking forward to getting out in the sunshine this aft. Got home around midday and had a text from my dil asking if I fancied going for a ride with my grand-daughter, Jess. For those who don't know Jess had soem medical issues during October and November which resulted in an operation to remove a serious infection and blood clots at the rear of her brain. She's made terrific progress since Christmas and has been on blood thinning drugs since the op. She had a new bike for Christmas but because of the blood thinning drugs her mum has not let her out on it. So for Jess it would be the first time out on her new bike. She has been itching to do more than sit on it and pedal a static trainer.
Of course I said I would be delighted to go with her. Got changed and put the bike in the van. collected Jess and her bike and drove about 6 miles and parked up out in the sticks so she wouldn't have to navigate Leeds Ring Road.
Parked at a place called Hetchel Woods which is to the north of Leeds and we cycled a nice quite lane route out to Bramham, Clifford, back towards Collingham, picked up a cycle track near the A1M which took us back to Bramham. From there is was tracing our outward route back to Hetchel Woods.

In all it was a steady ride of 11.1 miles which Jess managed easily enough, never missed a beat. To say she was so close to being history just a couple of months
ago I can't tell you how happy I was to have her with me.

View: https://ridewithgps.com/trips/12837945



I forgot to turn the Garmin off when we got back to the van so the route is not quite what we covered.

Setting off from Hetchel Woods at the start of the ride I'm pretty sure I passed @NorthernDave, I said hello but didn't really clock who it was until it was too late.

.

 

[colly]

Funny I can only find this one, Myfanwy looks a little different now she's been converted. The important bit is on in this pic though, 4 bike rack
View attachment 336167

Wow. My van wasn't that shiney even when it was new.

 

[13 rider]

Haven't been out for week or so for various reasons. I was working this morning and was looking forward to getting out in the sunshine this aft. Got home around midday and had a text from my dil asking if I fancied going for a ride with my grand-daughter, Jess. For those who don't know Jess had soem medical issues during October and November which resulted in an operation to remove a serious infection and blood clots at the rear of her brain. She's made terrific progress since Christmas and has been on blood thinning drugs since the op. She had a new bike for Christmas but because of the blood thinning drugs her mum has not let her out on it. So for Jess it would be the first time out on her new bike. She has been itching to do more than sit on it and pedal a static trainer.
Of course I said I would be delighted to go with her. Got changed and put the bike in the van I collected Jess and her bike and drove about 6 miles and parked up out in the sticks so she wouldn't have to navigate Leeds Ring Road.
Parked at a place called Hetchel Woods which is to the north of Leeds and we cycled a nice quite lane route out to Bramham, Clifford, back towards Collingham, picked up a cycle track near the A1M which took us back to Bramham. From there is was tracing our outward route back to Hetchel Woods.

In all it was a steady ride of 11.1 miles which Jess managed easily enough, never missed a beat. To say she was so close to being history just a couple of months
ago I can't tell you how happy I was to have her with me.

View: https://ridewithgps.com/trips/12837945



I forgot to turn the Garmin off when we got back to the van so the route is not quite what we covered.

Setting off from Hetchel Woods at the start of the ride I'm pretty sure I passed @NorthernDave, I said hello but didn't really clock who it was until it was too late.

View attachment 336168 View attachment 336169 View attachment 336170 .

Nice write up glad your granddaughter is on the mend

 

[booze and cake]

I've been cycling to and photographing lots of trees across London over the last year, and today's ride involved slaloming from South London to just north of Edgware in the wilds of the north London, in search of some Giant Redwood trees on Canon's Drive. I went to see the Giant Redwood cross section in the Natural History Museum last year.

It was taken from the 'Mark Twain' tree that was felled in the Sierra Nevada mountains in California in 1891, at the time the tree was over 1300 years old and was over 300ft tall. The Natural History Museum of New York has a cross section of the same tree. The bark of another giant Californian redwood known as the Mother of the Forest was brought to the Great Exhibition in Crystal Palace in 1851 and erected around some scaffolding with a piano inside to show the girth of the tree, but the exhibit was a total failure. The Brits thought it was a hoax, and that no tree so huge could have existed. There was outrage back in the USA over the senseless felling of the tree, and it was from this that the US National Park movement was started, and Yellowstone National park created. More info here if anyone's interested:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2013/jun/27/giant-tree-death-conservation-movement

We don't have any living ones quite that size in London, but I was still impressed by Canon's Drive. Its hard to believe this in London, and from the sun and green its hard to believe its early February!

It was then on Canon's Park, which I had almost to myself.

I enjoyed the peace and quiet for a bit, before the tranquillity was shattered by rejoining the A5 and heading back through the mania of central London. 33 miles for the day, and weather permitting I'm off in search of other evergreens tomorrow.

 

[Pale Rider]

My intention today was to do the York - Humber Bridge - York circuit but circumstances conspired against me.

I motivated myself to get to the Minster for about 7.45am and set off in good spirits.

However a nasty head wind towards and after Goole had me thinking I might have bitten off a bit more than I could chew.

My own fault, the BBC website was showing up to 13mph - I reckon anything in double figures means you are going to suffer somewhere.

I stopped at Howden station - the level crossing was down - and established trains to York run from Brough, a few miles north of the Humber Bridge.

With this new target I cracked on into the wind.

There was what looked like an audax in progress, most riders were coming towards me, a few of the fast lads were on their way back and going my way.

They were struggling into the wind, I could still make reasonable progress on the ebike, so I was soon leading a mini-peloton.

One guy in particular was glued to my wheel for miles, but at least he had the good grace to say 'thanks' when we parted somewhere around Scunthorpe.

A by now quite tired Pale Rider made it to the Humber Bridge and then set about finding the teaming metropolis that is Brough, which is a few miles off the planned route.

I'm generally not too bad at navigating on the fly, but tiredness led to a couple of minor route fails before I reached the station.

To my relief the trains were running on time, and Northern Rail seem relatively bike friendly, so no problems getting the bike on.

About 75 miles, not the 105 it was going to be, but still a decent ride.

It's probably the longest I've ridden on my own, which may be one of the reasons I didn't complete the ride.

There's no doubt chatting to other riders helps the miles pass.

Hopefully @middleagecyclist and/or @busdennis are going to run the ride again this year, so there will be a chance to do it in company and hopefully better weather.

 

[Mike_P]

A smige under 12 miles today with nasty uphills throw in. The first is one is an annoying residential street with speed humps which have significant adverse effect on the gradient!

A trip along NCN67 led to the low point where at this time of year you can see how close the River Nidd is; not a good location to go off NCN.

The acute peak on the gradient profile is (in terms of the up hill bit) NCN67 west of Ripley. This use to be an awful surface where care was needed to pick out a reasonable route through the potholes. The benefit of that surface struck me today as it took the eyes off what was approaching - all too obvious in the neat tarmac surface that currently exists.

The rapid decent thereafter leads to the village of Hampsthwaite through which TdY will pass this year although not tackling the climb I made thereafter. Wonder if all the cars will be required to move for TdY

 

[Reynard]

The last couple of times I've been out I fancied going a bit further, but time constraints meant that I couldn't. But today I found the time - and a beautiful afternoon for it. Lovely and sunny, barely a breath of wind and nice dry roads, making a change from the mud and muck of earlier in the week.

So I took myself off into Downham via California, and from thence through the village, out onto my usual route through Way Head and Coveney. But instead of turning left at St Peter's and heading off back down the hill along West Fen Road towards Ely, I kept on going along Long Causeway all the way to the junction for Wentworth. There it's a left turn to join the A142.

I've never attempted this stretch of road on a bike before, and didn't appreciate how long and how steep the climb is all the way back to Ely. Ooops... Ah well, nothing doing except to just get on with it and hope I didn't explode before the top. The half mile going up towards Lancaster Way is particularly nasty.

Between Lancaster Way and the roundabout for the A10 I took advantage of the cycle path as I was feeling it a little by that point. But at least the next bit is mostly downhill-ish, so had the chance to recoup before the left turn at the football ground and the short climb up to Orwell Pit Farm. After that, it's another downhill fizz back into Downham, right along Cowbridge Hall Road, back through California, past Black Bank and the short run towards home.

Saw four cyclists, three of whom waved back, and one jogger. Wildlife count was a covey of partridge in a field down California on the way out, a barn owl hunting near Way Head, another barn owl sitting on a fence post alongside the A142 near the horsey place and a heron halfway down Long Causeway.

An hour and a half in the saddle and 17 distinctly challenging miles that included the local cycling club's 20k TT course. Would deffo do this ride again though. Feel like I've really accomplished something.

P.S. Forgot to add, but I was almost wiped out on the way home within sight of my front door... I can see a car's coming up behind me, but as there was plenty of road space, I pull out into the middle of the road and signal the right turn that I'm about to make. Was just starting to swing right when he decided that he was going to overtake me there and then. Aaaaargh...

 

[NorthernDave]

Haven't been out for week or so for various reasons. I was working this morning and was looking forward to getting out in the sunshine this aft. Got home around midday and had a text from my dil asking if I fancied going for a ride with my grand-daughter, Jess. For those who don't know Jess had soem medical issues during October and November which resulted in an operation to remove a serious infection and blood clots at the rear of her brain. She's made terrific progress since Christmas and has been on blood thinning drugs since the op. She had a new bike for Christmas but because of the blood thinning drugs her mum has not let her out on it. So for Jess it would be the first time out on her new bike. She has been itching to do more than sit on it and pedal a static trainer.
Of course I said I would be delighted to go with her. Got changed and put the bike in the van. collected Jess and her bike and drove about 6 miles and parked up out in the sticks so she wouldn't have to navigate Leeds Ring Road.
Parked at a place called Hetchel Woods which is to the north of Leeds and we cycled a nice quite lane route out to Bramham, Clifford, back towards Collingham, picked up a cycle track near the A1M which took us back to Bramham. From there is was tracing our outward route back to Hetchel Woods.

In all it was a steady ride of 11.1 miles which Jess managed easily enough, never missed a beat. To say she was so close to being history just a couple of months
ago I can't tell you how happy I was to have her with me.

View: https://ridewithgps.com/trips/12837945



I forgot to turn the Garmin off when we got back to the van so the route is not quite what we covered.

Setting off from Hetchel Woods at the start of the ride I'm pretty sure I passed @NorthernDave, I said hello but didn't really clock who it was until it was too late.

View attachment 336168 View attachment 336169 View attachment 336170 .

Aye, it was me - usual thing of a quick hello then 30 seconds later...Hang on, wasn't that...?

Glad to see the little one out on her bike and doing so well. Great day for a ride.

 

[ColinJ]

That road from Slaid Hill to East Keswick is always fun, especially if you manage to get your timing between cars just right - and that is certainly a hill out of East Keswick. Have you tried turning right just before the village on Keswick Lane to the A58 and then tackling Rigton Bank (usually from a dead stop at the traffic lights)? That will definitely have you out of the saddle - I thought I was going to pop a lung out the first time I tried it.

Yup, that is one way to check your lung capacity, the 'eck of a climb, politely. Just had the legs for it the one time I have done it. The next time may have to wait a while . . .

I went there with my cousin last year to watch the Tour de Yorkshire peloton go up it. My pictures of the riders didn't turn out very well, but here are a couple of the crowds building up ...

 

[Aravis]

My first responsibility today was to collect my wife from her night shift. She was over an hour late - that's fine, her work is more important than my ride. But sitting in the car growing ever colder when I could've been on the road wasn't the best of starts.

This was the most perfect early February day imaginable, and well forecast. A shame that circumstances, the aftermath of the virus many have been talking about, and the pneumonia vaccination I was persuaded to take a few days ago were a bit against me. Here's the final route (anticlockwise):

Early on I passed a pub called The Penny Farthing at Aston Crews, east of Ross-on-Wye. Surely this is going to be middle-aged cyclist friendly? It needs checking out.

Two big climbs today, at English Bicknor and Tintern. Both have stings in the tail, the first of which I knew about, the second not. The big descent from Devauden towards Chepstow, of which I spoke so glowingly of a few months ago, didn't seem so remarkable today. I guess that unexpected pleasures are the sweetest...

I couldn't come home on such a glorious day without attempting a few pictures. This is south of Llandogo, showing a very red river Wye and if you use your imagination the beginnings of life in the trees:

The A466 Wye Valley road was full of cyclists, many of whom thought it was helpful to creep up behind and shout "All Right" from a foot behind my right ear. It would've been easy enough to take the standard route from Tintern, past the Abbey and over Lover's Leap, but I wanted a rest from being buzzed by cyclists and I decided to take the stiffer route up to Devauden. Immediately I was faced with a "Road Closed" notice, the second time in as many rides this has happened on a bit of road important to my route. As before , I decided to ignore it and hope for the best. There seemed to have been some canopy clearing going on, but there was no-one around today and no obtruction to progress, whatever your vehicle. This valley features a succession of small dams and associated reservoirs, the remnants of bygone industry, which have been cleared and restored since I was last there. I was rewarded for my defiance with views such as this:

Onwards to the Severn Bridge, which I used to commute over daily and have therefore crossed thousands of times. It now seems special again, which is nice.

Sadly, when the new bridge was build, they saved half a crown by not supplying a cycle track. I gather that whoever designed the crossing from Denmark to Sweden was similarly unenlightened - perhaps I'm being unfair. I guess we should be thankful for what we do have. Unsurprisingly, the cycletracks/footpaths were very busy today.

As the light started to fade, I took this final shot looking north over the village of Purton with the river Severn behind. In the distance can just be seen the Malverns, 25 miles away:

I ended with 103 rather slow miles, a bit of sunburn and a very dirty bike - again!

 

[Reynard]

Those pics of the Wye Valley bring back some memories - did several brownie and guide camps near Llandogo back in the day...

 

[galaxy]

Funny I can only find this one, Myfanwy looks a little different now she's been converted. The important bit is on in this pic though, 4 bike rack
View attachment 336167

Looking good