Your ride today....

[Levo-Lon]

Nice ride out today around 25 miles,
very heavy going into a strong wind "see river nene".
Rode along to wansford train station via the nene way.James bond fans ? This is where theydid the train bit in octopussy..
I took a few more pics but they seem to have disappeared? Stibby cafe was one of them ,which is a mecca for a good fry up off the A1..cake and cappuccino to finish..wifes little butterfly cake bless her

 

[ScotiaLass]

I managed to get out of bed, and walk down the stairs today. Hurt like hell, but maybe I'll be back on the bike before Easter....

 

[Apollonius]

Quite an eventful ride today with our slow-going Tuesday group of elderly cyclists. We went east for a change, and we don't often go east. The strong wind was in the west, so that was OK really. 28km to coffee was too much for some and they dropped off to go elsewhere. Our coffee stop was a new garden centre with a café. Husband and wife team just starting out. Homemade cakes! Lovely coffee. Nice welcome. I noticed the guy was taking photos. He had never had the place full before and was thrilled to see it busy. Nice people and great cake. Pillaton garden centre on the road between Penkridge and Cannock, if you ever go that way. Did I mention the home made cake? Coming out of the café I noticed my front tyre was flat. Well, a front tube change doesn't take long. Carry on, I'll catch you up. I caught them inside 5km. Pleased with that. By this time the wind was dropping and the sun getting stronger. All the warnings on the BBC this morning about blustery wintery showers were nonsense. Spring definitely in the air. Good ride.

 

[BigonaBianchi]

Todays ride in North Cyprus was the second on this current groups Tour. 72 Miles with 1015m climb in a figure eight loop around the Karpaz Peninsula. It had rained overnight and after the ride I finally decided the time had come to tell my best mate he really needed a shower

 

[totallyfixed]

We ride most days but try not to post as often for fear of boring everyone to death. We are having a week's holiday and after much faffing have decided to spend it sorting the house out and of course riding.
Today the wind in the trees was doing a fair impression of sounding like a train heard through our bedroom window so when we eventually got up we spent a lot of time ordering bike bits. The outside thermometer at 12.30 registered over 8C, not bad we thought. Wrong. I expect a lot of folks do what we did, head out into the wind and come back with it, yikes! The first 5 miles consists of mainly climbing with some flats but no downhill, you know a ride is hard when you don't remember anything about it, this was true for that first 5 miles. Going downhill for over 2 miles is tough on fixed, not today, even gears would not have been an advantage.
At 10 miles we turned towards home, the cross wind brought shrieks from dr_pink who is over 30kg lighter than me, this road has a short section with no hedgerows, the only one I can think of, just as well today.
When you start to see 4x4's parked on the verges you know the hunt is out and about [we are against fox hunting but enjoy the spectacle of the riders and hounds], as it happens dr_pink had never seen the hunt before. We could hear the horns and dogs baying, interspersed with a lot of shouting. At this point we were on a bit of a climb, about 13% at the bottom easing off to a gentle 5% or so. We passed 2 or 3 horses, one of which had just jumped a gate out into the road in front of us, the rest of the hunt which we couldn't see, only hear was running parallel to us. About 200m to go from the top of the hill and the highest point before the drop down into Oakham, dr_pink was scalped by a horse and rider galloping up the road!
We could hear the hunt was about to cross the road in front of us so we stopped to watch. I managed to get these pics.

See how heavy my bike is, pushing that post over, no wonder I climb so slow .
Just over 20 miles, but all hills and loads of fun, I think.

 

[BigonaBianchi]

Hooray Henries ..

 

[Spartak]

Nice ride down to Clevedon today.
Thru Bristol climbing Constitution Hill & over the Clifton Suspension Bridge. ( Quick bag of chips in the village of Pill ) before climbing Caswell Hill dropped down into Tickenham & onto a very windy Clevedon.
Three shots of the changing weather taken on the seafront.

It was good to head back north & enjoy the wind at by back 8-)
Along the Gordano valley in the sun was great and even managed a Strava PB.
Thru Portishead then along the Sheepway crossing the railway bridge, with the derelict line having recently been cleared !

Up over the M5 Avonmouth bridge & then thru the busy Bristol commuter traffic.

74kms with 900 metres of climbing !

https://www.strava.com/activities/262498651

 

[Racing roadkill]

Hooray Henries ..

Ohh god, there were so many out on my way home last night. Red light jumping, no lights, no lid, putting a hero pass on as I rounded a blind (obstructed by a bus shelter) bend, hence the reason I sat up and slowed down , cretins.. I think 'the season' has started

 

[Elybazza61]

1st commute in of the year today;pretty uneventful apart from seeing two herons and a barn owl hunting.Over-layered a bit so was pretty warm by the time I got to Cambridge despite a fairly moderate pace in a head/cross wind so the Garmin hrm decided to malfunction;after drying myself and the hrm off it went back to normal again.

https://www.strava.com/activities/262756012

 

[Donger]

Shortest ride ever today. (1.4 miles). I had cleaned out my front shifter with WD40 and it was working great on the workstand. Never ceases to amaze me , though, how things that work perfectly on the stand then suddenly go belly up again as soon as you hit the tarmac. Fortunately for me, the 0.7 mile mark (by which time I noticed the malfunction) left me slap bang outside Gloucester Bikes in Quedgeley, so I nipped in for some advice.

The owner (the wonderfully named Joe Snowball) couldn't have been more helpful, but it wasn't good news. After much fiddling, tinkering and head scratching,and getting the mech to work much better, we discovered a couple of extremely worn teeth at a strategic point on the front ring and a very slack and badly worn chain. No one factor was completely to blame, but it all added up to a frustrating combination of things that were not quite right. Even with a new chain fitted, you could see daylight between the chainring and the chain in places and the chain was occasionally slipping back off the big ring. I now have another part on order, to add to all the bits I've just ordered for my No 2 bike...... Ouch! A bit of a hit to the wallet. I may have aborted my ride, but I'm still counting it ... that 1.4 miles might be significant by the 31st December if I'm closing in on 3,000 miles, as now seems possible.

May all your chainsets have long and healthy lives. Cheers, Donger.

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

Right well this have been a very long time in the coming, and I can't say it was far, or it was fast. In fact it probably qualifies as the shortest and slowest ride on this report but here goes.
Oh and I guess this is probably going to be the longest and most pictures per mile/minute ride report there is!

My new recumbent trike was delivered today and what with the sun shining and me wanting to get out on a bike again, it being almost exactly 4 months today since my back went, I decided to not have my morning physio walk this morning and to make it an afternoon physio ride instead...

So first, here is the new bike... an ICE Adventure 26 custom build with Rohloff hub and triple front derailleur. The observant will notice the rear derailleur - it is being used solely as a (cheap) chain tensioner. There are some mobility aids for standing and in the near future there will be some adaptation done so that I can take my crutches with me as well. Plus all the usual paraphernalia needs to be added like barbag and lights and water bottle holders and well just the usual things... plus in time the pannier rack etc.

As you can see it was bright and sunny at this point, so I set out with a little trepidation and struggled... err how hard can it be? The parking brake is off... its in 1st gear... errrrrr.... well that took a while to suss out to be honest. I failed to get up the incline to the more level part of the Whitegate Way and had to push it up. Am I really that weak now? Well yes, but that was not the issue. more on that later.

Some trees I haven't seen for a while and some nice light....

Finally made it to the bridge, but this is not my target...

There is light at the end of the tunnel!

My target is a boring bench, but it happens to be exactly 1 mile from my house... that is my target and it is not too much further away. Its a boring bench so not worth photo'ing but I did get some really nice light on some more trees...

Nice light on some friends...

The closest thing to a selfie I will ever get!

Now on the way home and some excellent light and great shadows again...

Right totally exhausted by 2 miles. Strava says 30 minutes moving time, so that's a 4mph average but that is the fastest I have been self propelled for the last 4 months... I'm more than happy with that!
https://www.strava.com/activities/262882504
PS - I have no idea where I made it to 28.1kph!
So that is 7 photos per 2 miles... I'm going to have to work on that average!

PPS - those early problems with the Rohloff hub - I have the bike in what I thought was first (and normally is first (lowest) gear) but it turned out to be 14th gear (highest/hardest gear)... no wonder I couldn't get up the slight incline! - easily sorted now I know, but....

 

[raleighnut]

Right well this have been a very long time in the coming, and I can't say it was far, or it was fast. In fact it probably qualifies as the shortest and slowest ride on this report but here goes.
Oh and I guess this is probably going to be the longest and most pictures per mile/minute ride report there is!

My new recumbent trike was delivered today and what with the sun shining and me wanting to get out on a bike again, it being almost exactly 4 months today since my back went, I decided to not have my morning physio walk this morning and to make it an afternoon physio ride instead...

So first, here is the new bike... an ICE Adventure 26 custom build with Rohloff hub and triple front derailleur. The observant will notice the rear derailleur - it is being used solely as a (cheap) chain tensioner. There are some mobility aids for standing and in the near future there will be some adaptation done so that I can take my crutches with me as well. Plus all the usual paraphernalia needs to be added like barbag and lights and water bottle holders and well just the usual things... plus in time the pannier rack etc.

View attachment 81401

As you can see it was bright and sunny at this point, so I set out with a little trepidation and struggled... err how hard can it be? The parking brake is off... its in 1st gear... errrrrr.... well that took a while to suss out to be honest. I failed to get up the incline to the more level part of the Whitegate Way and had to push it up. Am I really that weak now? Well yes, but that was not the issue. more on that later.

View attachment 81403
Some trees I haven't seen for a while and some nice light....

View attachment 81404
Finally made it to the bridge, but this is not my target...

View attachment 81405
There is light at the end of the tunnel!

My target is a boring bench, but it happens to be exactly 1 mile from my house... that is my target and it is not too much further away. Its a boring bench so not worth photo'ing but I did get some really nice light on some more trees...

View attachment 81406
Nice light on some friends...

View attachment 81407
The closest thing to a selfie I will ever get!

View attachment 81408
Now on the way home and some excellent light and great shadows again...

Right totally exhausted by 2 miles. Strava says 30 minutes moving time, so that's a 4mph average but that is the fastest I have been self propelled for the last 4 months... I'm more than happy with that!
https://www.strava.com/activities/262882504
PS - I have no idea where I made it to 28.1kph!
So that is 7 photos per 2 miles... I'm going to have to work on that average!

PPS - those early problems with the Rohloff hub - I have the bike in what I thought was first (and normally is first (lowest) gear) but it turned out to be 14th gear (highest/hardest gear)... no wonder I couldn't get up the slight incline! - easily sorted now I know, but....

The trike looks lovely, hope some more trips make it easier pedalling.

 

[Slioch]

 

[MikeW-71]

After work for 5 days, I'd been looking forward to this day off. Sunny and dry is a good thing, but still having lots of wind is less good No matter, I need to get out and ride as the TdY Sportive is getting ever closer and I need some (all right, a lot) improvement or I really won't be able to enjoy it.

Headed out through Heads Nook via Warwick Bridge on one of my regular roads, and the legs weren't feeling 100% there, but no matter I'll press on to Castle Carrock and see how I feel, I can always just loop back an "easy" way from there. This sunshine is really nice after all

A little black cloud flew over and made me wet.

Figured I might as well go for the full loop, and set off south aiming for Ainstable, now that the sun was out and I was nearly dry again. This way round I get to go downhill into the village instead of the climb out of it woohoo!

A little black cloud flew over and made me wet.

Took another quick stop to try my freebie Etixx energy bar. Hmm, not too bad. Rice based and chocolate flavoured. I still prefer real food though. Oh, hello Mr Horse, sorry but I've no polo mints

Heading west towards Ainstable and Armathwaite was straight into the wind.. ooof! But the climb is fairly easy and soon it was time to enjoy the run down through Ainstable with the Station Hill climb to look forward to at Armathwaite. As soon as I hit it I knew I was not going to be breaking any records today, but I haven't had to stop on this climb for ages now and there was no way I was gonna spoil that record today, as I huffed and puffed my way to the top. It's mostly downhill from here

30.5 miles, which isn't close enough to count for my half century, but it looks like this wind will ease next week, so there's plenty more time to get some in.

 

[MikeW-71]

My new recumbent trike was delivered today and what with the sun shining and me wanting to get out on a bike again, it being almost exactly 4 months today since my back went, I decided to not have my morning physio walk this morning and to make it an afternoon physio ride instead...

Woohoo!