Your ride today....

[Spiderweb]

A 31 mile loop today on my old winter steed. Fab ride and a beautiful day.

 

[chr15b]

Took a 30 mile cycle down to my old school today in Kilbirnie, North Ayrshire. I've not been there since I left in 2001 and I understand the pupils moved to their new school when they returned from the christmas break.

 

[robjh]

What a great day for cycling! The forecast was for patchy rain and very strong sout-westerly winds. Neither appeared. Instead it was breezy, alternately grey and blue skies and just spiffing.

I went for a geological journey south of London.
View attachment 335359
Over the North Downs (Titsey) over the Greensand Ridge (Crockham Hill) over the Ashdown Sands (Ashdown Forest) Turned around with the South Downs in view (Ringmer). Stopped for coffee in Lindfield (Field & Forrest cafe) Back over the sandy middle (Turner's Hill) over the western remnants of the Greensand Ridge (Bletchingley) and back up and over the North Downs (Ganger's Hill)
View attachment 335357
(clockwise loop)

A geological ride - what a refreshing take on a familiar subject. I have been doing a number of meteorological rides of late, where I sample sun, rain, wind and hail all in one day.

 

[Dogtrousers]

I have been doing a number of meteorological rides of late, where I sample sun, rain, wind and hail all in one day.

As I often do, I took the train for the last 10k home, as it's a dull suburban trudge. Turned out to be sensible as I watched a massive hailstorm from the train window.

 

[Dave 123]

I woke up this morning to views like this

In Valencia,

but then sadly caught an earlyish flight home.

I decided to go out for a short spin just to blow the cobwebs away and was treated to views like this

I need to move!

Just 11 of your gloriously drab English miles.

https://www.strava.com/activities/848434625

 

[iandg]

I was a wake at 5.30 am intending to head out for 100km but there had been a real hard frost overnight and there was a lot of ice around. So did some fettling then walked the dogs when it got light. Got out a bit later (between the U23 and elite mens worlds cyclo cross events) when the sun had burned away most of the ice and went for a gravel grind up to the Pentland Rd wind farm and back.

View: https://www.strava.com/activities/848180991/embed/eb7c45e47223de64803776fbeffdd6565dc0f11e

 

[Donger]

A geological ride - what a refreshing take on a familiar subject. I have been doing a number of meteorological rides of late, where I sample sun, rain, wind and hail all in one day.

I too have been doing some meteorological rides this year. There was the wet one, then the really wet one, then a quite damp one followed by three more wet ones.

Today I introduced one of my clubmates to winter audaxing. He's a much stronger rider than me, but he said it was the toughest ride he'd ever done. It wasn't the terrain (which was reasonably flat), but the weather. Drizzle to start with, followed by ever increasing persistent light rain. All of it cold. By the time we finished the 108.7km "Windrush Winter Warm-up" audax, my jacket weighed at least twice as much as it did at the start ... as did my hat, my gloves, my overshoes ... everything. I lost count of the number of times I squeezed the rainwater out of my gloves, and my feet were soaking wet. The cold got to us both, and Rich was visibly shaking by the end. Neither of us could produce a convincing signature on the brevet cards at the finish. Thank goodness for all those lovely volunteers with regular mugs of hot tea at all the control points.

A very slow time of 6 hours 59 mins for my 67.6 miles today .... partly because of the cold, and the need to warm up at the rest stations, and partly because of a couple of punctures. We were sitting nicely in the middle of the leading peloton at the 15 mile mark, only for Rich to have a blow out as he went over a piece of flint. Wave goodbye to that crowd. After about 10 minutes another big group passed us, also never to be seen again. We got moving again eventually, and reckoned we couldn't be more than 5 minutes adrift of the second group when we came across another rider with a puncture near Standlake. I of course offered my help, and unfortunately he accepted it! Two inner tubes and another 20 minutes later, we finally hit the road again, and only ever overtook about 4 or 5 other riders all day.

As ever, beautiful scenery and some lovely villages (I can recommend Minster Lovell near Witney, and Little Barrington near Burford). This was the route:

Sadly no photos, as my camera was as steamed up as I was. Despite the grim weather, this was an enjoyable ride in good company. I think Rich got the audax bug, despite the cold. My lovely "flatnav" was in a real state by the end, with my route sheet soaked through and falling to bits

Well, I've finally done it .... I've done more than the basic one qualifying ride a month for the Metric Century-a-Month Challenge. (Maybe I won't be the Lanterne Rouge this year!)
May all your rides be drier than this one.
Cheers, Donger.

 

[jembullo]

Well done mate, bit of a shame I couldn't do this one today, but by the sounds of it, I'm not sure it was a bad thing to miss it. Probably a bit like the 200k me and my brother did last year, 8 hours solid rain......
I ended up going on my mountain bike with 2 very experienced riders over some pretty tricky climbs, and near vertical drops. We did around 17 miles and nearly 2000ft, I feel more spent than doing an Audax.....phew it was tough!

I too have been doing some meteorological rides this year. There was the wet one, then the really wet one, then a quite damp one followed by three more wet ones.

Today I introduced one of my clubmates to winter audaxing. He's a much stronger rider than me, but he said it was the toughest ride he'd ever done. It wasn't the terrain (which was reasonably flat), but the weather. Drizzle to start with, followed by ever increasing persistent light rain. All of it cold. By the time we finished the 108.7km "Windrush Winter Warm-up" audax, my jacket weighed at least twice as much as it did at the start ... as did my hat, my gloves, my overshoes ... everything. I lost count of the number of times I squeezed the rainwater out of my gloves, and my feet were soaking wet. The cold got to us both, and Rich was visibly shaking by the end. Neither of us could produce a convincing signature on the brevet cards at the finish. Thank goodness for all those lovely volunteers with regular mugs of hot tea at all the control points.

A very slow time of 6 hours 59 mins for my 67.6 miles today .... partly because of the cold, and the need to warm up at the rest stations, and partly because of a couple of punctures. We were sitting nicely in the middle of the leading peloton at the 15 mile mark, only for Rich to have a blow out as he went over a piece of flint. Wave goodbye to that crowd. After about 10 minutes another big group passed us, also never to be seen again. We got moving again eventually, and reckoned we couln't be more that 5 minutes adrift of the second group when we came across another rider with a puncture in Standlake. I of course offered my help, and unfortunately he accepted it! Two inner tubes and another 20 minutes later, we finally hit the road again, and only ever overtook about 4 or 5 other riders all day.

As ever, beautiful scenery and some lovely villages (I can recommend Minster Lovell near Witney, and Little Barrington near Burford). This was the route:
View attachment 335462
Sadly no photos, as my camera was as steamed up as I was. Despite the grim weather, this was an enjoyable ride in good company. I think Rich got the audax bug, despite the cold. My lovely "flatnav" was in a real state by the end, with my route sheet soaked through and falling to bits View attachment 335463
Well, I've finally done it .... I've done more that the basic one qualifying ride a month for the Metric Century-a-Month Challenge. (Maybe I won't be the Lanterne Rouge this year!)
May all your rides be drier than this one.
Cheers, Donger.

 

[cosmicbike]

Fair play to you @Donger for that distance in the rubbish weather today.

I was working again, so just commutes for me. Dry on the way in with a tailwind, rather wet on the way home with a headwind On the plus side the commuting over-trousers (BTwin 700) are excellent, likewise their £20 jacket, so I only got a wet head.

 

[Old jon]

It has again been a while since the last ride. Weather and other commitments and sheer idleness I guess. There may not be a map and no video for sure. Infamous Windows is not allowing me online so I am messing with Linux. Slowly.
Today and its miles, just managed thirty and a tiny smidgeon of them. There was no chance of the weather making an excuse of itself, dry and it passed the birdbath test. Off pedalled I towards the Jack Lane way in to Holbeck, and the eventual left turn off Water Lane to Office Lock and the towpath I seem to be using a lot of just lately. Leave the towpath at Viaduct Road and down the hill under the viaduct itself, ready ( ? ) for the climb up Cardigan Road to Headingley and points further up to Lawnswood, where in a fit of enthusiasm I turned left after crossing the Ring Road to climb up Otley Old Road through Cookridge and along the way to Bramhope until turning left to head for Otley. A couple more climbs past the south end of the airport, aren't those planes enormous?
Anyway, reach the Bradford to Harrogate road ( A 658 ) and turn right. A choice of two descents, today Pool Bank. Turn left at the bottom, along the road to Otley itself and yet again left by the maypole. Road closed, on towards the bus station and onto the Leeds Road in the direction of home. That hill never seems to become any easier. All the way to Headingley on the A 660 with the right turn towards Kirkstall, back on the towpath, one corner of Hunslet and I am about home. Freezing left foot, everything else including the grin doing very well indeed.

Well, I'll be. *.png files work! Thank you this site, well done Linux.

 

[twentysix by twentyfive]

After a mild bug my mojo went missing. It's still not been found so it took Mrs 26 to get me out today. Still chilly and grey, it wasn't very inviting out there. Left to my own devices I'd have stayed indoors. But as usual it's always better out than in. I didn't aim high for this one. It was just a ride around the old loop. I met Ralph R on my way out so we stopped for a chat. That left me a bit late so I ran out of daylight on the run in. No worries - my lights went on. Some wet drops from above began to arrive but I was home and missed that thankfully. 27 smiles.

 

[GuyBoden]

32 mile ride around Cheshire, passing the Water Tower at High Legh, that was on Channel 4's Restoration Man the other week.
https://osmaps.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/osmaps/route/1030099/50km-Barleycastle-Rostherne

Here's a nice video showing the extent of the restored Water Tower from the sky:

 

[Edwardoka]

100.9 miles on Sunday, anti-clockwise around Inverclyde, and an extended night ride back along NCN7, all in the name of logging a ride for the Imperial Century a Month challenge. (With a crash! How exciting!)

Strava Link
TL;DR
I don't think I'll ever have a big ride that doesn't turn into an ordeal.

Writeup (not edited for brevity)
I'd not ridden a ton since June and had barely ridden at all since September, and tentatively posted in the thread about possibly taking part this year (2015's disastrous finale left me sans étoiles)

I slept in badly on Sunday - the last day I could possibly ride a qualifier (so very unlike me ) - and followed this up by procrastinating on here - I was still planning to go out and knock out maybe 50 miles before it got dark and I got tired. Push came to shove, and I eventually pedalled off a few minutes before 1pm, with no clear route in mind, I decided to let the wheels decide for me.

As I tend to on my routeless rides, I ended up on NCN7 at Elderslie, and the wheels decided to take the NCN75 northwest towards Greenock, and the cyclepath has some rather odd guardians!

I followed the cycle track for a while before cutting off onto the moor road at Kilmacolm, then up onto the reservoir road that leads down into Greenock.
Stopped for a quick supply stop, then straight into the absolute leg-burster that is the Old Largs Road. Stunning scenery but more than capable of delivering the hurt to unaccustomed legs.

My favourite part of Old Largs Road is how easily it could pass for somewhere in the remote wilds of the far north.

After a stunning descent that I didn't stop to take pictures of (even if my phone's camera was working properly, pictures wouldn't do it justice) and a main stop in Largs at around mile 35 (my mantra for this stop was "minimise the faff" and I failed spectacularly when I saw the cake), and then onwards once more.

The sun started setting at the foot of the Fairlie Moor Road and had fully set by the time I had puggled my way to the top.

(Maybe @Brandane can help me with this one - what is it specifically about FMR that means that I have to get off and push every single time I go up it?
It's not particularly steep, nor particularly long, but every time I've ever gone up it I wobble to a stop on the same stretch, then 20 yards on I'm able to get back on and ride straight to the top, yet I can climb steeper and longer roads. I can't work it out.)

With the climb behind me, I descended the Garnock valley and into Dalry as night fell, and turned south to eke out a few more miles, going as far down as Ardrossan for for the third beach of the day but it was far too dark to see anything other than headlights.

I then headed for Kilwinning in order to rejoin the NCN7 northwards on the homeward leg of my journey - between Kilwinning and Glengarnock is a fairly narrow, muddy farm access road and by this point it was completely pitch black.

Most of the way along this road, a car coming the other way saw my lights and stopped at a narrow section, leaving what they felt was an appropriate gap for me to get through. I went for it, and what I thought was muddy tarmac turned out to be a muddy verge, my wheel dug in and I was flung headfirst into a roadside bush.

The driver continued for about 30 yards before stopping, presumably realising that the bike lights in their mirror weren't meant to be horizontal...
After allowing myself the mandatory 5 seconds of pitiful groaning while wondering if I was dying, I got up, shouted "I'm all right! I'm all right!" a little more vigorously than the occasion called for and they drove off. I dusted myself down, checked over the bike and remounted. My front mudguard had been knocked loose and worked its way into the forks where it was making a terrible noise that I was ill equipped to deal with in the dark, but as the next train was an hour away and I wasn't thrilled by the prospect of waiting in the freezing cold, I bodged it and rode on until Kilbirnie where I was able to adjust it a bit better for the ride home.

At this point NCN7 turns into a former-railway cycle track along the bottom of a valley, and it was a foggy but uneventful 20 mile ride back to civilisation (if Paisley can be called civilisation) where I realised that I was 18 miles shy of my target, and so I elected to dejectedly bimble around Glasgow City Centre to make up the miles, finishing with my usual commute and an additional lap of Pollok Park, arriving home at 23:15.

And that's the story of how I rode 38 miles after a crash at night in freezing fog with a rubbing mudguard.

Thank you and good night - you've been a terrific audience!

 

[Donger]

Epic write-up, @Edwardoka ! That's the kind of report that makes this my favourite thread.

 

[Elybazza61]

20p commute today and a straight run in to Cambridge via Histon/Impington,not as bad headwind wise as I thought it might be so mostly able to keep to zone 2.

https://www.strava.com/activities/850162194/overview

Another silly HRM spike so the tin foil bodge hasn't worked; will probably treat myself to a Wahoo Tickr as it seems to get a lot of good comments.