Your ride today....

[Donger]

Another quite hilly club ride today, and just the four of us braved the weather forecast. In the end, most of the ride was in pleasant, bright sunshine, with the only rain coming just as we arrived at the cafe near Longhope. Some of the steep, narrow little lanes near Newent were in quite a shocking condition .... not unlike some of the special sections of today's Paris-Roubaix. Potholes, mud, slippery leaves and fallen branches everywhere. A very enjoyable 42.5 mile adventure again today, out to the Forest of Dean. No photos once more, as I was taking up my usual position as Tail-end Charlie and didn't have the time to stop. One of the day's main climbs was from Linton to Aston Crews to Mitcheldean and there were some fantastic views to all sides from on top of a great panoramic ridge. A lovely ride. Back that way on an audax next week. Can't wait.

 

[All uphill]

Back home today after my ride back on the new bike from Yorkshire.
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Just past the Norfolk/ Cambs border near Welney.
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Then on through Ely - they have a half decent looking cathedral there.
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Finally, back on my home patch after 5 days riding - Burwell Fen.

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The last mile. 220 miles since Monday in Harrogate- wasn’t quite sure I could do it at the start, but chuffed the new bike and I have made it home.

Lovely views and great bike!

 

[AndreaJ]

I have decided that the best way to make sure it doesn’t rain is to take waterproof jacket and actually put the mudguards back on the bike!
Set off in the sunshine and wind to Loppington, Commonwood and Nonely taking the lane into the wind to Myddle. Turned back to Burlton , across to English Frankton and Colemere following the lane around Colemere then past Newton Mere and Kettle Mere onto the main road back towards Welshampton. Turned off by the church to Lyneal passing the caravan park to Hampton Bank and Northwood where I turned back home.
Didn’t need the waterproof jacket but definitely needed mudguards as some of the lanes are covered in mud now. 22 miles mostly in the sunshine with just the occasional short shower.

 

[Tribansman]

Great weather in Herts and Essex today for the Ware's Essex sportive. Multiple fords and yesterday's mini storm made for some foul roads though.

Highlight was the lovely village green and river in Finchingfield. Light cloud for most of it but the sun came out near the end, which just about made the headwind bearable for the last 25 miles.

I rode to and from so ended the day on 120 miles, great to get a good chunk in the bank early in the month before it starts getting darker and colder

 

[Ian H]

It was Thursday, actually. I took the oldest of my bikes out for some exercise (it hadn't been out for a while) and rode my Old Roads 300k route. The rain started quite quickly, and gusted down in heavy showers all the way to the finish. A tailwind for the top section almost made up for the wet. The Omega is now about 17yrs old and still going strong. We started at 7 and got home at a few minutes past midnight.

Just outside Okehampton

Pub food at Cheddar

The route

 

[lazybloke]

Did a decent loop this morning; Dorking, Salfords, Burstow, Turners Hill, Smallfield, Reigate and back.
Started off cloudy, cool & dull but an hour or so later there was strong sunlight from a brilliant blue sky, although the air underneath the trees remained distinctly cool. Autumnal temperatures.

Bumped into a local club who invited me to join them, but I had a plan of following a sportive route. Didn't have a decent map - just followed the signs, but it somehow trod a familiar path past familiar landmarks & places where I used to live, work & play. It also followed some of the FNRttC route from a week ago; that Burstow Scout Hut looks different by daylight!

The sportive route was certainly busy with participants. I eyed their food stop longingly, but had my own snacks and opted for a Latte on the lovely village green at Brockham.

Only slight worry was the debris on the roads after yesterday's hideous weather; expected a flat tyre or two but the fairy smiled.

Just over 50 miles.

 

[footloose crow]

3 Oct L'infer de Sud Ouest

Just like Roubaix eh?

We watched 'Hell of the North' last night, the 1976 film of the Paris -Roubaix. It inspired me to go out this morning in the rain and gales and brave the dirty Cornish lanes. In fact it was fine, the sun came out, it didn't rain too much and the deep, sunken Cornish lanes offer quite good protection from the wind. The lanes were a bit leaf strewn but there were no cobbles, no deep mud and no crowds. Just one cycling club in a peloton of black clad, head down miserabalists who didn't acknowledge my waves. They were going uphill at the time and the wind was blowing quite hard against them so I have forgiven them.

Other than that nothing notable happened. Fragments of old conversations, things I did twenty years ago or more, things I wished I had said but didn't, rehearsed and rehashed again and again but too late now. Bits of songs. Holiday plans. The usual rumbling, circular thoughts that every solitary cyclist carries around.

More rain coming.

It was planned as a 50k ride but downloading the route afterwards it only came to 49k. I remember this happening before. Always another day though.

All the tourists have gone now, its the rainy season..

 

[a.twiddler]

I often wonder what other cyclists tend to think about when out on their own. I'm a bit of a ponderer anyway but some of my best ponderings are when I'm out on my bike alone. Sometimes I ponder on the form of the internal monologue. Is it down to personality types? Extraverts maybe thinking "I'm getting hungry now" or "my a**e is sore", introverts pondering the mysteries of the universe. A bit of a sweeping generalisation!

Me, I love words, though I might not talk much. So my ponderings use a lot of words. If I've had the headphones on listening to music, it tends to follow me around for days afterwards. I don't use earphones on the bike. I was surprised to learn that a goodly proportion of people have non verbal mental processes and that they function by using images. For most people it's words. If you're bilingual or multilingual what language do you use? I end up metapondering, or pondering about pondering. We take for granted our internal monologues and maybe many people don't have any awareness of them until something makes them conscious of their existence. If you ask, "whose voice do you think it is?" most people would say "mine". Whose voice do you hear when you read a book? What does it sound like? I can only speak for myself, but it sounds like the way I would like to sound, a quiet calm voice.

I think we all criticize ourselves in our quiet moments. How would my life be now if I hadn't decided to do XXX... I wish I'd said/not said that.. What on earth was I thinking when I bought that...etc. Of course if you're married or have a partner you already have someone to do that for you, particularly if you're a bloke.

Hmm. too much pondering. After all, this is supposed to be a your ride today forum. Only in my head today, unfortunately.

 

[Oldhippy]

I ponder life, the universe, my place in it, will I ever meet a female version of me, I promise myself to finish writing my novels, all sorts of things. I do talk to the horses and cows as well but they've never responded.

 

[bluenotebob]

I do talk to the horses and cows as well but they've never responded.

I'm glad it's not just me ! Solitary horses always get a "hello, mate" from me, and cows usually get "bonjour, girls".

I often wear black and white when I'm cycling - brown cows don't notice me much - but black and white cows often stop grazing and stare at me .. do they think I'm another cow - but on a bike?

Oh .. the nonsense that occurs to you as a solitary cyclist .. but it does help the kilometres to slip by ..

 

[Oldhippy]

Cows are utterly rubbish at taking directions for photos.

 

[Old jon]

It is a week since my last ride, the rest of life has been diverting things. So, despite the promise of rain reminiscent of Noah’s days I wheeled the Bob Jackson out into a cool morning and rode away.

I would like to call it a whizz round that end of Holbeck, but it is more of an amble on two wheels. Back in the traffic to cross Crown Point Bridge and pass the bus station on the way to Roseville Road. This road has recently been given a bike track, on both sides, which does what it is intended to do. And also often acts as an extra bit of car parking . . .

Anyway, up to the clock at Oakwood, for a Potts count of one, turn left and ride by the posh Roundhay Park gates. On to Moortown Corner and a right turn takes me and the bike to Slaid Hill, and that really enjoyable road through Wike and East Keswick. Potts count + 1.

A right turn onto the A659 goes to Collingham, where a left turn first crosses the River Wharfe and then goes through Linton. This morning, the next choice was to ride to Wetherby for a munch stop. The town hall here has a clock, but I doubt if it is a Potts. Leaving Wetherby, back across the Wharfe and ride up to Wattle Syke roundabouts, noticing that the breeze had been helping the pedalling so far. West Woods Road then, to the edge of Bramham.

Turn right there, and soon have to decide which way to ride to Thorner. I chose the left fork at the junction, just as the rain started. Down into the dip and up to leave the dip behind, the road starts to rise again gently most of the way to Thorner. By the time I reached the top of Church Hill the rain had stopped.

For the first time since May I left Thorner by riding up Sandhills, which did not seem to be as much of a slog as I remembered. Skeltons Lane is now in use, Red Hall Lane after that as far as the A58 and a convenient way back home. Almost all downhill, in traffic, and another rain shower. Once across the Aire I am almost in sight of home, and the end of the street I live on was good to see. Two rivers, two Potts clocks and one smile. Thirty three miles and 1896 feet going up made a good morning’s mostly dry ride very enjoyable.

The garthing was busy doodling,

 

[Rickshaw Phil]

After what feels like an age of wet and/or windy weather where I have really struggled to find the motivation to go out, a dry day was forecast with not too much wind. I got the Raleigh out early this morning and was on the road at about 7.30 to rack up another Lunacy Challenge qualifier. The plan this time was to keep it simple - a fairly flat and easy route taking advantage of the wind direction (hopefully) and, if possible, get back in good time to do a short ride with my brother later.

I started off by heading over Lyth Hill to Condover as this adds a little bit of mileage then carried on south to Ryton before crossing the A49 to Stapleton, Exford's Green, Plealey, Pontesbury and Minsterley. I'd missed sunrise proper but it still looked nice towards the Wrekin with the sun low in an orange sky. The A49 looked very busy from Lyth Hill but I managed to catch a good gap as I crossed it on the way to Condover then again on the way to Stapleton.

The lane as far as Exford's Green was fairly busy but not too bad after that until the main road through Pontesbury. Knowing there was a lorry following me and seeing that they weren't going to be able to pass me with the amount of traffic coming the other way I pulled in..... then got stuck at the side of the road for a while as everyone else came by.

I took my usual way through Minsterley to Westbury, Halfway House (no traffic on the Welshpool road when I came to cross it), Prince's Oak and on towards Crew Green and Melverley where I paused in my usual gateway for a snack stop. All going pretty well so far.

The wind should have been against me most of the way so far but I hadn't really noticed it much until Prince's Oak. It had got noticably blustery while I was eating but fortunately I didn't have very far to go before turning to have it at my back through Argoed, Kinnerley and Pentre (the road surfaces along here are really getting quite poor now). The climb over to Great Ness was a bit of pull as always but nice when the road levelled out a bit. After having to wait for a flat-bed that made a meal of pulling out onto the Baschurch road from Little Ness I spotted another rider ahead - they weren't going much faster than I was but enough that the gap slowly grew as we headed into Baschurch.

I headed for Fenemere next which was quite nice riding for a while until the road started to climb and I felt a warning twinge in my legs. At Myddle the legs wanted to cramp up as I climbed out of the village then at Harmer Hill they did cramp up properly at the climb to the main road. That was really painful and I had to stop until it eased enough to move on a bit. I got on alright to Hadnall (the smell of beer from the Salopian Brewery seemed particularly tempting today), Astley and Bings Heath where another snack stop seemed like a good idea. The road to Poynton Green, Roden and Withington is fairly flat so the legs were alright but the climb after Withington was an effort, Especially as I was riding against the wind again now.

Progress was fairly slow through Upton Magna and Atcham. I cramped again on the climb into Cross Houses and yet again on the climb to Berrington Hall. I took it really slow to Condover but another stop was forced on the climb at Allfield and I had to wait a bit this time before continuing. The remainder of the way home was very slow.

Just over 65 miles at 13.4 mph average. I'm just happy to have completed the ride this time. Unfortunately the ride with Doug won't be happening today.

Although I started off alright, I sort of lost enthusiasm for taking pics later in the ride:

Another nice sky over the Wrekin this morning.

Looking towards the Stretton hills from the same spot.

Near Stapleton the change of the seasons is quite apparent. The trees don't seem to be changing colour particularly quickly this year

At Minsterley.

View towards the Breidden before I head for Prince's Oak.

Much later in the ride and looking towards the Stretton hills again from a favourite viewpoint near the Kingstreet crossroads.

 

[Landsurfer]

Tour de Drax .. a 32 mile circle around Drax .. the power station with 1000 years of coal underneath it, currently burning wood pellets from Canada and the USA ... oh ... and hay bales Green power .....
0730hrs kick off ..ish ..

Parked up at Snaith railway station, wet underfoot, NW wind brisk, 15 mph.
Ride into the wind to Temple Hirst , views over the dead Eggbrough power station ...such a shame ..

Off road through Burn airfield and the canal path to Selby ..some cows having an early morning paddle .. Met a lovely lady that told me she comes down to this part of the river every morning to photograph the cows in the river for her blog !

So along the path to Selby ... the 2 light brown barges are a hotel and a restaurant ....

A bit further up the canal to the lock basin and access to the Ouse ...

And thats the end of the pics ....
Crossed the Ouse in Selby and followed the TPT along the bank heading towards Howden ... Turned off the road at Hemingbrough and along the narrowest TPT ...At Barmby barrage something happened .. I dropped my phone .. J5 in an armoured case, fell less than .5 of a metre onto grass .... totally broken!!
Rode on to Howden then turned into the wind to Rawcliffe and back to Snaith .... not pleasant ... but cycling is better than working, so all was well ..
Got home tried all the Android recovery stuff to no avail ....

But still a good morning out ...

 

[C R]

Daughter 2 karate is now two hours, so time for a longer ride while she learns how to shout blue murder in Japanese. Unfortunately, sunset comes early, so the final part of the ride was in the dark, but I'm getting used to it, and drivers seem to overtake more carefully.

25.5 miles from Hanley Castle to Hanley Castle via Upton, Defford, Eckington, Bredon, Tewkesbury, Mythe Bridge, Long Green, Longdon and past Clives fruit farm. No photos, but here's the map.