On a rare occasion, today's ride today!
After finishing work fairly early yesterday (23:45) I was home and in bed by 01:00 dreaming of the alarm clock ringing at 06:45 ready to call at a friends place in Moulton by 08:00 <yawn>
As others have noted, it was a chilly -2c start, but buoyed up with porage, and a double espresso, I headed off to our meet.
After a chat for a few minutes, we got going or the cold would have set in. We headed up the Brampton Valley Way, crunching through frozen puddles, to the Waterloo Café near Market Harborough, that serves some splendid coffee and chocolate fudge cake..
Even though the tables were still covered in frost, we sat outside. The café was running at about 25c inside so we didn't want to warm up too much or we'd have really felt it when we braved the run back!
After riding through the two tunnels, we clambered up the embankment to see some of the old railway architecture.
There are actually other parallel tunnels that are locked up and unrideable to the left of this photo. No a lot of people know that as they just tootle up and down the main track.
After traversing the wheel wash, we turned right towards Blueberry Lodge, on the Mcmillan Way for a bit of off-road riding. By this time the ground had thawed a tad and it got boggy in a few places.
Come on Alan... It's not that muddy or steep
When we got back onto the old railway track, we only had 5 or 6 miles back to Chapel Brampton station, then 5 miles through Broughton and home.
I ended up doing 42 miles in beautiful sunshine and (eventually) feeling quite warm apart from my right thumb and my toes.
http://www.strava.com/activities/226687329
After finishing work fairly early yesterday (23:45) I was home and in bed by 01:00 dreaming of the alarm clock ringing at 06:45 ready to call at a friends place in Moulton by 08:00 <yawn>
As others have noted, it was a chilly -2c start, but buoyed up with porage, and a double espresso, I headed off to our meet.
After a chat for a few minutes, we got going or the cold would have set in. We headed up the Brampton Valley Way, crunching through frozen puddles, to the Waterloo Café near Market Harborough, that serves some splendid coffee and chocolate fudge cake..
Even though the tables were still covered in frost, we sat outside. The café was running at about 25c inside so we didn't want to warm up too much or we'd have really felt it when we braved the run back!
After riding through the two tunnels, we clambered up the embankment to see some of the old railway architecture.
There are actually other parallel tunnels that are locked up and unrideable to the left of this photo. No a lot of people know that as they just tootle up and down the main track.
After traversing the wheel wash, we turned right towards Blueberry Lodge, on the Mcmillan Way for a bit of off-road riding. By this time the ground had thawed a tad and it got boggy in a few places.
Come on Alan... It's not that muddy or steep
When we got back onto the old railway track, we only had 5 or 6 miles back to Chapel Brampton station, then 5 miles through Broughton and home.
I ended up doing 42 miles in beautiful sunshine and (eventually) feeling quite warm apart from my right thumb and my toes.
http://www.strava.com/activities/226687329
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icons already on here. I'd planned to get out and do my metric century for December but it didn't look good at first. It rained here yesterday evening and overnight then froze, so after noticing that the neighbours cars were frozen over (ours were fine 
) I wasn't sure whether it would be safe to make the attempt.
).
" I suppose it is compared to Canada. 
Hoping to tackle the imperial century a month challenge next year, so probably need to man up a bit in January 
