I made the most of the lovely weekend weather with plenty of tiling.
On Saturday I set off a bit later than planned to 'do' NE Nottingham. 25k to Trent Bridge then a meandering route along the Trent as far as Lowdham. A few rural lanes through Lambley then diving back into the suburbs to zig and zag through a total of 32 tiles and just over 100k. Max square bumped up from 34 to 35.
On Sunday I had planned to do the Velo Club Long Eaton Reliability Ride. I have DIY'd their long route (120k) up to 200k in previous years (when it wasn't snowed off) but this year I fancied their 'ERIC' route. 20k to the start of a 160k ride just had to be done! The Eric also went places in the Peak District that I haven't been to before and with a few tweaks could pick up a load of extra tiles and also link up my 'home' cluster with a load of Peak District tiles
When I set off at 0715 it was proper foggy. Got to the RR start, signed on and was given a number to attach to my bike
What's that all about ? Set off in the first group at 0815 and had a good, swift ride out along the Trent/Dove Valley to Hatton where we turned North and headed for the hills as the sun broke through. I left the official route at Alkmonkton to start harvesting a few tiles. This put me on the A515 which wasn't too bad at that time on a Sunday morning and needs must...
I rejoined the RR route in Ashbourne and rode with some of the later starters on the climb to Longcliffe. When they turned left at Grangemill I went straight on , up a lane that ended up in a cart track past a scramble bike meeting. The summer bike was not impressed!
A brief return to the Eric route was followed by another lumpy detour through Birchover to grab some tempting tiles.
I refuelled in Bakewell and with two relatively short, flat diversions headed, somewhat nervously, for the Froggatt climb. The climb itself was my sort of gradient and I could just pick a gear and get on with it. A strung out group of Bolsover riders went past me then kindly waited for me at the top and adopted me on the run down to Owler Bar before we turned South to head for home. I vaguely recognised some of the roads from pre-Strava MTBing.
I was mostly following the Eric route but with the occasional short spur. I was losing track of where I was and decided that an arcade game style 'ping' would be good encouragement as new tile boundaries were crossed. It seemed strange to arrive in Crich without a big climb but the descent towards Ambergate was as wasteful as ever on the brakes.
This was where the first of my two key tiles was to link my clusters. The problem was that it involved riding 1k out of the Derwent valley up Holly Lane. It was a bottom gear slog looking for the dry tarmac when out of the saddle and added weaving when safe. Having bagged the tile I then turned round and hung onto the brakes all the way down to where I had been 15 minutes earlier. The Reliability Ride finish was shutting at 1630 and I reckoned I was still OK timewise but hadn't allowed for the Belper tile. The route that I had planned took me up Long Row in Belper which turned out to be a cobbled climb that made that one in Alston look like a billiard table. Riding up it required concentration to pick a decent line and avoid the twattish 4*4 driver coming down it but coming down it was thoroughly unpleasant.
A quick check on the time made me realise that it was now most unlikely that I would get to the finish early enough to claim my certificate but I managed to resist the temptation to call in at the Holly Bush in Makeney to check out the pies (and beer). I arrived at a deserted finish with 200k on the clock 15 minutes after they had closed but I had had other priorities.
I got home just before 1800 after 220k, had a beer, uploaded the ride to Strava, put my DIY claim in, then fired up Veloviewer to find that I had grabbed 26 new tiles and had managed to bump my max cluster up from 1771 to 1940.
I also had a wonderful day out in the Peak District on my bike