Author Topic: Have you been out today?  (Read 3814243 times)

ElyDave

  • Royal and Ancient Polar Bear Society member 263583
Re: Have you been out today?
« Reply #22550 on: 22 June, 2019, 03:05:47 pm »
A coiuple of short rides in the last week or so.

This morning, out before 7 for a 45km circuit on the S40, back is getting used to it again, but legs need some work to bring them back up to par.  I've got a month to do it.  All in all about 45km at 26.5km/h into a stiffening breeze on a glorious sunny morning.
“Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.” –Charles Dickens

Re: Have you been out today?
« Reply #22551 on: 23 June, 2019, 01:11:16 pm »
Out with a couple friends this morning in the countryside outside of Birmingham.  One of my friends said he had a dogey knee, so I took the recumbent.  Most tiring 25 miles ever.
simplicity, truth, equality, peace

Tim Hall

  • Victoria is my queen
Re: Have you been out today?
« Reply #22552 on: 23 June, 2019, 10:35:11 pm »
Took some of my Scouts for a ride today. Planned a route, put in on my phone, worked off the copy in my head.  All was going well until we got to Balcombe when I consulted my phone.  The red line was no where to be seen. Zoom out. There it is, miles away.  Brain fade meant I'd completely misremembered where we were going.  A brief bit of on the hoof rerouting resulted in a ride of around the right length but with the addition of going down and then up Cob Lane at Ardingly, beloved of the Mid Sussex Hilly. That was quite a scenic route for the young people, but they tackled it well.  Rehydration stop at The Crown at Turner's Hill and ice creams half a  mile from home and all was well.
There are two ways you can get exercise out of a bicycle: you can
"overhaul" it, or you can ride it.  (Jerome K Jerome)

T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: Have you been out today?
« Reply #22553 on: 24 June, 2019, 01:53:25 pm »
45k in somewhat shaky condition, having had a gut upset at the weekend.  Had to keep shoving in energy bars to keep gong & damn near flaked out in the queue at the patisserie. OK on way back, fuelled by apricot tart.
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Have you been out today?
« Reply #22554 on: 25 June, 2019, 01:59:51 pm »
Went out on Sunday and did part 2 of a series which hadn't yet until that point existed of rides along river banks. In this case it was the Severn Estuary from Oldbury towards Slimbridge. It was also a tale of two Magnoxes, Olbury and Berkeley. In fact at one point I found myself riding along a footpath alternative bridleway adorned with "no horse riding" signs, needlessly since it was so overgrown the only horse you could have got along it would be a Shetland pony. Imagine my surprise when this brought me out inside the fence of Berkeley nuclear power station compound! In fact I think it was on this path that I probably got bitten by a tick or something similar, which means I'm now a Marvel comics character: "He was just an ordinary cyclist until he was bitten by a radioactive tick. Now he's Tick Man! Faster than Froome, stronger than Hoy, glows brighter than an Edelux II!"

In Slimbridge I spotted a "cake" sign outside the village hall. So I stopped and chose to get two slices of cake – malt loaf (they called it) and lemon drizzle – with my cup of tea. For some reason, they gave me a third slice for free! I was a bit full after that...
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Re: Have you been out today?
« Reply #22555 on: 26 June, 2019, 11:24:13 pm »
About 60 miles after work - along Gretadale and over the Stang, then as I was feeling good (and sick of the easier route via Richmond), I added bonus hills out of Fremington, up Reels Head to Marske, Clapgate Bank and Gilling Bank. Phew!

Gorgeous evening in the Dales. Shame about the w**k bit.

T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: Have you been out today?
« Reply #22556 on: 29 June, 2019, 02:57:18 pm »
Finally, first decent loop after a month of being half-crippled by meds:



90 km between 7 am and 11:30, with a 40-minute coffee/cake halt. Not fast but fun.
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

rogerzilla

  • When n+1 gets out of hand
Re: Have you been out today?
« Reply #22557 on: 30 June, 2019, 07:12:18 pm »
100 miles (exactly) around the Cotswolds.  I think we'll be ok for the Dun Run now.
Hard work sometimes pays off in the end, but laziness ALWAYS pays off NOW.

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Have you been out today?
« Reply #22558 on: 30 June, 2019, 09:22:41 pm »
A lot less than 100 miles (I've no idea how many) out around Thornbury. More COR, proper stony this time and some of it steep!
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Wowbagger

  • Former Sylph
    • Stuff mostly about weather
Re: Have you been out today?
« Reply #22559 on: 01 July, 2019, 12:01:13 pm »
I'm about to go out for my first July miles - another trip to the hospital.

I noticed this morning that I did 13 times as many miles on my bike in June as all of us did in the car. (about 400 bile miles to 30 car miles).
Quote from: Dez
It doesn’t matter where you start. Just start.

Re: Have you been out today?
« Reply #22560 on: 01 July, 2019, 02:38:28 pm »
Bedfordshire yesterday to Scald End farm and cafe the long way around. Service terrible and slow, despite the place being largely empty. Apologies from the crew later, but damage is done amongst the group thinks. Lovely weather for a ride.
Get a bicycle. You will never regret it, if you live- Mark Twain

ElyDave

  • Royal and Ancient Polar Bear Society member 263583
Re: Have you been out today?
« Reply #22561 on: 02 July, 2019, 05:09:02 pm »
About 98km today, slightly unplanned

Followed the NCN down the river, including the COR bit, on the Cruzbike.  Coped OK, but I kept a foot unclipped just in case - that's not a winter recumbent route!

Slightly different route to normal down to Addenbrookes, missed the superb cycle path that starts at ANglesey Abbey, again!  it's smack in your face coming out of the car park, but vry anonymous if you're riding down the road, and there's only one entrance to it.  It's nicely segregated and almost brand new, nice smooth tarmac.  Next time.  Slightly misrouted, but only to a different point on a road I needed to be on anyway.

On the way back the plan was to ride to Waterbeach and catch the train, for about 75km total, but when I got there it was >45mins to the next train, hourly obviously at that time of day.  Sod it, I thought and rode home which took about 15 mins longer than waiting, but involved abut 2km of A10 before I could get onto the back roads again.  Ran out of water about 8km from home, and got a bit over-sunned, but a good confidence ride back on the Cruzbike.

“Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.” –Charles Dickens

T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: Have you been out today?
« Reply #22562 on: 03 July, 2019, 01:43:07 pm »
40 frustrating km with El Prez, he on his electric flivver soaring on the climbs and dawdling on the flat and me, gent that I am, saying nary a word. Teams out in several places strewing chippings, cars zipping past and spraying them at our legs & points north.  At one point I bawled "gravillons*, merde!" at one of the teams and was told to take the cycle path. Which we did when we came to it, only to find it liberally bestrewn with chippings thrown there by passing vehicles.  And presently, out beyond Chippingsville, there was this:



Witness the power of veganism: there's a 100% vegan tree root under there.

Anyway, I had intended to do a decent distance, but once I had deposited El P at his domicile I was too p'd off to enjoy it and buggered off home.

* chippings
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: Have you been out today?
« Reply #22563 on: 06 July, 2019, 08:27:40 am »
Yesterday I got back into three figures again, albeit metric, for the first time after starting on the dreaded beta blockers. Revisited a local tourist trap at the top of a climb that would have been easy without the lack of training, had lunch in my favourite patisserie then crawled home half dead.  Started in 18°C that dropped to 15 then hit 32 towards the end.  Met a bloke who was walking 1000 km to Brittany for charity, following a route developed on Google Maps and dragging a 45 kg trailer. :o

When I stopped to get water at a somewhat scattergun pump in one place, a few seconds after I started filling a wasp appeared and began to drink the spillage.  He was followed by a dozen others within a minute, and by the time I finished there were a couple of dozen all siphoning it up, so I spilt a bit more to help them along.  By the time I got home, by pig-headedness more than anything else, I'd emptied half a litre down my back.

121 km/930 vertical metres. Knackered today.
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

rogerzilla

  • When n+1 gets out of hand
Re: Have you been out today?
« Reply #22564 on: 06 July, 2019, 03:34:41 pm »
35 mile cafe run on the track bike.  Averaged over 18mph on the way out (that included getting out of Swinedun) and hit 175rpm on the way back.  No-one passed us.
Hard work sometimes pays off in the end, but laziness ALWAYS pays off NOW.

bludger

  • Randonneur and bargain hunter
Re: Have you been out today?
« Reply #22565 on: 06 July, 2019, 03:43:35 pm »
Managed 15 km to a pub and back yesterday but my road rash is still staying wet and minging so have to take a day off today ☹️
Hopefully in a better state by tomorrow morning for a longer 45 km spin.
YACF touring/audax bargain basement:
https://bit.ly/2Xg8pRD



Ban cars.

T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: Have you been out today?
« Reply #22566 on: 06 July, 2019, 04:01:47 pm »
It's when it dries and you stretch it that the fun starts.  'Ware infection.
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

bludger

  • Randonneur and bargain hunter
Re: Have you been out today?
« Reply #22567 on: 06 July, 2019, 04:03:42 pm »
Yeah I'm starting to get that - keeping the areas drenched in savlon and watching the tour in the meantime.
YACF touring/audax bargain basement:
https://bit.ly/2Xg8pRD



Ban cars.

Re: Have you been out today?
« Reply #22568 on: 06 July, 2019, 10:58:59 pm »
In the end I think I did about 70kms but the bike and its counter are not yet out of the car (do that after dogwalking). The youngest had blagged a ride yesterday with boyfriend 40kms from home to his parents with a ton of gear but forgot her drugs. Cue plan to take them out there this morning early in the relative cool. Only early and in relative cool was a thunderstorm, plan B and the car was invoked! Except it cleared up and a bit later wife sent me on my way (turns out she slept through the thunderstorm, even though holding an intelligent conversation at the time ???).

So a passage by the office to return a client's keys and on my way at 9.30. (much too late for what was planned). A hot ride along a declassified nationale and then brave the patches of chippings on downhill bends (which I knew about from yesterday) and medicines posed just after midday. I had a different route home which should have given some longer stretches of downhill false flat. It involved a certain amount of real climbing to start though. The names say it all le Bois d'Echelle, St Leger la Montagne, Grandmont. The road was not the only thing climbing either! I should have refilled my bottle at the boyfriends. No taps in evidence, the communes seem to have adopted plug-in fittings to stop people pinching the water (not surprising given the prices of Lyonnaise des Eaux). Between Grandmont and St Sylvestre, when I was getting desperate and had already decided to stop and buy at the next supermarket (about 10kms distant) I passed a very useful tap (that might have been a camping-car facility) and refilled (and had a cold wash at the same time, wonderful).

I carried on my way not really profiting from the downhill and suffering badly from the heat. Less shadow on the side of the road (none at all in fact) and needing more and longer recovery halts. (I hadn't foreseen anything over 30° after the thunderstorm). Eventually it was a question of risk a malaise, sleep until night time or call out the recovery. Nearly a 800ml bottle gone in 20kms! I called out the wife, who came with a bottle of fizzy water, of which 1l went down on the 10 minute ride home. 33° in the shade, nearly 40° on the road, even with a bit of wind. I didn't miss much from a riding point of view, just the battle with the holiday traffic across town, but about 10kms all the same.

T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: Have you been out today?
« Reply #22569 on: 07 July, 2019, 10:30:37 am »
You're about 50k from my son's place in Le Blanc.
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

Re: Have you been out today?
« Reply #22570 on: 07 July, 2019, 07:48:55 pm »
You're about 50k from my son's place in Le Blanc.

Limoges is closer to 100kms. Don't waste time doing the voie verte between Argenton and Le Blanc, it gains nothing over the nationale it parallels and has a lot of silly barrières which take you off the edge of the tarmacked central portion of the path. After Le Blanc it deteriorates into COR territory - fat tyres needed.
The club has a private season opener in the Brenne built around lunch at La Gabrière. Nice flat roads and you eat well. Recommended (although the hotel has changed hands so things might change a bit organisation-wise).

Re: Have you been out today?
« Reply #22571 on: 07 July, 2019, 08:04:41 pm »
100 km on-road round t'Moors. Up Carlton Bank as a warm-up, then the big climb up to Bilsdale Transmitter.

The road up is a bit rough, which I didn't really notice the other time I did it, but I had 2" offroad tyres then as I followed the shootin' tracks off the back and over the tops to Osmotherley.

It was a rough descent on 25 mm tyres, and the wind never managed to swing round from northerly to easterly, and it was across me the whole way home.

Reading all that, it sounds a bit whingy. It was a good ride, really, with the sort of dappled cloud that makes the views seem to go on forever.

Feanor

  • It's mostly downhill from here.
Re: Have you been out today?
« Reply #22572 on: 07 July, 2019, 08:47:51 pm »
Local club ride cancelled last night, but I decided to do the route anyway.

It was a one-of 'special', which went to an actual destination on the coast: the town of Cullen.
But at 140k it was a bit longer than normal club rides.
Club riders here seem to want the rides over early in the day so they can do their ironing or flower arranging or whatever, so it had been planned as an early start from Inverurie, an hours ride from here. I'd not planned to ride there for the early start.

Since it cancelled, and I could choose my own start time, I ece'd it to 200, with not an Audax point in sight!

Met another club rider in Cullen who had also been planning to do this ride, but his backup plan was different.

Headwind all the way out, but some nice tailies on the way home.

https://www.strava.com/activities/2512561241

Re: Have you been out today?
« Reply #22573 on: 10 July, 2019, 12:11:00 pm »
Codsall - Market Drayton - Whitchurch - Chester - Llandudno

Anything for a free lunch  ;D

T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: Have you been out today?
« Reply #22574 on: 13 July, 2019, 04:57:46 pm »
Menacing weather so just a 20k toddle to the Planche des Vieux Cons, a local col aka Goetzenberg aka Zigeunerfels, the latter from a band of plundering wanderers* who set up shop nearby and were duly burnt out and massacred by the absolutely non-racist, respectable, God-fearing villagers from the two cowsnests a couple of hundred metres down in the valley. 1245 that was, villagers vs. pillagers, round 1 of 1, no rematch.  Anyway, it was steep & I was bugrified by the time I reached the top and bugrifieder by the time I got home.

The weather cleared up, of course.

* Zigeuner is usually translated as gypsy, but apparently it derives from 'untouchable' in Sanskrit so it's probably offensive these days.
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight