I intended to ride Saturday's club run to get some 'easy' miles towards the Festive500 but woke up late. Plan B involved collecting tiles in the Bingham, Bottesford and Belvoir area.
32k northwards along some really mucky (but lovely) little lanes to get to the first tile then a bit of meandering around the Bingham area before diverting for coffee at the excellent Caffe Velo Verde in Screveton. An unpleasant uphill into wind stretch on the A52 before escaping back onto the lanes and one of the less obvious tiles.
When I was planning the route it looked like the only legit approach was 600m down the farm access track to Tythby Grange. I checked on
Streetview (dated March 2011) and it looked OK but when I got there I was faced with gates, intercoms, cameras etc. Maybe they had too many tile-chasing cyclists wandering down their drive
The next best alternative appeared to be to approach the tile from the south by riding 1k along what I thought was a canal towpath even though it was only shown as a footpath. When I got there it was obviously not a towpath as it was the wrong side of the fenceline from the canal that I now discover is actually the River Smite
Anyway - the 'track' ran along the edge of the field and looked rideable - so I did. There was a bit of mudguard cloggage at one point but not too bad.
I meandered through four more tiles before getting back onto the A52 for a stretch towards Bottesford. This was far more fun as it was downwind, felt mostly downhill and picked up another two tiles
The flat roads across the Vale of Belvoir suddenly changed to the crinkly bits past the castle as I headed for Croxton Kerrial and the A607. I really don't like riding this road as it is undulating, twisty and feels narrow for an A road. Fortunately it wasn't too busy and I also 'needed' to dive off down the delightful little lane that leads to Croxton Park for another tile.
By the time I reached Waltham on the Wolds the A607 had yielded another two tiles and that was the end of Plan B with a 25k run home into the wind. I also had a Plan C loaded into my GPS which was to pick up a stray tile near Coston. This would add about 20k to the ride home but I convinced myself that as it was about 4pm it would allow the headwind to reduce a bit more for the homeward leg
I had planned to ride King Street Lane from Stonesby to Coston - the
Streetview car had been down it and it didn't look too bad. After being suckered into it with a stretch of good surface it deteriorated to a sloppy mess. It was fortunate that by this time I was generally coasting downhill and the dyno-light was good enough to pick out a half decent line rather than struggling for traction uphill (probably pushing) and with negligible lighting. There was also a ford crossing just before Coston that washed a fair bit of the slop off. With hindsight I should have done the extra mile (or two) on the road via Sproxton but where's the fun in that?
The run back into Melton was a bit of a struggle into wind so I diverted to get home via the Wreake valley rather than use the more direct but more exposed B676.
This ride bagged 20 new tiles and bumped my max cluster up by 71 to 1683 and I now have 5 off 33*33 squares.
Plan D is Derby.