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Covered 240 km over the weekend. Decent weather, and strong feeling legs.
No HR, power, speed, cadence, or GPS data.
So which was weird.
In fact. Did it really happen?
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Took one of BMMF's routes around the Chilterns off Strava and tweaked it. Was quite interesting. A lot of narrow single track lanes (much of it on the route I took to get to the loop, mind) and a bit of dismounting to go through gates, a dog going for me etc… I actually followed the loop the wrong way, then stopped at one point and forgot to re-start the timer so I'm missing a chunk. Ivinghoe Beacon is a lovely climb, mild gradient, nice and steady, good views. The nasty sharp little one at the end that I had to stop halfway up because of horses (and then struggled to get going again and clip in)… not so much. Think it was about 80km in the end, ~950m climbing.
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Been trying to memorise a route to Brighton. I've been heading out through Kent so it's a little East of the Classic route, but Croydon and specifically South Croydon reminds me of my ex so no thanks. This route misses out Turners Hill which is a little sad but it's definitely bumpier so slightly more interesting for the legs. Also descending Titsey Hill is a lot more fun than climbing up. Lots of wild/naturally occurring roadie scum at the start. It was also really fun to fumble my way between East Grinstead (although East Grinstead was not fun) and Lindfield - what a fine section of England. Here's the route http://ridewithgps.com/routes/2858137
If any of you think I'm missing out some obvious nice lane near this way (obviously Blackhorse Lane and Lonesome Lane are fab but on the wrong side of the M23) then colour me interested. Oh and here's a hipster pic from my success yesterday, judiciously cropping out the pier booming out the Harlem Shake to my left and some rough-hewn coastal types to my right:
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The route began to get more interesting as i headed south and some 'hills' around Newmarket were a breath of fresh air after rolling through the featureless wasteland that is the fens.
I quite enjoyed my fenland experience at the weekend but wouldn't want to ride it regularly, the wind doesn't half whistle across it
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^ you must spread rep etc
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Is that a lap timing point?
You seem to be passing it bloody frequently, and I've sat here and counted 30 laps so far. When does it end I have work to do*.*Not really.
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I quite enjoyed my fenland experience at the weekend but wouldn't want to ride it regularly, the wind doesn't half whistle across it
It was the road between Isleham and Prickwillow that made me feel particularly morose. Flat, overcast & straight into the wind, its been ages since i've been riding my bike somewhere and just wished i was doing something else. It all picked up again once i headed down to Newmarket.
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A friend of mine quit his job and decided to use the month between finishing his job and starting what's next to cycle around Britain. But skint, so on £5 per day – calling it the Poor de Britain. He offered up the route to our group of friends, and I decided to join for two stages, York to Saltburn and then Saltburn to Gateshead. This was mainly decided on the basis that I wanted to try a parmo, a specialty of Teesside. In between deciding to do this and actually doing this I managed to completely fuck myself up by crashing my bike and damaging the nerves and ligaments in my hand. In fact, the morning I set off I was in hospital having electrodes attached to my hand to test for further damage. I decided to not let this deter me and do the trip anyway. And so began my worst ever preparation for a trip – fingers taped up, hand splint packed in my saddlebag, wheel tentatively trued, no real food consumed the day before thanks to being at the hospital.
We (me, my friend doing the tour and one of his friends) set out from York with no food, sure that we’d see somewhere. No. No shops, no cafes, nothing. After 10 miles I made the executive decision that it was stupid to ride on empty stomachs (and mine really was empty, the dhal and beer of the night before having made its way out of my stomach in, shall we say, record time). We stopped at a bench on the outskirts of a village and made porridge, which we ate with tyre levers as we didn’t have a spoon. Still, whatever, the sun was out and we were having a blast. The boys had ridden to York from Sheffield the day before at snail’s pace so they said it was nice to be riding at a more sensible speed, and the road had been completely flat up to this point.
Full, we rode on, and hit some short, sharp hills (17% >>>>>), though the road clearly realised the error of its ways and flattened out again until Kirkbymoorside, where we filled up our water bottles in a pub (“You’re going all that way?? That’s too far to even drive!!”) and bought 4 yumyums for a quid in a bakery. From here we went through a ford and up a silly gravel track, before rejoining the road about a mile up from where we’d left it (isn’t that always the way?) and on to Hutton-le-hole.
The sun was really out by now, and powered by a handful of fig rolls, we started up our first big ascent, to Rosedale Chimney Bank. I was pleased that we were essentially going the wrong way through Rosedale, so would be descending, rather than ascending, the 1 in 3 bit of road. But actually, that’s no fun either. It’s very narrow, twisty, sheer drops off the side and a little bit of gravel on the road too. I was glad that I’d agreed to stop halfway down to film Tom’s descent, though my rims and brakes were still red hot by the time I got to the bottom.
By this point it was 3pm and we still hadn’t had any lunch. We were meant to be going to Whitby but we were making relatively slow progress so decided to sack it off and head straight to Saltburn. Much garmin-fiddling later, and we went north into the unknown, past Bell End Farm (snarf) and up a big hill. Near the top of this my legs suddenly emptied. I was hallucinating and felt absolutely awful. Well, what do you know, porridge and fig rolls are not quite enough to cycle across the moors. I eventually managed to get back on my bike but it really wasn’t pleasant and at the very top I collapsed on the ground and the boys had to feed me yumyums and jelly babies. Here I am, post-bonk:
After eating I felt like Charlie Bucket’s grandpa when he jumps out of bed and goes to the chocolate factory. Legs again! Hooray! From here we had some rolls across the moors, passing a village called Fryup and lots of sheep. It was desolate in a really good way and we went back to singing while we rode. There was another big hill, where I had a bit of a confidence fail, but at the top I could see the sea and happily zoomed across the remainder of the moors before dropping down into Saltburn and having a quick dip in the sea.
Parmo consumed, the next day we continued, this time only Tom and I. Saltburn is very pretty and seems at odds with the massive shitholes around it, most of which we seemed to go through – Redcar, Middlesbrough, Stockton, mmm great. For some reason (ie. I was navigating) we were only riding on dual carriageways and this didn’t do much for Teesside’s beauty credentials, although we were impressed by the considerate driving of most of the drivers (even when we inadvertently caused a 10 car tailback) and met a father and son on rickety mountain bikes who hailed us with a “help, we need to go to Middlesbrough!” – probably the first time this has ever been said. We’d been advised to go to Yarm, as it is absurdly picturesque, which it seemed to be from the 2 minutes we spent there. Instead we decided to have our lunch in a Tesco carpark on the outskirts of Stockton.
From here we stopped riding on dual carriageways and went on B roads to Sedgefield (apparently the most obese town in County Durham) and then a long route to Durham. We’d been riding together for most of the way but I was feeling pretty good and Tom was starting to feel a bit tired, so I went on ahead and tried to conquer my fear of descending, waiting for him at junctions. Spotting Durham nestling in a valley was a real high and we rolled into Durham in blazing sunshine and good spirits. We’d planned to stop briefly but we ended up staying for an hour and a half as we had a picnic outside the cathedral, went in to the cathedral and got thrown out of the castle.
We’d hyped up Durham so much that we’d forgotten that we still had to go to Gateshead. I wanted to go through the village of Pity Me, but we took a wrong turning and ended up going a slightly hillier route (meaning I had to abandon my bigring-only policy for the day), which was the final straw for Tom, who bonked hard and had to sit at the side of the road while I pushed bananas and percy pigs into his mouth. He was revived a little as we took a detour to Chester-le-Street to see the very end of the test match – we could tell when we were getting close as there was suddenly loads of sunburnt, drunk men wearing floppy hats – but the final 10 miles were really tough for him.
We got to the outskirts of Gateshead and I suddenly screamed “holy crap, there it is!” – the Angel of the North. I’ve wanted to see it for years and it didn’t disappoint. We coasted in to Gateshead, ate a pizza and went to the pub.
The next day we took a little tour around the Cols de Gateshead, had breakfast at my best friend’s parents’ house, then finally discovered the only thing that stops people in the north east being friendly: cycling on the Felling by-pass. I was quite sad to get to Newcastle station, the end of the road for me and only a third in for Tom, who carried on to Scotland and plans to come back to London along the west coast, via Wales.
Day 1: 51.5mi, 4,127ft elevation. I’d like to do some of this again with more gears and less luggage.
Day 2: 66.3mi, 3,317ft elevation. Teesside is shit, Durham is amazing. -
Ha. Used to go there 3 times a week for quite a few years. Beautiful place, though I was ignorant to it's beauty back then.
But yes, the riding around there is boring as hell.
Rode out to Ely for the first and last time on Saturday. Hadn't thought through how mind numbingly flat and boring the area would be to cycle through and riding directly into a headwind didnt help. Stopped at the cathedral for a banana and headed down towards Newmarket
my googlemapped route sent me along the river, over some fairly dodgy surfaces and straight into a roadblock
The route began to get more interesting as i headed south and some 'hills' around Newmarket were a breath of fresh air after rolling through the featureless wasteland that is the fens. The sun came out and I finished up at 68 miles having found quite a few little country pubs that i'll be looking to go visit as soon as i can
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^ Yeah, that's what it had been sold to us as. But our friends in Saltburn were horrified that we'd choose to eat that and insisted on going to the best parmo restaurant in town.
^^ Neither I'm afraid. He's writing a diary as he goes so maybe he'll write it up at the end. He's currently camping somewhere north of Glasgow.
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Undecisive weather led to a quick 80km spin north west of CPH today :]
http://www.strava.com/activities/74357370 -
I'm working from home and riding everyday so every day is a weekend.
Today I test-rode the 40km loop for North Nairobi Cycle Club's social ride on Sunday. I'll have to change the route because it'll prove too hilly for some members. But it was fun for me to thrash around. You know when a hill appears and you think "I can just push hard in the saddle for two minutes and fly over this". I faced probably 9-10 of those hills today and I'm starting to judge them better, riding less like an eager puppy - you know, sprinting up the first half and limping the rest.
As the cycling white boy zipping around semi-rural Kenyan roads you have only two possible modes, "very patient" or "slightly rude". Not a minute passes without some gang of small children shouting MZUNGU (white person) at you and then waiting, yearning for a response. I have lost the will to reply verbally, so these days I just wave. On the other hand, I often greet random peds because their smiling responses make me feel good. I'll miss the smiles of strangers when I return to the UK, and I'll seem really creepy when I to greet everyone I walk/cycle past.
I made in total three brief stops:
1) An attempt at asking where a mysterious slip road went. Nobody knew. I didn't risk it.
2) Banana stall pit stop, fittingly in the town of Banana Hill. "Ndizi moja" "10 bob" "Sawa". I had probably 75+ opportunities to buy a banana along the route as there are fruit stalls EVERYWHERE in Kenya. Totally handy.
3) Stopped and took this photo. I remember noting that Warwick Uni is 13km from Warwick, but this Leeds Prep School is an impressive 7065km from Leeds.
Smallfurry
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I thought I might get a few miles in on the geared bike on Sunday, to make sure it’s ready for its holiday in Yorkshire and for its next trip up to Southwold. But other stuff intervened until about 3.30 when I asked son #2 if he’d like to go for a ride. I suggested a ride to Downe and back but he said he wanted to stay in town, so we pootled up the Pool River, through Ladywell, Lewisham, St Johns, Deptford, Greenwich, Charlton (brief foray into Maryon Park – what a find!) and Woolwich. Son #2 said let’s take the ferry, which we did (watching terns close up was pretty cool) and then wandered around near KGV before deciding we were in danger of getting lost and being stupidly late home, so we got the DLR to Poplar and cycled down through Westferry, Crossharbour, Mudchute and Island Gardens to rejoin our route at Greenwich. A good four hours out on the bike in fine weather.