Month: November 2024

Usually I don’t ride on consecutive days but I wanted to make amends for yesterday’s failure, so I thought I’d do at least 50km this afternoon. Decided to basically do the eastbound route, but with a long detour to the north to take in Top Brand, Diseworth and Long Whatton.

Even at 1430 the traffic along Rempstone Road going through Zouch was annoying busy, and the roadworks with traffic lights didn’t help. After 27km I took a left for East Leake. There was a ROAD CLOSED sign but I just ignored it. In fact there was about 2km of roadworks along there, but at no point was the whole width of the road closed. So I just sailed past.

My idea had been to loop back to Sutton Bonington; instead after another 5km I found myself a bit further west on the same road I’d taken the left turn from. I must rehearse that loop back on Street View. Anyway I decided to take a right turn and head back anyway. But I couldn’t find an adequate gap to turn right in the dual-directional river of traffic. So I turned left. This time, about two klicks further east, I took a right to Stanford on Soar – a familiar point on the (usual) eastbound route. Came back the usual way from there except that I did the same detour through Long Whatton and down Top Brand. Mainly to avoid traffic along Ashby Road.

There’s a timber merchant on the outskirts of Long Whatton called Harlow Bros. It seems really incongruous somehow, at the edge of a small village but it has a traditional, elegant brick office building that looks like it belongs in the ’50s or ’60s. At this time of year if you pass it at dusk, you can see the office interiors through the windows; wood panelling, traditional desks, wall clocks. Sometimes I daydream about getting a part time job there as an IT guru. I spent the last 12 years of my career working from home predominantly, and I’ve missed that sort of environment for a long time. Oh to be 30 again, dressed in a sharp shirt and tie and prowling the corridors of Rolls-Royce and Associates.

It was cold for the first few km and I thought I was going to have to cut the ride short. But I warmed up a bit. Listened to 5 Live.

Back on 63.04km.

https://www.strava.com/activities/12853419359

Well, that was frustrating.

A murky, cold day but having performed a rather short ride on Tuesday, I wanted to do at least 60km today. The wind was coming from the south-east. I thought I’d do a bit of the Eastbound Route. Maybe Six Hills and back.

Well, I’d done a bit less than 20 km when I noticed that I was feeling the road surface a bit more intimately through the handlebars than I’d prefer. Stopped, fondled the front tyre – it was flat. Not completely, but very soft.

I upturned the bike on the grass verge. Had a look in my backpack and in the frame pack – two spare inner tubes. A mini pump. A CO2 inflator and two cylinders. But no tyre levers. I never got round to putting the saddle bag back on after the last time the Boardman was cleaned, and that’s where I kept them.

I did have a half-hearted go at getting the tyre off with an Allen key, but that was hopeless. I was more likely to damage the rim and the new inner tube than to wrestle a tyre off and on again with a bit of hexagonal-shaped metal. Plan B was to hope the puncture was slow enough to stay inflated for a few km at a time. So I pumped it up and tentatively set off. Homeward, of course.

I got about 2km before it was clear I was going to have to pump it up again, and since I was about 17km from home, that wasn’t good news. This time I used the CO2 inflator. That got the tyre very well inflated – nice and firm – very quickly. I set off again, this time I got a bit further. I tried the CO2 inflator again but it was empty – must have used the whole charge on the first go. So I reverted to the mini pump. I made a bit of progress by stopping to pump the tyre another two or three times. When I stopped at Belton, I noticed that the bottle cage was hanging loose. One of the cage bolts had gone missing. Then when I came to mount the bike again, my Garmin watch fell off my left wrist. One of the spring bars had failed. Obviously not my lucky day.

About 6km from home, I went into the petrol station at Thringstone to see if they had a tyre lever or something similar. Unsurprisingly, they didn’t.

This time I used the second CO2 cylinder to get the leaky inner tube up to pressure. I was only about 6km from home now. The tyre went nice and firm, but the nozzle stuck on the valve! I unscrewed it carefully. The valve core came right out, along with all of the pressure in the inner tube, of course. I realised later that the inflator nozzle was probably frozen on. If I’d just left it another minute or so, I’m sure I’d have got it off easily. I did try screwing it back in finger-tight once it had thawed out, but it didn’t protect the pressure in the inner tube for more than a minute.

So I set off to walk home. About 3km later though I passed the Coalville branch of Halfords. I went in, bought a pack of three yellow nylon tyre levers (£3.50) then swapped in a new inner tube in the car park. Only took about seven minutes. I was back home 15 minutes later.

I’ve only uploaded the first part of the ride to Strava, up to where I started walking. Adding on the stretch from Halfords – home, the ride comes to a very unsatisfying 36.46km. I suppose I’ll do a fondo at the weekend. But I’ve done 290km this month now, and seven days in, that’s OK.

Anyway – useful lessons learned. The CO2 inflator is only good for one shot per cylinder so for a new inner tube it could be useful, but not to keep a leaky one going. My mini-pump works really well. Finally: I’m an idiot. But I’ll try to remember always to take tyre levers in future.

https://www.strava.com/activities/12846044563

As of this morning, 16 of my most recent 20 rides had been fondos. However, I wasn’t tempted to do one today. For one thing, the weather was a little bit cold and gloomy. Dry enough, and unusually low winds, but not really long bike ride conditions. And for another, because it’s US election day, I’ll inevitably be staying up until at least 0300. And I didn’t want to tire myself out.

I thought I’d do something a bit different. I went up to Melbourne then across to Ticknall. Then down to Ashby via Bastard Hill, which I hadn’t done for months. Pleased to report that it wasn’t that bad an ordeal.

Not the best day for a ride up the hill between Melbourne and Ticknall. On a clear day there’s a fantastic view from the top into Derbyshire, but not today. I did find a portable toilet up there. It wasn’t locked. But I used the hedge.

Because I’d only done about 30km by the time I got to Ashby, I tacked a sort of sub-Twycrosser onto the ride. Down through Packington toward Twycross, but only as far as Snarestone. Usual way home from there through Swepstone and Heather. I did take a slight detour through Ibstock.

Back on 50.38km which does seem a bit rubbish. But it looks like there’s enough dry weather in the rest of the month to get the December kilometre count up to 650 easily, and that’ll do.

Listened to US election fever on various 5 Live programmes.

https://www.strava.com/activities/12830064469

Another dry day and with the wind coming from the east again, another chance to do my favourite fondo ride, the Eastbound Route.

My usual route outwards through Coalville was blocked by a ROAD CLOSED sign and some pretty serious-looking roadworks, so I took a detour along Whitwick Road. I last did that in early 2020. I know this because I recall listening to a piece on Adrian Chiles’ 5 Live show about a cruise ship that had been quarantined due to the outbreak of a virus among the passengers and crew. At that time there was no suggestion that we were at the outset of a global crisis.

Anyway – I pedalled eastward in the usual manner, through Stanford and Burton on the Wolds, where I stopped at the petrol station to buy some food. I stopped and turned back after 49km. I was going to come back a slightly longer way over the last few km.

However – on a whim I decided to take a different route home, via a (roughly) parallel route to the north. I haven’t been that way for years, just thought it would make a change. I took a wrong turn almost immediately, to a village called Hose where I checked Google Maps and backtracked.

Quite nice to do the alternative route again, though I was reminded why I don’t really do it now. A bit climby and the road surfaces aren’t great.

Came back down Top Brand a few km from home and I reckoned I’d be home on more than 102km if I came back the usual way from there, so just for a change I came through Swannington rather than Coleorton. Saves a km or so but involves a long uphill slog. I hadn’t done it for at least a year. It wasn’t as bad as I remembered (it never is).

Listened to more of Boris Johnson’s thoughtful, insightful and wonderfully engaging memoir, Unleashed. Also football coverage on 5 Live and the first 45 mins or so of Bob Harris’ first Sounds of the Seventies on R2.

Back on 101.35k, happy to have got November off to a good start. 203k, three days in.

https://www.strava.com/activities/12815290427

I got up yesterday with the firm intention of doing my 10th fondo of October. I had my cycling clothes ready to go; my cheese and onion rolls prepacked. But the weather was so cold and damp that I decided not to bother. Consequently, there will probably never be a decuple fondo month. Not in my spreadsheet anyway.

However – I did do one today. With a light wind coming from the south-west, I decided to do my Lower Westbound route. Hadn’t done it for a while.

I forgot to take the right turn for Measham after 10km. I went down Gallows Lane on autopilot, as if doing a Twycrosser. No matter, I took a right for Measham two km further down. Unfortunately because I’d approached Measham from an unusal direction, I took the wrong turn from the crossroads and ended up going west through No Man’s Heath and Clifton Campville. But that was fine. Hadn’t been that way for a while.

I stopped just short of Abbots Bromley after 52km, and turned back. I calculated that I’d have done 100km by the time I got back by the sensible route. But I realised by the time I got to Lullington that I wouldn’t, quite. So I took a detour up to Ashby after Measham.

That was an enjoyable run out, mild enough and a nice dry day albeit rather overcast. I listened to 5 Live and the Yes live album Yessongs, once a “triple album”.

Back on 101.81k. Thoroughly decent start to the November campaign.

At the moment I’m 319km ahead of 2023. That was my record year (10,321km) but I’ll be happy with 10,000 this year. Having said that – I did formulate an ambition earlier in the year to do a minimum of 400 miles in each month of this year, which would be a first – and if I do that over the last two months of 2024, I’ll end up on 10,152km. I’ll just aim for 650k for both November and December.

https://www.strava.com/activities/12798867194