Author: james

My firm intention was to do a fondo over to Eastwell and back today. Sure, it was going to be very cold. But the wind speed was forecast to be very low and it was going to be sunny all day.

Well, when I got up, I changed my mind. Looked rather frosty out there. But I set off at about 1100, thinking I’d do maybe 50k or so.

The road surface looked a bit precarious (icy in other words) over the first few hundred metres, but fine once I hit a well-travelled road. I wasn’t too concerned about the surface I was pedalling along, but it was Baltic out there. My fingers were painfully cold after a couple of km, even in my thickest gloves. I genuinely considered turning back and if I’d known the conditions were going to be as cold as that, I wouldn’t even have set off.

But I had set off. So I pressed on. And after about an hour, with the sun out and the air temperature having climbed a bit, I’d started to enjoy myself slightly. I still wasn’t going to do 100km, though. I’d set off too late for that and I had the uncomfortable thought that changing an inner tube with icy fingers would be a nightmare, if I got a puncture.

By the time I came to the junction with East Road, I’d decided I was going to turn back soon. So I took the left along there to do something a bit different. After another km or so I came to another junction with a left turn I’d never tried before. So I went along there. Quite a nice road. Well surfaced and quiet.

And I was gliding along quite happily in the sunshine when I noticed a car in the ditch, with two police officers in attendance, about 80 metres up ahead. In the same instant the bike gave way under me, and it and I both collided with the road. We both slid spectacularly along the ground for about three metres, like aggressively propelled curling stones.

Fair play to the two police officers, a young man who looked unsettlingly like Harry Maguire and a young blonde woman. They came running the second they heard the bike clatter against the tarmac and saw what had happened, but I already had a hand raised to indicate that I was OK, I think before I’d even slid to a stop. I think the sheer frictionlessness of the road surface, despite having caused the incident, had prevented an injury. Nearly all of the kinetic energy inherent from the momentum of the bike was expended on sliding along the road.

I took stock. The two coppers were creditably attentive but I assured them I was fine. The bike (my Planet X) looked alright as well. For a moment I thought I’d buggered the rear mech (again, I only replaced it last year) because the chain was hanging loose but once I’d threaded it back onto a chainring it was clear that it was working properly.

The road surface didn’t even look icy, or frosty. But it had a very thin, transparent layer of ice that was incredibly slippery. My clothes weren’t even scuffed. My bum does have a bruise but apart from that I’m unscathed. I realised when I changed into the easiest cog at the back that the bike didn’t completely get away with it – the rear pulley rattled against the spokes like a ruler dragged along a set of railings. All the other gears are fine, and it was even changing up and down nicely. But the rear hanger is slightly bent inward. Just enough to shift the indexing by exactly one place, possibly. In any case I made a mental note not to resort to the granny gear on the way home.

I think I just need to bend the hanger back into alignment. Probably the best approach is to take it right off and straighten it in a vice or something, rather than pulling on the mech. I’ll think about that when the garage is a bit warmer.

No more mishaps on the way back. I came a slightly longer way back after Belton, only because I thought the roads stood a better chance of being clear.

Back on 67.81 km. Be careful out there. 243 km this month now.

https://www.strava.com/activities/13317322460

Very nearly ten years ago, I performed the first ride of my regular cycling habit. I wrote a brief summary on the old Counterparts messageboard, below. Fortunately it remains the only time I’ve been bitten by a dog on a cycling excursion.

So for today’s ride, I thought it might be fun to repeat the one I did ten years ago as part of a longer ride. I only did about 12km on that cold day in 2015, and I wanted to do at least 60 today. I won’t be able to cycle on Thursday due to another commitment, so I decided to make this one my tenth anniversary ride.

I can’t actually remember the route I took for the whole ride ten years ago to be honest. This was a while before I signed up to Strava, or started using GPS equipment. I could probably work it out. But I do know that I went through Swannington and along a small road called Limby Hall Lane. From Coleorton I went along a narrow lane to Farm Town. On my very occasional cycling trips before my habit kicked in in earnest, I usually went that way. I don’t now. But I did today.

Except that as I climbed the hill towards Farm Town, I felt the back wheel spin freely. Ice. I stopped and checked the road under me. Looked OK, I thought I’d passed the icy patch, but when I put my foot on the pedal to set off, no resistance. Again, the back wheel was spinning on a very slippery thin film of ice. I definitely wasn’t going to make much uphill progress on that, so I just turned back down to Coleorton. Very carefully.

From there, up to Rempstone Road, down to the Tesco roundabout at Ashby and along Corkscrew Lane to Packington, from where I basically did a Twycrosser.

I stopped at the Packington village shop to get a sandwich and a mince pie. The lady behind the counter wanted to know if I did my own bike repairs. Mostly, I told her. But she wasn’t put off. Her son has just opened a bike shop in Ashby so she gave me his card.

There’s a general flood warning in effect for Leicestershire today but I wasn’t really inconvenienced. I went down the Dad’s Army route for a bit. I couldn’t turn left along Spon Lane because it was flooded, with the fields either side transformed into temporary lakes. But that was fine. I kept on to Polesworth instead. I was met by a flood there as well, but I was about to turn back anyway.

Back home in the usual Twycrosser manner, or one of them. I dropped off some unwanted books at the public lending library at Sibson (a repurposed phone box). Been meaning to do that for a long time.

It was supposed to be a dry day, with a chance of a shower at about 1330. In reality, I had a prolonged snow shower quite early on, then a couple of hours later, sharp hailstones clattering my face in troubling quantities for about ten minutes. Really painful. But the sun was mostly out in the afternoon. Quite pleasant out there when it was.

I note that I entered Warwickshire along the road to Polesworth, so that’s two neighbouring counties ticked off (I did Nottinghamshire on Saturday).

Back on 69.96 km, can’t say it was the most enjoyable ride overall, but I’m glad to have marked my 10th anniversary with a run out.

https://www.strava.com/activities/13291048378

According to the BBC site it was going to be 1C all day, and overcast. I thought I might tolerate about 40 km or so. Set off to do a bit of the eastbound route at about 1130.

Definitely was cold out there but not quite as bad as I expected. The wind was light and that makes a positive difference.

At Rempstone, after 25km I took a left for Costock. Just thought I’d improvise a different route home. Turned left again for East Leake, then dipped down to Stanford, which is on a familiar version of the eastbound route. Came back the longer way after Zouch, through Long Whatton and Diseworth – partly to extend my distance a bit, partly because I’ve done the route back through Belton so many times that it feels a bit of a slog.

Back on 59.43 km and I’m quite satisfied with that. Given the conditions – my fingers and toes were icy over the last 15 km – I think I’ve gone above and beyond there.

Listened to footy talk on 5 Live.

https://www.strava.com/activities/13265120623

The temperature stood at a rather unaccommodating 1C when I set off, and I thought I’d probably tolerate about 35 – 40 km at most. But it was a sunny day and actually pretty comfortable out there.

I did a fairly standard Twycrosser, with the slight variation that I detoured through Nailstone on the way back up.

Really lovely out there. I could have set off earlier and done a fondo. Ah well! It’s a half-decent start to the 2025 campaign.

I listened to Suella Braverman, sitting in for James O’Brexit on LBC.

Saw a helicopter on the de-facto helipad near Measham so I stopped and took a pic. I looked up the registration number; according to FlightRadar24 it visited Brize Norton a couple of hours later.

Back on 45.81 km, I want to do at least 550 this month.

https://www.strava.com/activities/13246885650

2024 is over as you’re no doubt already aware. I’d have to say it was a pretty good cycling year, for me. The highlight was definitely breaking my distance record in June (323.88 km, to Sutton Bridge and back). Lovely long day out on a bike. I retired (or at least stopped working indefinitely) at the end of that month, which obviously gave me more time for cycling in the second half of the month.

I broke my yearly distance record (it now stands at 10621 km). I did 46 fondos in 2024 including 9 in October.

My ride frequency seems to be pretty consistent over the last few years. It mainly depends on weather conditions and holidays. I rode a bike 124 times in 2024 compared to 127 the year before, and 120 the year before that.

As the following graph shows, cycling took a bit of a hit in September. Mainly because I was abroad for a couple of weeks but I think the weather was a bit rubbish as well.

I pie-charted my bike distances, as follows:

The Cannondale didn’t get much of a look in because it needed setting up, but I did sort it out just before the end of the summer so it should get used a lot more in 2025. Once again the first Boardman was used more than any other bike, very nearly a quarter of all rides. But I lean on the Planet X in the non-summer months more than I used to.

So, for 2025 – once again my targets are pretty modest. At least one fondo every month, to a minimum of 30. Definitely want to do Wales and back again, and East Lincs and back one long day in the summer. But not necessarily by a 324 km route. I said I’d do Newark and back in 2024, and I didn’t. Must do that this year, the last time was in 2021.

I’ll do at least 7500 km.

I shall visit all of Leicestershire’s neighbouring counties in 2025 (although I’d probably do that anyway without thinking about it).

And I must find some new territory to explore. Perhaps a new county, one I haven’t done before. Essex, maybe? The very north-western corner might be doable.

I’ve now completed ten years of regular cycling – and I’ve been looking over my statistics. Every ride I’ve done since January 2015 has been documented in a spreadsheet – date, distance, which bike.

I’ve done 80,082 km in that time (49,761 miles), over 1530 rides. Very roughly, 7% of the time I’ve been awake in the last ten years has been spent propelling a bicycle.

Greatest distance cycled in a month: 1302km, August 2016. Shortest monthly distance: 29km, December 2018. I’d injured my knees.

Longest ride: 324 km, June 20th this year. Shortest: 8.24 km, July 15th, 2018.

The following graph shows number of rides per year – I had a bit of a manic cycling habit by 2016. I was going cycling most lunchtimes weather permitting and most of those 303 rides are less than 30km.

Since my knee injury in 2018, my average ride distance has increased steadily (next graph). For sure, early retirement at the end of June this year has helped to improve the 2024 statistic (85.65 km).

The last graph shows the total distance in km for each of the last ten years. 2024 was a personal record year (10,621 km or 6600 miles).

A simple plan today: for what was probably going to be my final ride of 2024, I thought I’d repeat my first ride of the year, a fairly common variant of the Twycross Bypasser. But within a couple of minutes of setting off, I’d hatched an alternative plan. I thought I’d go up to Derby.

So I went up Top Brand, through Isley Walton and west to Melbourne. Up over Swarkestone Bridge, then up onto the scary roundabout over the A50. From the roundabout I exited onto Infinity Park Way, and pedalled up to the southern extremity of Derby.

Infinity Park Way is a newish road, only completed in the last few years. It’s big, wide and well-surfaced – but pretty quiet, I assume because Infinity Park, which is a new commercial / industrial development, is still being developed. It also leads to the Rolls-Royce Aerospace campus and test sites, which have been there for many years, and eventually into Derby proper.

I’ve been up that way a few times, but this time I did a bit more exploring than I have in the past. I found myself in Sinfin, which is a not-particularly-nice part of Derby that I don’t think I ever visited when I lived in the city. Turned back and explored a bit along a different route and was surprised to find myself on Moor Lane, which is where the Rolls-Royce recreation centre is located. Many years ago I used to shoot at the rifle range there every Friday night.

I went onto the grounds and had a look round. There are a lot of new buildings but I was pleased to see that the old range is still there, just behind the bowling green.

Turned for home after that, but I took a long route back through Weston, Aston, Shardlow, over Cavendish Bridge and down through Donington and Coleorton.

That was a really nice run out. Cloudy and damp when I set off, but lovely winter sunshine in the afternoon. There’s something particularly wistful, I find, about visiting old haunts just before the turn of another year.

Back on 72.84km which gives me 785 exactly for December and 10621km (6600 miles) for the year. It’s faintly possible I’ll go out again before 2025 kicks in but I doubt it.

https://www.strava.com/activities/13217121617

I was determined to do a fondo today. The forecast claimed that a morning fog would have burned off by 1030-ish, leaving a dry day in its place.

Well, the fog hadn’t cleared by 1100, and I set off anyway at about 1125. I wanted to pay my old house a visit at Markfield, about 15km away, by the route I chose. I’m drawn to do that this time of year, probably because I moved into it with my partner at the time just before Christmas 1989. So I did that. I went along Ellistown Lane this time, don’t think I’d been along there before.

After that I sort of made it up as I went along, meandering through Thornton, Newtown Unthank and Desford to Kirkby Mallory. From there I had the idea of going over to Sutton Cheney and down Fenn Lanes. I went all the way down to the A5, then followed it all the way to the Atherstone Bypass. Wouldn’t normally do that, but it was quiet today.

Followed a sign to Sheepy from there. That took me along a road called Holly Lane. Not particularly interesting but I hadn’t been along there before either. As far as I can remember.

I’d given up on the fog clearing by this time, and on doing a fondo. It was foggy and wet all day, with a thin film of moisture forming on my clothing and on the bike. The roads were very wet. But I did at least want to do 70km, because that would give me the distinction of having completed 80,000 km since January 2015.

I came back a familiar way from Sheepy, as if doing the latter part of a Twycrosser.

Stopped to put lights on in front of a house at Newton Burgoland, and was startled to notice Nigel Farage pointing at me from their kitchen window. Would have stopped for a chat about the national interest but I wanted to get home for a coffee and some trifle.

The fog started to grow thicker just before sunset. One thing that makes a big difference when cycling in fog or a mist, or indeed drizzle or rain is wearing contact lenses instead of cycling glasses. Glad I did that today.

Listened to LBC, then football coverage on 5 Live. Unaccountably, although it was cold and wet all day I really enjoyed that one.

Back on 79.51km, which takes me to 712 this month, 10548 this year and 80009 since Jan ’15. I think 2024 has one more ride left in it, possibly two.

https://www.strava.com/activities/13195271578

I really fancied a run over to Markfield today. I like to do that this time of year. But the wind was coming fairly directly from the west, so it wasn’t the best idea. So – I thought I’d do some of the Dad’s Army route. As it happens I watched the Christmas 1974 episode of the BBC’s celebrated sitcom for which the route is named last night.

Ideally I wanted to do about 75 km. I set off early enough, and the BBC forecast assured me there was no risk of rain until about 1600. I went up to Ashby first, down to Twycross, did the detour to Orton, down through Sheepy and west along Grendon Road. However .. I decided on a whim to take a right along Warton Lane and just to busk it for a bit, rather than following the usual route down to the A5. At the junction with Orton Road I kept on, rather than taking a familiar turn left or right. This took me along a road called Linden Lane, which I don’t think I’ve ever been along.

By this time I was putting up with drizzle and light rain, despite the BBC’s promises. I took a right turn along a road called Polesworth Lane, leading eventually to a village called Newton Regis. Definitely hadn’t been along there before. Took the pic there. I consulted Google Maps, plotted a route to No Man’s Heath and came home a familiar way from there.

Listened to LBC mostly; Iain Dale was sitting in for James O’Brien, making the discourse about 800% more sensible than usual.

Back on 59.59km, not quite the distance I wanted but then again I wouldn’t have gone out at all if I’d known the weather was going to be so dismal after the first hour. Nice to do something a bit different just before Christmas.

https://www.strava.com/activities/13174461332

Three days of rain and drizzle coming up, so although I did 40km yesterday, I wanted to clock up a few more today. The BBC promised 0% risk of rain all day, and yet as soon as I’d put on my cycling clothes, I noticed that it was raining. I waited ten minutes and it passed.

As is so often the case, I set off without a clear idea of where I was going to go, but I intended to start by going up through Coleorton then up Top Brand.

I didn’t do that. At the bottom of Top Brand I turned right along Ashby Road instead, along to Belton, then up past Tonge. If I recall correctly I had a vague idea that I might go through Donington and west through Shardlow. However, I didn’t do that either. I took a left down through Breedon and down through Lount. I knew that this road led eventually to a brutal multi-lane roundabout near Ashby which I don’t particularly like negotiating even in a car, but I hoped I’d find a left turn first. I didn’t, so I did have to cope with the roundabout.

After that – down to Packington to join the Twycrosser route. I cut it short by taking the short cut through Little Twycross and Bilstone, but I was surprised to find the road flooded after Shackerstone. Never seen that bit of road flooded before. I saw a couple of cars turn back but as you can see from the pic, a brave bus driver attempted it coming the other way. I wasn’t going to though, so I rerouted via Derby Lane and Swepstone.

I hadn’t been along Derby Lane for at least five years, mainly because it’s a bit lumpy and muddy. It wasn’t too bad. At least I was on the optimal bike for it.

The driver’s door of a parked car opened suddenly as I was passing it along Moor Lane, fortunately I managed to swerve round it. I do know someone on another forum I frequent who suffered a punctured lung after being impaled on the sharp corner of a car door, so it could have been very nasty. I did issue a profanity, but at least the driver was gracious enough to shout a cheery “sorry pal!” as he emerged from the car.

I see that Wikipedia has a page dedicated to this phenomenon.

Do car doors have to have those sharp corners?

Anyway – back on 57.44km. I did intend to do more than that to be honest, but it’s more than enough really. Actually I felt a bit weary after only 15km or so. Hadn’t fed myself properly, probably. A small pork pie and a flapjack seemed to fix it.

The weather forecast seems very changeable at the moment but right now it looks there are a few decent cycling days left in the year.

https://www.strava.com/activities/13148829902