A sunny afternoon but I had to stay at work longer than I wanted, due to
a meeting. I rolled the Tricross out of the garage at about 16:55. I
hadn’t been out on it for a few weeks. Had to be back home by about
18:30 ideally, so it was a short one. A ‘Truncated Twycrosser’, the
version that cuts across to Congerstone as a short cut just before
Twycross.
Tuned in to the Prime Ministerial press conference at
5pm, and heard the announcement that bars, restaurants, gyms, cafes, etc
are all going to be forced to close. I confess to feeling a sort of
anxious, low frequency dread in these uncertain times. As much for the
potential damage to society and people’s lives in the wider sense, as
the threat to everyone’s health.
As I turned eastward at Little
Twycross, I was confronted by a cold, pitiless wind that seemed to
moderate only slightly when I steered northward from Congerstone, in the
fading light. Beautifully, poetically morbid conditions. Perfect for my
mood.
You might think that getting out of the house on a bike would be a welcome diversion at the moment, but the relative stillness at rush hour was actually a bit disquieting. As I passed the Queen’s Head at Heather in the early evening gloom, I glanced through the window to see a couple of middle-aged men nursing their pints at one of the tables. They looked a bit glum, or possibly a little bewildered. I assume they’d heard the news. But they won’t be in there tomorrow night.
I either
miscalculated the time, or wasn’t concentrating properly. I was back a
while after sunset. I did have a rear light on, but not even a little
silicone strappy blinker at the front.
I only encountered one
human being, not counting a couple of passing cars. A young woman
walking two dogs near Little Twycross. I’m pleased to report that I
maintained a distance of at least three metres. I’m quite sure we
exchanged nothing more harmful than a smile.
Seems a bit
frivolous at the moment to be counting miles pedalled on a circular
route then adding them to a spreadsheet, but hey ho. 18.95, 317 this
month.
Lovely sunny day. I left work early, at about 15:20 and decided the
conditions were sufficiently spring-like to warrant this year’s first
run out on the X.
A bit windy and colder than I expected,
unfortunately. I wanted to do at least 25, to get the 2020 mile count
into four figures. I did a ‘Twycross Bypasser’ that curves round
Twycross to the west, via Orton.
For the first time in months, I
went along Mythe Lane at the south-west end of the route. I’ve been
avoiding it on the grounds that it would most likely be flooded, but
today it wasn’t. There was a bit of standing water around here and
there, but it was easily avoided. Rolled over a few shallow wet patches.
Nothing to worry about.
The headwind was mildly aggressive for the first half of the ride but I enjoyed it overall. Back on 34.79 miles. Nice to come up through the villages north of Bosworth, hadn’t done that for a while.
I
listened to the PM’s press conference on a DAB while I was out. Really
surreal times. And out of interest, I’d already been paying particular
attention to my proximity to other people. I went within maybe 1.5
metres of joggers once or twice, and passed someone on the pavement at
Market Bosworth. I reckon that transferring a viral infection to someone
in the open air like that would be extremely unlikely, and therefore
even if fully “self isolating” rather than maintaining “social
distancing”, I should be OK to get out of the house on a bike once in a
while, provided I don’t visit shops or pubs.
But the French
government is apparently threatening “punishments” for those who engage
in “non-essential movement”, and who’s to say that won’t happen here, in
a few weeks? If it does, even an hour on my bike without going anywhere
near another person would be impossible.
But at least I’ve got a turbo trainer!
Anyway. Today’s outing takes me to 1010 miles in 2020, 298 this month.
Glanced at the weather forecast on Thursday night and was pleased to see
that only a light wind was expected for Friday. Not only that but it
was due to change direction at about 4pm, so that I could have a light
tailwind both ways, at least some of the time.
I decided to take
Friday off and have a run out eastward. I haven’t been over that way for
a while, mainly because of westerly winds. It’s not a lot of fun
fighting a headwind to come home. I decided to tick Rutland off the
neighbouring counties list.
Unfortunately the forecast had
changed by Friday morning, so that the wind was due to change direction
at about 6pm. I needed to be back by 6. But the expected wind velocity
was light enough that I didn’t think a headwind on the way back would be
too bothersome.
I set off at about 10:20. I couldn’t set off
much before then as I had to hang around in the house to get some BSP
gig tickets, available from 10:00.
I wrapped up decently warm but
was a bit too cold for the first hour or so. Later in the day with the
sun out I was a bit too warm. So I probably got the clothing balance
about right.
The most recent Rutland route takes the usual route
over toward Lincolnshire until Six Hills, when it plunges south-east
through Asfordby, Kirby Bellars, Great Dalby and Little Dalby. This was
the first time I’d turned along the B676 at Cotes without having ro roll
through water running across the road, although the fields around there
are still waterlogged.
I stopped at a little shop in Asfordby to get a few supplies, including a four-pack of AA batteries. The pair of AAs in my DAB had conked out about 15 minutes earlier. Annoyingly I went through the first pair in about an hour and five minutes and the second pair lasted about the same time. Supposedly Panasonics, and bearing the legend “Power your day!” on the packaging. Not really. I’d expect a pair of the cheapest Tesco AAs to last at least five or six hours in that particular DAB. Quite annoying as they cost me £2.58 for the pack of four. I have to wonder if they were counterfeit. I could get a pack of 12 Duracell alkaline AAs for £5.99 from Amazon, and a pair of those gives me about nine hours of 5 Live.
Normally
I would take spare batteries with me but I’d put a fresh alkaline pair
in just before setting off, which would normally last over nine hours. I
can only guess they were part-depleted. I do leave half-empty ones
lying around my mancave sometimes. Clearly I need to sharpen my battery
management skills.
I’d forgotten that the road down to Rutland
from Six Hills was so hilly. A bit galling to be descending a series of
long inclines, knowing that I’d have to push back up them. But it wasn’t
too bad. Quite nice to do that run again. One thing it does have in its
favour is that it’s extremely quiet, or at least it was yesterday.
Got to the Rutland sign by about 2pm. I penetrated Rutland for half a mile or so then turned back the way I came. Not long after reaching Zouch on the way back I could see clouds in the distance, spilling rain onto the Leicestershire landscape. I got caught in it about an hour from home, for about 25 minutes. Thoroughly unpleasant, prickly cold rain.
Anyway
.. just Lincolnshire left to do now, this year. But I’d quite like to
add a new non-neighbouring county to the list – Gloucestershire, maybe?
An
enjoyable run out, but probably not the best use of a day’s holiday
really. I should probably have kept it for a long, sunny day when I
could set off earlier and come home later than was possible this time.
No rain forecast for this afternoon. I had to work until 6pm, but I
started early and took an extended lunch break. Decided to do a
Twycrosser. I took the Boardman since I’d wrestled a near rear tyre onto
it on Sunday, and wanted to run it in and test it. Not too cold. Very
windy though.
A quintessential game of two halves, this one – for
most of the first half I had to struggle against a powerful headwind,
and despite the forecast, it rained on and off. But for the second half
the sun came out and I had the wind behind me. Big relief to turn away
from the oncoming wind at Sheepy Magna.
I took the picturesque route between Congerstone and Barton, and came home through Ibstock.
Interestingly, I saw another helicopter parked in the same spot in a field near Measham where I saw one a few weeks ago. I’d assumed that was an impromptu stop but I guess the landowner must rent it out as a sort of helipad. I stopped to take a pic. Definitely a different helicopter this time.
Slightly
embarrassingly, just as I turned back to the bike having taken the pic,
I noticed that a car had pulled up and two men in grey suits had just
got; one in his mid 50s, the other in his late 30s, with a sort of
physically imposing, military look about him. A close protection
operative?
They smiled politely, and were climbing over the stile as I mounted the bike and rode off.
It
passed overhead a few minutes later. Just Googled the registration
G-EMHE and it looks like it belongs to East Midlands Helicopters:
Home
on 26.07 miles. Only the third ride in March, mainly due to weather.
But I’m happy to have done 192 this month, and 904 this year. This time
last year, I’d done 464.
The weather has been mostly dismal this month, and up to yesterday I’d
only had a chance to get out on a bike once in March. But the weather
forecast was promising for Saturday. I checked it carefully on Friday –
no rain was forecast for the whole day, with a moderate wind blowing
from the south. That would normally suggest a run out down south of
course, but unusually, I bothered to check the weather to the south, and
it turned out that it was due to rain a bit further down. By Friday
night the weather boffins had decided that it would rain round these
parts as well, but interestingly no rain was forecast west of Chez Moi.
So I decided a trip out west was in order.
I thought it might be
fun to repeat part of the old Wales route, as far as Stone – I hadn’t
been much further than 20 miles along that route since I did Wales and
back in 2017. Stone is 42 miles from here. If I got up early enough, I’d
go a bit further.
I did get up early enough, and had mounted the
Boardman by 07:30. It was cold. I’d wrapped up warm with overshoes and
two pairs of gloves, but I was not comfortable. Still – as I always say,
I don’t choose to do these things because they’re easy.
I like
this route. Large stretches of it are pleasantly flat and the scenery is
pleasant. There’s a stretch of dual carriageway in an industrial
landscape at Rugeley, but even that is quite pleasant in its own way.
It’s not usually busy.
I stopped at the same shop at a village
called Sandon where I’d stopped on the Wales trip in May 2017. I chatted
to the lady behind the counter, who – it turned out – had just bought
it. She wanted to know how many miles I’d done. She was impressed that
I’d done 38 miles and even more so when I told her that I’d have to do
at least another 38 to get home. For non-cyclists the thought of doing
more than 10 miles or so on a bike can seem like an achievement, but
it’s easier than it sounds.
I refuelled at the bench outside her shop, then pressed on another three or four miles, to Stone. My intention was to continue on along the Wales route for another 7 or 8 miles, then turn back so that I’d clock up 100 on returning home. I’d managed to reach Stone without recourse to Google Maps thus far, but I took a wrong turn out of the town, along the A520. I realised I’d done this fairly quickly but wasn’t really bothered – 7 or 8 miles in any direction would do, and I was exploring a bit of new territory. This started to feel like a bit of a mistake before long, though – the A520 north of Stone is quite an interesting, twisty road that snakes through woods, reminiscent of the Lake District – but the road surface was wretched; rough and crumbly – and it was quite hilly as well. After a mile or so I decided I’d find a landmark to turn back from, but fortunately the road emerged into flatter, open territory and improved quite a bit. I pressed on and a few miles later, found myself on the outskirts of Stoke on Trent!
I
still hadn’t clocked up the requisite 50 miles, so I kept on keepin’
on. But as I penetrated Stoke, I found myself descending a series of
steep-ish inclines. I’d already given myself a bit of a climb to come
back and didn’t fancy making it worse, so I turned at a roundabout on 48
miles.
Back at Stone, I took a wrong turn again – this time
because I was in the wrong lane at a roundabout. But since I had to add a
few miles anyway I thought I’d see where it went, for a bit. I stopped
at a Travelodge, then consulted Google Maps for the first time. I’d been
entertaining the idea of a detour via Stafford Bingley Hall on the way
back but the road I was on didn’t seem too promising so I turned back to
the main route.
A few miles later, south of Sandon, I noticed a
regular bump-bump-bump – almost as if I was riding over a road with
little speed bumps. This seemed odd, as the road surface looked fine. I
disregarded it and didn’t notice it again until a few miles later. I
stopped, and examined both wheels. The rear tyre had a slight, but
noticeable bulge – it actually looked slightly twisted. I’d inflated
both tyres to 100psi before setting off, and clearly the rear one didn’t
like it. To be fair I knew it was on its way out anyway – it was
starting to look a bit worn out, and if I’d been a bit more diligent I
would have checked it properly a day or two before attempting a long
ride, and changed it.
I let a bit of air out, and that seemed to
help a bit. I was still about 35 miles from home. The clockwork ‘bump’
from the rear was only noticeable on smoother surfaces. I decided to
take the quickest route home without a Stafford detour, take it easy (or
even easier) and it got me home OK, although I could have done without
the added anxiety, of course. I’ll be changing both front and rear on
the Boardman, possibly later today. They’ve both had a remarkable
innings.
I took a wrong turn coming home after Croxall. Realised
what I’d done when I found myself going along a picturesque road into
Walton Wood, which I’d never seen before. Really nice along there, will
try to include it in a future ride. So I came home through Coton and
Measham instead of Clifton and Appleby. Probably a nicer route anyway
and I’d guess that I’d preferred the Clifton / Appleby alternative due
to the elevation numbers.
I’d didn’t rain all day, either on my
ride or at home. The temperature climbed nicely during the day, and I
had to take one layer of gloves off. I was actually a bit too warm by
2pm. Generally a bright day, the wind wasn’t troublesome, the roads were
mostly dry and the sun came out a few times as well – including over
the last 20 minutes of the ride, just before sunset. The wind picked up
over the last mile, which was nice as it helped to blow me home.
My
knees were a little sore by the end of the ride but nothing drastic and
they feel OK this morning. Very happy to have done a 100 miler again;
it’s been nearly two years. I am going to attempt Wales and Back again
in a few weeks if weather and circumstances permit. Probably on the
Cannondale. And I’m faintly hopeful that I might just manage that 200
miles up to Hartlepool. We’ll see.
I was on call yesterday, but with no rain in the forecast I hoped to do a
Fondo. In the past while on call I’ve done these by contriving a sort
of orbital route that doesn’t stray too far from home, but this time I
decided to take my chances. After all, I’ve been called out on a
Saturday very few times over the years, and and statistically the odds
of getting caught out are quite low.
With an immoderate wind
blowing toward the east, I decided to head west to get the headwind over
in the first part of the ride. I plotted a route that would take me
over that way via the usual route – I call it the “Wales” route although
I usually only do the first 30 or so miles then come back – but I also
planned a detour via Austrey, so that I could take in the ski slope
descent from the crossroads near there that I’d seen a few times on the
Orton detour of the Twycrosser.
I set off 10:20, a bit later than
I intended but with more than enough daylight left. I took the
Tricross, since my route would take me over some rough road surfaces
near and over the Staffordshire border. I must admit I felt slightly
self-conscious wearing a camo hijab as I greeted my neighbour who was
washing his car at the time. But it looked a lot less conspicuous once I
had a helmet on over it.
The descent down the ski slope road
from the crossroads was a lot of fun. But the road from there through
Austrey to No Man’s Heath was really nice – odd that I’ve cycled more
than 20,000 miles round these parts this last few years without taking
in a nice road that’s not much more than ten miles from home. I guess it
shows that humans are creatures of habit, or perhaps it’s just me.
I
continued on from No Man’s Heath through Clifton Campville as I
normally would. But about 17 or 18 miles into the ride, I realised I’d
taken a wrong turn. I kept going for a bit regardless enjoying the new
scenery, but stopped at a bench to consult Google Maps and find my way
back to the planned route out west. But the backlight on my phone
appeared to be broken – it was extremely dim, to the point of being
unusable.
Oh well! I kept going anyway, until I found myself in
Tamworth. Here I saw a road sign to Alrewas, which was on the route I’d
intended to take, so – I took the required sharp right, and ploughed on
along the A513. About a mile later though, I came across a road to the
left marked ‘Coton Lane’. This looked a lot quieter and generally more
suitable for cycling than the A road I was on, so I took it, in the
hope, or expectation that it would lead to Coton in the Elms, another
familiar place. It didn’t. But I decided to stick with it in the hope
that I’d find a useful road sign. I was really enjoying myself at this
point, I must say. I’d already been rained on a couple of times, but I
was exploring new roads and I had a proper adventure on my hands. I was
enjoying some really lovely scenery as well; my only regret was that I
couldn’t operate my phone to take some pics.
I didn’t find a
useful road sign. Eventually I found myself in the nether regions of
Lichfield, having done 29 miles – so I decided to turn back, and try to
follow the same way home. But after another half hour I was lost again. I
was heading right into Tamworth city centre, and I hadn’t been that way
on the outbound part. I blundered on, trying to find my way by
intuition until I found myself crossing the same picturesque bridge over
the Tame that I’d been over about half an hour, and five miles earlier.
I was going round in circles. Or at least, I’d done one unnecessary
circle. So when the roundabout up ahead loomed into view again, this
time I went straight over, instead of turning right – which is what I
should have done the previous time. I found myself back at the A513
again a few minutes later so I continued north on it, back on the road
to Alrewas.
I’d done more than 40 miles by this time and I’d
convinced myself that I wasn’t going to be home on much less than 75 –
Alrewas was still a considerable distance away, and an even more
considerable distance from home – but after a couple of miles, I came
upon a right turn to Clifton Campville, only 4.5 miles away! I was half
tempted to keep going to Alrewas, but my characteristic wisdom and good
judgement got the better of my adventurous side and I turned for
Clifton. I was on call, after all.
I must admit, the realisation
that I was actually not that far from home did burst my bubble, a bit.
If I’d gone directly home from there, I wouldn’t even have done 60
miles. So at the big roundabout over the M42 I kept straight on for
Measham, then turned down to Swepstone. From there I looped round up
through Packington and came back along Alton Hill. Home on 65.20 miles.
Stopped at a bench about 15 miles from home during an overcast moment and by squinting carefully, managed to operate the phone sufficiently well to organise a Facebook update and take a pic. Not a very interesting scene, and it would have been nice to have captured some views of the rivers I crossed, but at least I got one. And here it is.
Quite
an unforgettable run out, really. I was too idle to set up the eTrex,
and yet the fact that I got lost and ended up having to navigate by road
signs due to an unserviceable phone made it a lot more fun. Perhaps
there’s a lesson there; technology isn’t always the answer.
Very changeable weather – partly cloudy, partly sunny, a few rain showers and even torrential hail for a few minutes. Lovely and spring-like when the sun was out though. The roads were often very wet. Had to give Neil a thorough wipe down in the garage.
No particularly interesting
wildlife. A couple of very large, dead Canada Geese by the side of the
road near No Man’s Heath. Looked to me as though a predator had got
them. I highly doubt they’d fought each other to the death and I don’t
think they’d been hit by a car. Parts of the country are infested with
them; can’t help thinking the solution is to hunt and eat them. There
must be a lot of meat on those buggers.
Had a closer look at the
phone when I got home and it turned out that the screen brightness was
turned right down in the settings. How, I have no idea. Perhaps some
secret hotkey function invoked by random accidental button presses.
Glad
to have done a Fondo on the first of the month, again. In fact that
single ride fulfilled three Strava challenges – the March Gran Fondo,
the March Long Day and the Le Col 110km challenge.
I’ll definitely try to introduce elements of that ride into some new routes. More coherent ones than that one.
The weather forecast changed a couple of times today but by mid
afternoon it was threatening light rain for an hour or two. I had a
feeling that it wouldn’t actually rain though, and I was right. I took
the hybrid out at about 3:45pm.
I did a Twycross
with the same detour via Orton as the last one. It’s an increasingly
popular item in my repertoire; I shall know it henceforth as the
Twycross Bypasser. This was a shorter version than I did last time
though, without the deviation up to Packington over the first few miles.
I came back through Heather rather than Ibstock, as well.
The
right turn from the crossroads near Orton has a really long, steep
descent down a quiet road and I was tempted to take it, for fun – but of
course in cycling, what goes down must also come up, at least if you
intend to finish where you started. Wanted to
do about 25 to hike the monthly mile tally over 350, and I did 25.58.
That’s 712 this year, 357 this month. Happy to have done that as the
weather for the rest of the month looks rough.
Cold,
but sunny. Back just in time, well after sunset and I only had flashy
blinkers on the bike – but there was still enough light to see the road
in front of me when I pulled up at the garage door.
Lots of dead badgers around at the moment, sadly. Noticed another dead mouse in the garage. As always – quick.
I had no firm intention of cycling today, but after a rainy morning the afternoon brightened up considerably. So off I went. I decided to do a Twycrosser – there’s just something joyous about riding over that way with footy on 5 Live, and United were playing Watford in the commentary game.
The
roads were rather wet though, so I took the hybrid again. I wanted to
do about 30, which would take me through my monthly target, and also get
me within an easy ride of hitting 350 for the month.
I actually bypassed Twycross completely by taking the larger detour through Norton and Orton. Really lovely along there in the sunshine, with views of Staffordshire for miles.
Just as I approached Sheepy an oncoming cyclist stopped me to warn me that if I intended to go straight over at the next T junction, the road ahead of me was flooded. He’d pedalled straight through it and got his cycling shoes wet. I had no intention of doing this in the first place – it’s not called Watery Lane for nothing and it’s muddy at the best of times – but I did go over to have a look.
Annoyingly
I dropped my right glove seconds before taking that last pic; it landed
in a shallow puddle and my hand was damp and cold for the rest of the
ride. Apart from that though I was warm enough until the last 45 mins or
so of the ride, when the temperature dropped markedly.
Windy again today, and I had to struggle against a strong headwind when heading westward. I did really enjoy myself though.
I
used my old Forerunner 310 to track the ride, and annoyingly it
switched itself off along Fenn Lanes. I’d already noticed that my phone
battery was on 6% when I’d taken one of the pics, so using the phone to
track the rest of the ride wasn’t an option. So I synthesised the
missing part and uploaded to Strava in two chunks:
Was tempted to do 25 or so yesterday. No rain, very windy. I’ve been out
in worse conditions certainly but I decided against it. Cycling is a
bit like alcohol. Make sure you’re in charge of the bike, not the other
way round. Keep it fun.
Instead I had a think about the logistics
of doing a 100 miler, when conditions and circumstances allow. One
approach might be to think what might be the 100 mile route from my
garage door with the minimum possible elevation gain. Of course it would
have to be a reasonably linear route, no cheating by doing multiple
laps of convenient flat bits.
To this end I conducted an exercise
with the Strava route planner. As some readers will be aware, it has a
‘minimum elevation’ function which purports to find the flattest route
between two points. Now as it happens the routes it finds tend to be
fairly rubbish, sometimes including sections of track that a reasonably
sane off-road cyclist would think twice about.
However I
conducted an exercise that I thought might be instructive nonetheless.
What I did was this: I dropped the destination pin at 8 points on the
route planner map, each roughly 50 miles from base – north, north-east,
east, south-east .. and so on. I was interested to see which direction
required the least climbing, and by how much.
The results are as follows (in feet):
N
1694
NE
554
E
1567
SE
1382
S
1012
SW
1311
W
903
NW
1111
Now
of course the route wouldn’t have to be a straight line. Nothing wrong
with a slightly L-shaped or jagged route. Furthermore elevation is not
the only critical factor – the quality of road surfaces is quite
important as well, for example. But it is a pretty important
consideration.
So I think the results are quite interesting. There’s a sort of corridor of flatness extending to the north-east from my house, roughly following the River Severn.
The plan was to have another day off cycling today, and do 50 or 60 miles tomorrow. But the forecast changed to rain and 40mph winds for tomorrow, so since this afternoon was relatively dry, I left work early with thoughts of doing 25 or so. I took the hybrid.
Unsurprisingly,
there’s a lot of standing water around, though it hasn’t rained today. I
did a sort of sub-Twycross. I’d had enough of the strong sidewind by
the time I got near Twycross. I’d literally been blown sideways onto the
grass verge at one point. So I took a left at Little Twycross, after
which it became a tailwind and I started to enjoy myself a bit. So I
extended my ride by continuing across to Ibstock to hang onto the
tailwind for a while, and came home that way. Back just after sunset.
About a second after I took this pic at the “unmanned unodourised gas station” just outside Twycross, a gust of wind blew a glove from where I’d perched it on the bike, through the gate. So I had to defy the “no unauthorised persons” sign and climb over to retrieve it.
21.81,
which takes me to within 7 miles of this months “adjusted” target,
which is 299. But I hope I can do another 60 or so at least. The weather
forecast looks hostile, however.
