The rain came down in bucketloads a couple of times during the day but by 4pm, when I’d removed the X from its perch, only a few puddles remained. A pretty powerful wind was coming from the west, but I only wanted to do 35 or so. I wanted to examine the view from Little Orton through binoculars, which I took in my backpack – so I did a Bypasser.
Once again, warm enough for bare legs. I must be on the longest unbroken run of legs-out cycling in my cycling career. Decently bright when I set off, but by the time I was pushing along the right turn to Norton Juxta Twycross, conditions had gone ominously crepuscular and a couple of spots of rain had made their presence felt. I was actually glad of the wind I was struggling against because it looked like it was going to push the rain clouds over and make way for blue skies. And it did. Twenty minutes or so, nice and sunny. I did a bit of the Dad’s Army route at the bottom, just to give myself a tailwind for a bit longer after I turned back. Which was very enjoyable.
The sky went a bit gloomy again for the last half hour, but it didn’t rain.
Back on 38.26 miles. 463 miles this month, which is 63 over target. If I can do another 60 this month, I’ll only have to exceed the remaining monthly targets by 50 in total to hit 5,000 this year.
Hoped to do about 40 today. A pretty much perfect day for cycling, easily warm enough for bare legs but decently mild, and the wind was light. I decided on a Twycross Bypasser, mostly because I wanted to pursue my hobby of identifying distant objects on the horizon, but also because the wind was coming from the south-west.
I did a long version, going up to Packington at the top, across to Warton on the left, right along Fenn Lanes at the bottom and right over to Kirkby Mallory on the right.
Unusually, I came back home through Hugglescote from Ellistown, rather than through Ibstock. I used to do this quite often a year or three back and I’m not sure why it fell into disuse. I was only reminded of it a week or two ago when I was with ‘er indoors when she was driving back from Ellistown, and she came the same way herself. Probably 99%, literally, of my rides involve coming home along Heather Lane, or down the main road from Ibstock, or along Ashby Road from Coleorton. So today’s ride was in the 1%. A nice change.
I’d picked out today as ideal for a post-work Fondo out east from the weather forecast a few days ago, but light rain struck unexpectedly. It had stopped by early afternoon, but the roads were a bit damp when I set off. Not for long though. By the time I was in Coalville, two miles away the roads were completely dry, so we must have had very localised weather.
I wasn’t troubled by precipitation for the rest of the ride either.
Very annoyingly a stretch of Ashby Road near Zouch has been resurfaced, if I can dignify what they’ve done with the term, by scattering heaps of sharp, dusty gravel on it.
I turned round after 30.8 miles, because I intended to do a detour via Diseworth on the way back – to avoid some of the gravel. Nice to have a tailwind on the way back. I especially love to see wind turbines pointing in the right direction, in the distance. I did the Rempstone / Wymeswold route on the way back.
Nice weather for it, intermittently cool and slightly warm. I thought a lot about my mum, and our home in Hartlepool leaving the family tomorrow, especially as the afternoon drew on. I felt an urge to be there again one last time, to see the sun go down in the back garden where I played as a kid.
I’d been looking forward to doing the eastbound Fondo again for a while but I was so preoccupied that it mostly sort of washed over me. But it was good to get out for a few hours.
An intensely hot day. I hadn’t had a chance to go cycling for a few days so I decided to brave the heat after work. Left it until about 5:35pm before setting off. It was still 36 degrees C out there, but at least the UV levels would have diminished somewhat.
I did a short version of the Twycrosser, that takes a left to Bilstone and Congerstone then comes up through Shackerstone.
Obviously I took it easy, but I really wasn’t too uncomfortable. Nonetheless I thought it best to keep it short. Drank plenty of water, even though it was warm after half an hour. Maybe tea’s the thing to take in your bidon in weather like this.
I didn’t see a single other cyclist out there for the first 18 miles, after which I did see a young man in t-shirt and shorts on a hybrid.
A cloudy day, but an improbably, uncomfortably warm one. I downed tools early with the intention of doing 40 or so.
Because the wind was blowing from the west, I thought I’d go up over Swarkestone Bridge and along the Beloved A Road for a bit. However I breezed past the turn for Coleorton and found myself going down Alton Hill on autopilot – as if I was doing a Twycrosser. But I wasn’t. I didn’t fancy tracking back up Alton Hill so I decided to press on, through Ashby and Ticknall and get to Swarkestone Bridge that way.
Unfortunately at the roundabout north of Ashby, I took the wrong turn. I’ve navigated that roundabout many times, but nearly always in the opposite direction. Undeterred, I made my way to Melbourne via Lount. My unintentional detour had added about 4 miles, but I wasn’t short of time.
Remarkably, I picked up a bit of rain. For the life of me I couldn’t see a cloud likely to be the culprit, but I did get rained on lightly for a few minutes. It was rather pleasant.
I did the A road as far as Hilton then turned back, but I decided to come back via Isley Walton to extend the ride a bit.
That really was a breeze, 47.13 miles but felt more like 35. So warm out there, actually a bit surreal to be doing a ride I associate more with the cold and dark in those conditions – and still have a couple of hours of daylight to spare.
A juvenile grouse (I think) ran out in front of me not long after I set off and I nearly collided with it. But it escaped from our encounter unscathed.
Mostly listened to Tory leadership fun on 5 Live and LBC.
296 miles this month, pleased with that because I’ll have less time for cycling in the latter half of July.
Hot and sunny out there, this afternoon. I particularly wanted to do a Twycross Bypasser, because I wanted to take some landscape pics, in pursuance of my hobby of identifying distant objects. To this end I took a decent zoom compact as well as my phone. I’m particularly interested in a pointy little hill, just visible from Orton Lane in the right conditions, which I think is near Dudley, nearly 30 years away.
I found the road closed by a metal barrier near Warton. A charity run was taking place, with people dressed in pale blue Cancer Research shirts running towards me. I told one of the stewards who was handing out bottles of water that I’d weave through them carefully and she just asked me to take it easy. I was tempted to ask her for a bottle of water, but I didn’t. I did run out of fluids on this ride which is unusual, and I certainly enjoyed my post-ride beer straight out of the fridge.
I pressed on past the barrier and ploughed through the oncoming runner traffic, deliberately and slowly. A lot of them were walking, anyway. Don’t blame them, it was bloody hot.
I took this pic with my compact, to be fair I think the phone performs just as well in these conditions.
Annoyingly I forgot to turn the bike computer back on after one of the stops so I had to repair the track using https://www.routemaster.app/.
Very glad I did the Wales trip last weekend, would have been cruel and unusual in today’s weather.
34.24 miles, that’s 249 this month. I want to get to 500 this month if I can.
Another glorious afternoon, an ideal candidate for an early exit from work. The wind was coming from the north-west and it wasn’t particularly light, but it was properly warm and sunny out there.
Set off fully intending to go up over Swarkestone Bridge then west but before I got to the turn for Coleorton I’d decided to do a Twycross Bypasser instead.
I did a bit of the old Dad’s Army route at the bottom end. Nice down there. I went through Upton, but I didn’t see the two old petrol pump ornaments I was looking for last time. I must plan a route to go past them.
Up through Bosworth, Barton and Burgoland. Back on 39.28 miles.
Tuned into 5 Live for their all-day political celebrations, very pleased with themselves for their victory over ordinary people as you’d expect.
Back on 39.28 miles. Lovely run out. I’m almost getting used to going out with bare limbs, but I’ll certainly miss it when I’m pulling on overtrousers over jogging pants in two fleeces in five months’ time.
Lovely afternoon again, warm and sunny. I set off with the intention of doing a Twycross Bypasser at 1552. There was a fair old breeze coming from the north-west and a Twycrosser (or Bypasser) mostly takes place to the south-west so not ideal, but I was looking forward to the cosy familiarity of a frequent ride as a sort of warm-down from Wales.
However, unaccountably, I forgot to take the turn to Norton on the road down to Twycross, so I continued all the way down there. I did the detour to Orton from there, though.
Went right down to Mythe Lane and across Atterton Lane, to the A444, which I took all the way up to Gibbet Lane. I don’t usually do that long a stretch of A444, preferring to turn for Bosworth or Shenton more often that not. But it was fine.
I was listening to Marr on LBC, sitting at the bench next to the Gibbet Post when news of Javid’s resignation came through. He’d already been trying to get maximum mileage out of the Pincher story, but now he was beside himself, like a schoolboy who’d won a big bag of sweets. When it turned out that Rishi had thrown in the towel as well, I hoped he’d brought a change of underwear.
He did his best to paint the situation as the government collapsing, as if two cabinet ministers resigning on the same day was unprecedented (it wasn’t).
Ten minutes later he and his guests (none supportive of the PM of course) were discussing the possibility of a Labour / Lib-Dem coalition changing the voting system to keep the Tories out of power for “a very long time”. Twenty minutes after that, Heseltine was on, and the words “if Boris goes, Brexit goes” came out of his mouth.
We see you. It’s not subtle.
It did occur to me, as I glanced at the Gibbet Post, that it might be quite nice to see Sav or Rishi chained to it, post-mortem. Dishonourable, dishonest men, just positioning themselves to avoid the fallout if the media take the PM down. Nothing more than that.
Anyway – back up through Ibstock and home on 32.62 miles – which takes me to 2901 this year.
Although it was ultimately successful, I made a bit of a dog’s breakfast of my mission to Wales and back in 2017 by taking a bike pump that I hadn’t tested properly. Ever since, I’ve wanted to have another crack at it.
Today looked like the day, weather-wise. I was going to set off at about 0700 but I woke up at 0345. I was out of bed half an hour later, and I set off shortly after 0500. Fairly cold at that time of the morning, but I was wearing tights and a few layers on top. Once again the fields were swathed in clouds of mist, illuminated by the early sunlight light bright cotton wool. So pretty. And as you’d expect, the roads were so quiet at that time on a Sunday morning. I only saw two moving motor vehicles over the first six miles.
Unfortunately, from the fourth or fifth moving motor vehicle that I saw this morning, a young man leaned out of the passenger window and shouted WANKER! at the top of his voice as it went past, at considerable speed. This is why I’m glad we don’t have a second amendment, because I’d have been taking shots through their rear window with one hand while steering the bike with the other.
I’d picked out a different route from the first Wales trip over the first 15 miles or so. I’ve done that stretch of roads before, but not for ages. I don’t really get why it fell into disuse .. in recent years typically I’d go through Coton or Harlaston but this route, through Lullington and Edingale, is much better. Better roads and less hassle while still being quiet and scenic. But there are so many different options that it’s hard to remember them all and I don’t go that way so often, anyway. I’ll make a note, though.
Really nice to reacquaint myself with the roads to the west of Stone, that I’d only ever done once before. I remembered taking pics at the same county boundary signs for Shropshire and Cheshire.
I arrived in Wales at 1159. The morning sunshine had given way to grey skies by this time, and the rain started. Although there is a “Welcome to Wales” sign I was rolling past it as some speed, so I didn’t stop there. I settled for this one, which is much the same pic I took in 2017, but with a different bike.
I checked my rear tyre carefully here. I had no particular reason to think that it might be punctured. It wasn’t. But I spent an unhappy 20 minutes or so in the same spot five years ago, after realising that I had a puncture and my pump didn’t work properly.
The rain followed me back into Shropshire, but it was very light and only lasted 15 minutes. After that it was dry all the way. Result! I’d fully expected to get rained on a few times, though I knew it would be dry after 5pm.
One minor glitch – the road had been closed off near Audlem on the way back for roadworks, but I was able to get by on the pavement.
I’d expected to be taking my tights and fleece off after 40 or so miles, but it wasn’t that warm until 2pm-ish and I didn’t bother taking them off until I only had 35 miles to go.
One really annoying thing – the A51 had been resurfaced after Stone, and it was an awful surface to ride on – coarse gravel that had been sprayed with tar. This was definitely the finished article, because it had fresh white lines on. After I’d put up with it for three miles it I started to worry that I’d have another twenty miles of it, but fortunately there were only five miles of it in total. It didn’t seem so bad on the way back, probably only because I knew when it would stop.
The lady in the petrol station where I bought some snacks and coffee on the way back recognised me from a similar shopping trip in the morning. “Have you been cycling all this time??”, she wanted to know. I’d been in there at 0800 and it was about 1600 at this time. I told her that I’d set off at about 0500 and still had another 30 miles to do. “You’ll definitely sleep tonight”, she suggested. And I think she’s right, actually I’m half asleep now.
Strange to go past the power station at Rugeley with the cooling towers gone. On the outbound part I took a wrong turn and went through the town, rather than past the power station.
The way back was a breeze, with a bit of a tailwind, nice afternoon sunshine and plenty of gently descending flat bits.
Saw a couple of Spitfires, late in the day – or perhaps the same one, if it had looped round. I heard that distinctive Merlin engine growl and looked up to see the unmistakable shape. Not exactly air display altitude, but very recognisable.
I listened to LBC first thing in the morning and that was really good actually, though why people are taking part in a phone-in show at 5 in the morning on a Sunday is beyond me. Later, a bit of 6 Music and Wimbledon / Silverstone on 5 Live. Then Reacher. I’d only meant to listen to an hour or two of it but I found it really compelling and listened for about four hours, right until the end.
Really a nice, nostalgic ride out and glad to have finally ticked the Wales box again. Back on 142.7 miles. Fourth 100 miler and fifteenth Fondo of the year.
A cloudy afternoon, warm enough, dry, but very windy again. I wanted to do 30 or so, perhaps a Bypasser. But it was hard going pushing southward into the wind so I decided to keep it relatively short, and went straight down through Twycross rather than detouring off through Orton.
Much relief when I turned back northward, after Sibson.
After Carlton I veered off toward Nailstone, something I haven’t done for quite a while. I followed a sign to Ellistown from there. But when I got to the next junction, signage to Ellistown was inexplicably absent – so I followed a sign to Ibstock.
Back on 27.56 miles. 638 this month and looking at the forecast, that’s most likely it for June.
Listened to Andrew Marr on LBC, since I wasn’t particularly interested in what was happening at Wimbledon at the time. The prospect of a Scottish Independence referendum was the main topic. I was quite pleased to find that he took a relatively neutral approach – not as opinionated as some of the other LBC presenters.
