Much cooler day today, not much of a wind, dry, cloudy. Wanted to do
about 30 after work, ideally. Normally the Planet X would have been the
instrument of choice for those conditions, but I took the Tricross out
of pure idleness. It was closer to the garage door.
Set off with no clear plan, found myself doing the southbound route. But I kept on keepin’ on past Kirkby Lane, thinking to continue to Desford. I haven’t been there for a while; it was part of the now-deprecated Northants route. At Desford I saw a sign for Newtown Unthank, and thought – why not? From Unthank I took a road signposted to Thornton, more familiar territory. I thought of continuing on to Markfield but got cold feet about being on call too far away from a computer, so I followed a sign to Bagworth instead.
After that I took a
left along Wood Road on a whim, hoping that getting semi-lost might
notch up the distance a bit, but I was in Ibstock in no time and just
came home the usual way from there.
Summer’s back! Or at least it was warm enough this afternoon. I wanted
to do 40 or so after work. Surprisingly I didn’t feel too tired, despite
having been telephoned at 04:15 in the morning, then asked politely to
resuscitate a poorly server belong to a well-known left-leaning
political current affairs magazine. I literally switched it off, using a
remote power function, then switched it back on again. I’m not the most
analytical problem-solver at that time of the morning.
But if I
wasn’t too tired, I did feel sensitive to the risk of being called out
of hours again – so as usual I took a route intended not to stray too
far from base.
I started by going down toward Heather, then
across toward Measham. Then up to Packington and back along Alton Hill –
the old ‘Packington Pentagon’ route which has fallen out of favour now,
on the grounds of being a bit short. Less than 12 miles I think. But
rather than turning for home from Alton Hill, I headed up through
Coleorton to Melbourne, over Swarkestone Bridge and west along the
river.
I turned back after 24 miles with the intention of going
east as far as Isley Walton then back home down Top Brand, but on a
whim, after crossing the bridge again, I turned right for Ticknall.
If
I’d thought about it properly I wouldn’t have done that, because not
only did involve me ascending the northern face of Bastard Hill to get
home, but it meant that I’d have to do Alton Hill again as well. But
oddly it was easier on the second go than the first. I’m sure that’s the
first time I’ve done it twice in the same ride. A couple of years ago I
used to avoid doing it once, where possible.
Back five minutes
after sunset, on 40.70 miles. I’d had the rear light on for about half
an hour, conditions had become quite gloomy and I wondered if it was
going to rain (it didn’t). I’d had the front light on for the last ten
minutes or so of the ride. Only a little LED blinker but that was all I
needed.
That was quite a workout, I suspect in my top three or four rides in terms of average elevation gain per mile.
Started the third Jack Reacher novel in audiobook form. Good stuff.
I’m
620 miles ahead of my mile tally for 8 Sept on my highest-scoring year,
which was 2016. I did 5776 miles in total that year, so I’m aiming for
6,000 in 2020. On that basis I need to do about 500 this month. 157 done
so far.
In July 2017 I attempted to cycle to Worcestershire and back. And by the
modern understanding of the term “Worcestershire” I did do this, but it
later transpired that, by the geography of the “historic” or
“ceremonial” counties, I hadn’t. I hadn’t quite managed to leave
Historic Warwickshire.
I much prefer the traditional, historic
county definitions to the modern notion, which includes the likes of
“West Midlands” and “Greater Manchester” and seems to me to be more
administrative than geographical.
So this morning, I set off in
the direction of Historic Worcestershire. This was actually quite a bit
easier than I expected, because the historic version of the county has a
sort of pointy peninsula that extends north-eastwards, to the east of
Birmingham. The nearest part of this is only a 12 or 13 mile ride from
the southernmost point of one of my regular Twycross routes. I took a
slightly longer way round though, to avoid a hill climb south of
Atherstone – and to help bump the distance up over 62 miles, to
accomplish the September Fondo. I also started off by going up to
Packington then across, to increase the distance.
So the ride I
ended up doing was actually a fairly standard Twycrosser circuit, with a
30 mile linear detour to the south-east tacked on.
Some of the new roads I experienced today were really quite pleasant, making me wonder why I’d never bothered exploring over that way before. However I also had to contend with a busy (but short) stretch of dual carriageway A5 and some stony single-track lanes. I passed a big oil terminal at Kingsbury, apparently operated by Shell and BP, though I noticed some Asda petrol tankers parked up there as well. The last mile or so to the (historic) county border are pretty dismally urban, characterised by run-down looking council flats and awful-looking pubs. Nothing to suggest a boundary between two counties.
I’d been thinking of listening to old Dad’s Army radio broadcasts on my MP3 player. You can buy them in CD format from Amazon and elsewhere, though they’re quite expensive. BBC Sounds doesn’t have any of the old episodes per se. But it does have a three hour programme called Permission To Speak, in which Harold Snoad and Michael Knowles, who adapted the TV series for radio, introduce six episodes. So I listened to that. really quite a joy, I must say. Michael Knowles was an actor as well as a scriptwriter and may be remembered by some as the posh Captain Ashwood in It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum.
Arthur Lowe and John Le Mesurier were still in their 50s when they recorded the first few series of Dad’s Army. But at least I’m not as old as Privates Frazer or Godfrey, yet.
Later in the day I listened to an interview with Ken Dodd on Radio 4 Extra. Don’t know when it was recorded. Very good, though. Very funny.
Cloudy
and cold in the morning. Warm and sunny in the afternoon, but I didn’t
get round to removing outer layers until I stopped at the Gibbet Post, a
few miles from home.
Anyway – back on 63.42 miles so that’s the September Fondo done. 116 done in September so far.
Sunday looks like a less windy day than tomorrow so I thought I’d go and
do 25 miles or so on the Tricross after work today, have tomorrow off
then do a longer one on Sunday. A decidedly cooler day than yesterday.
Cloudy and moderately windy. I headed up through Coleorton, over to Long
Whatton and Diseworth then back down Top Brand.
Coming back down through Coleorton, a lady driving a Corsa stopped to let me pass a line of parked cars. Her window was down so as I passed her, I smiled and gave her a nod of thanks. This provoked a bizarre reaction. First she stared at me vacantly, then her whole face creased up in a look of intense cavewoman rage. Then her mouth opened wide and she screamed “WANKER!!” furiously. Then there was a squeal of tyres and she accelerated away behind me.
What that was about, I have no idea!
But some readers will be commending her on an accurate character
assessment in a very short space of time, I’m sure.
As I reached
the bottom of Top Brand I realised that I’d be home on about 21 miles,
but it’s hard to extend a ride by a few miles from there. Back on 21.34
miles.
A gloomy, rainy morning gave way to a surprisingly warm, dry and partly
sunny afternoon. I left work early to get the September campaign off the
ground. I did a pretty typical Twycrosser on the Tricross.
A bit of a stiff headwind approaching Newton Burgoland. Apart from that, quite pleasant.
The
front disk brake on the Tricross has started a bizarre “gurgling” noise
when you operate it – sounds almost like water running into an empty
metal tank. Quite bizarre. I’ll google it shortly.
Not the best bank holiday weather yesterday, but certainly not a bad day for cycling – mild, dry and only intermittently sunny.
In
2016 I set myself the task of cycling to all of Leicestershire’s
neighbouring counties and back. Once I’d done all those I started doing
non-neighbouring counties, and I’ve done quite a few of those now. In
2018 I decided that the next most viable one was Gloucestershire, but
then I injured my knees and I haven’t added one to the set since then.
However – my knees are now back to long distance form, the Summer is
running out and I had all day yesterday, so I decided to give
Gloucestershire a go.
The route is very easy – just pick up the
old Roman road of Fosse Way south of Stoney Stanton, and keep going
south. I took the eTrex for navigation anyway as although it looks like a
straight line on a map, there are actually a few fiddly bits when you
get up close and personal with it.
I set off at 07:30. I was actually on call until 09:00 so taking a bit of a risk by 08:30 or so, as by that time I was a fair distance from a computer in the event that I should get a call from work. But it was unlikely, and I didn’t get called. I was very relieved to switch the phone off at 09:00, by which time I was 16 miles away from home.
Nice to be doing an unfamiliar road – I’d only been about 30 miles down Fosse Way before – but the last 15 miles to Gloucestershire are hard. Long climb after long climb, like a drawn out rollercoaster ride. I didn’t much enjoy wooshing down those long slopes, knowing that I’d have to pedal back up them on the way back.
Stopped at a garage to buy some supplies – a sausage roll, a cheese & mushroom pie and some water – about ten miles from target. I dutifully put a face covering on, though the only other customer in there hadn’t bothered. He was only paying for petrol and was in and out of there in about 30 seconds, but still – it does seem inconsiderate.
I turned off Fosse Way onto a B road for the last mile and a half, and arrived at the Gloucestershire border at about 13:00.
I
kept going into Gloucestershire for another 200 metres or so and had
lunch leaning against a large tree off a secluded little country lane.
Then I prepared myself mentally to face the hills again, and came back.
On the way back I stopped to take a pic of the High Cross Monument, marking the intersection of two major Roman roads, and (supposedly) the centre of Roman Britain. It’s featured in one of the Great British Car Journeys episodes, with Peter Davison and Christopher Timothy.
Stopped at a shop at one of the villages on the way back, not sure which one – Bretford or Brinklow, probably – and bought a bag of crisps, a can of cold Espresso and a Magnum ice cream. I hadn’t intended to have the Magnum, I really only bought it on the spur of the moment to get the overall cost up to the minimum debit card charge. I stopped at the bench outside the shop and consumed them all. I’m sure that really helped a lot – after 100 miles I was starting to feel superficially weary but I had loads of energy. I probably didn’t fuel myself enough on the 200 mile ride in June and if I had, I wouldn’t have felt so spent over the last 40 miles.
Back on 115.85 miles, which took my August total to 686 – this year’s highest monthly tally so far.
Very
nice to have added another county to the list. I don’t think I’ll do
that ride again, though. Strava tells me that it’s the most elevation
gain I’ve done on any ride so far. 5,761 feet.
I finished my Jack Reacher audiobook on the ride, Die Trying.
Quite enjoyable but really pretty dumb pulp fiction. I do like the way
he ties the various strands of his stories together, though. But he
obsesses over details a bit too much.
I also listened to the BBC’s Brexit: A Love Story? on R4. Predictably there’s a satirical, mocking tone to the way the various protagonists on the Leave side of the argument are portrayed. I’d have been too angry to listen to it a year ago. But in the light of events since then I found a certain indulgent satisfaction in listening to it, knowing that the BBC had been defeated. A bit like listening to one of Lord Haw-Haw’s old broadcasts.
Cold day today. I was comfortable enough on the bike, but I had to wrap
up warm. The Boardman was selected as weapon of choice since there were a
few puddles around, and I set off at about 11:15.
With a
strong-ish wind coming from the north, the intention was to go north,
then west along the long A road under Derby, then back. I only wanted to
do 35 miles or so but I was on call, so I tried to pursue the usual
strategy of not wandering too far from base.
I went up through
Belton to Long Whatton where I turned west for Melbourne then over
Swarkestone Bridge and westward as far as Willington. Then I came back
down Top Brand, rather than continue on to Long Whatton.
Mostly
cloudy, but the sun did come out for about five minutes! And
unfortunately an unexpected and persistent rain started about three
miles from home.
I mostly listened to my Jack Reacher audiobook.
The second half has gone a bit incoherent; almost surreally implausible.
It’s as if the author developed a powerful drink habit after writing
the first 20 chapters or so.
My Garmin bike computer gave a low
battery warning on the way down Top Brand but fortunately I had a GPS
watch on so I used that for the last eight miles, and concatenated the
tracks when I got back.
I wanted to do at least 34 after work to get the August mile count up to the ‘recalculated’ target, 530 miles. Hadn’t done a Twycrosser for a while so I set off on the S Works shortly after 4pm. I did the Orton detour from Twycross, the long way to Sheepy Magna. From there the plan was to go along Mythe Lane and Atterton Lane to Fenn Lanes, but I was confronted by this familiar sight from earlier in the year, along Mythe Lane:
I turned back the way I came and turned off for Ratcliffe Culey and Sibson; a shorter version of the Twycrosser. Decided to come back along Gibbet Lane since I hadn’t done that for a while. Bad move – it was littered with dried mud and little stones for the first half mile. I took this pic at the Gibbet Post:
I’d
intended to take a right along Barton Lane from Congerstone, which
would have seen me arrive home on about 36 miles at a rough guess, but I
got a call from work at Shackerstone. As it happened our Global
Operations Centre had called the wrong person first for this particular
issue, so I asked them politely to call the right person instead.
However I felt sure that it would escalate up to me 20 minutes later, so
I took the quickest route home from there and put my boot down a bit.
Home on 33.02 miles, which takes me to 529.28 recorded miles in August,
0.72 short of target.
The weather looks iffy for the next couple of days, but the long weekend is looking good at the moment.
In
the interest of maintaining the rigourous intellectual honesty for
which I hope I’m renowned by now, I will state that I digitally removed
two items of litter from the second photo.
Beautiful cycling day, today. Sunny, not too warm, low wind. Great shame
I had to work, but at least I was able to down tools by 3:30. I decided
to take the S Works – conscious that the summer is not with us that
much longer, and I haven’t actually been out on it since I put new tyres
on. I wanted to do 46 miles, to take the August total past 500.
I decided to go up through Melbourne, over Swarkestone Bridge and along the A road that runs along the river. I did that as far as Willington then turned back, a little nervous that I was straying too far from home when I might be needed at work. I did go exploring along an unfamiliar road at Willington before I turned for home, but only for half a mile or so.
I
didn’t turn back down over Swarkestone Bridge. I kept going through
Weston and Aston. I had the vague idea of finding a turn to take me
south again, but actually there isn’t one until you get to Shardlow and
Cavendish Bridge, so that’s where I ended up. From there, back down
through Donington and the usual way home from my old office there.
It
annoys me when people spell it “Donnington” as they sometimes do, but
interestingly as I pedalled through the town I noticed an ancient road
sign – one of those pillars set in the pavement with distances on two
faces – with that same spelling. It must have been there since before
the war. Odd. Perhaps the name was changed at some point.
Saw a
couple of photographers with very powerful long lenses – amateurs, I
think – scrambling down the embankment to the side of the road as I
passed the airport. I’ve heard of people being harassed by the airport
security and police for unauthorised photography around the airport
perimeter.
Anyway – I only did 41.59 miles. If I’d come back down
a bit sooner I might have tacked on a part-Twycrosser, but I wasn’t
going to faff around just for the sake of another three or four miles.
So: 496 this month. I think the weather will allow another 80 at least.
The forecast was for rain all day and I didn’t think I’d have a chance to get out on a bike today. I finished work at 5:30 and conditions looked pleasant enough – blue skies, warm-ish and the roads were drying up nicely – so I thought I’d risk 20 or so on the Boardman.
Actually
very pleasant out there; not much wind and intermittent warm sunshine. I
pedalled over toward Hathern then hung a left to Diseworth. I would
have come back down from there but I decided it wasn’t going to rain,
and I pressed on a bit further, to skirt the bottom end of the airport
at Donington and back down through Isley Walton.
As I turned
southward I noticed mildly threatening skies a few miles ahead. Not only
that, but there was an indistinct, partial rainbow to the east (of
course – this being only a couple of hours before sunset). The rain
started not long after and continued intermittently for the next half
hour, but it was very light. The bike and I pretty much dried off
completely during the last 15 minutes, after it had stopped.
Very
pleasant excursion despite the mild precipitation. 23.76 miles. Even
when the forecasters threaten rain for a week, you usually get at least
one window of opportunity for a bit of a run out – and today was a case
in point.
