400 miles May

Belated May post (it has been very busy here since we're in the throws of buying a house together).

I cracked the monthly mileage in May. 400 miles is a height I've not hit before. As an off road rider, I tend not to do more than 30 miles in one go, but since I've ventured into the world of Audax, my net has been cast out further to reel more miles in. Although every cyclist knows that road miles and off road miles work very differently and it's hours in the saddle that count.


May ended with a scorching bank holiday camping trip with the Family Friendly section of the Rough-Stuff Fellowship.
Brian organised a wonderful trip to Lazonby in the far north of England. Stephen had previously only experienced a wet camping trip before, so it was good to get dry weather and remember what summers used to feel like.

Two short(ish) beautiful rides with great company in idyllic countryside and with some very quiet roads made for wonderful cycling.

 brian & miriam

Day 1 we climbed to Hartside Summit - it was teaming with motorbikes that blasted along the A-road (we used a rough track to reach the top) and then followed part of the C2C route passing plenty of other bikes en route.

Keith leading a descent

Geoff didnt actually fall off

A lovely evening was spent eating & drinking (& watching bats) on the campsite

Sunday morning was so hot that I couldnt lounge in bed. I went for a swim in the outdoor pool, which was brilliant.

Day 2's ride was an easy flatish ride to Langwathby via woods and the Stone Circle, Long Meg & her Daughters. Very enjoyable to be in some shady trees for part of the ride. We followed the road back, which ran parallel to the River Eden.

Mike & Sylvia took an alternative route

We packed the tent up before the rain came & thought of everyone who had stayed for 3 days of cycling whilst we were dry in the cinema watching Star Trek.

York hen party trip

This weekend I loaded my bike panniers up & set forth towards York to meet up with the hen party goers. Rather than trekking on the road, I'd planned to take the Leeds Liverpool Canal all the way to it's eastern end and then join some of the National Cycle Route.

I started on the familiar stretch of Route 68 that the RSF Family Friendly Group ride on a regular basis.  I had planned on doing the ride as a DIY 100k Audax, I set my gps to record.

Pendle Hill from Reedley Marina

I was making fantastic time and had reached Salterforth in an hour. This stretch was the easy part though. It's well surfaced until you reach East Marton.

A bumpy stretch of tow path slowed my progress significantly. With heavy panniers in tow, rutted ground made the rear of my bike a little unsteady and there were one or two hairy moments where I had to fight to stay out of the water. It made things interesting... pretty much all the way Bingley.

The pretty views kept my spirits up as I slogged on.

Looking at the ground, there were dozens of muddy tyre tracks all over the place, its very obvious that people want to cycle here & do cycle here, so why the local authorities in the area dont put some proper provision of a decent track down, goodness only knows. Improving the towpath quality would keep it in better condition for everyone to enjoy!

I was very pleased when some smoother surface was under my wheels again. Cycling on the canal when carrying a load means one thing; unrelenting peddling! Bingley's Five lock rise was pretty much the only bit of free-wheeling of the day. But I stopped to take a picture :-)
 

My progress was going guns again and I reached Shipley and onto Leeds without much effort.


I met a father & son who had cycled from Liverpool on the canal over the course of the week. I dont often see young teenagers touring, so it was refreshing to see this lad out & about with his dad. After chatting for a while, I sped off - I still had some miles to cover.

The ride towards Leeds had lovely open views before the cityscape appeared. In the bright sunshine, the modern high-rise buildings made the city look more American than British and the canal took me right into the heart of a newly developed area.

From here, I followed the Route 66 signs, which took me out of the city without fuss. One deprived area was a bit grim (probably more so because I was on my own in an unfamiliar place), but I quickly left that behind and found myself in the blubell lined woods leading to Temple Newsham, where I decided to have my lunch... at 3pm!

From here I'd planned to use various bridleways to take me to Tadcaster. I reached for my gps... it had glitched and was not recording my route. I was somewhat irritated that this meant I couldnt submit the ride as an Audax and I was making reasonable time on the route. Heyho.

I beetled round various interesting looking bridleways enjoying seeing what I could find now I didnt have a time limit to make.

fields of lovely smelling rape

I reached Saxton, where my b&b for the night was and called them up to check if I should turn left or right at the main road.
When I arrived, they were stoking a fire for me and I had a big pot of tea and a slice of cake waiting. It was certainly a warm welcome at the Old Presbytery b&b and I enjoyed relaxing in the chair listening to the clock tick and the fire crackle - after a day in the saddle, I could have fallen asleep there and then!
I wandered into the village for a pub tea and returning, the other guest had checked in for the night & we nattered for a few hours by the fire.

By morning, the rains had arrived, it was drizzling as I had breakfast, but by the time I was due to leave, it was torrential. I had a short ride into Church Fenton to get the train to York (I had planned on cycling, until I saw the forecast) & was sopping by the time I got on the train.

waiting to board

I dropped my bike off at the secure cycle parking and enjoyed a lovely weekend of hen-do festivities including a chocolate making workshop at the Cocoa House York followed by a lovely canal boat cruise with a bbq and dancing in the evening.  There was much singing, dancing & drinking!

River Ouze

 Thankfully we did not literally 'rock the boat'

York Minster

The train journey home

 I wasnt so rough that a ride home would have been tough, but I got the train home to enjoy the company and have a leisurely morning in York enjoying the sunshine and the spring flowers in the minster gardens.

More party fun when the wedding arrives. I might convince Stephen to cycle to the wedding - after all, it's not as far away as the hen do was!!

My legs are now feeling better prepared for the summer's 300+mile tour.  In fact, when I got off the train, I had a mile of uphill and even with a loaded bike and high heels, I managed to sail past a guy on a road bike (always a good feeling - tho I'm often overtaken by real speedsters).

And I'm now decided that I'll stick to organised Audax rides rather than faff around with technology that somehow always seems to let me down.

Cyclofemme 2013

We braved the rains to ride into the hills on May 12th this year.
It started off a lovely day with a nice tail wind.

Making new friends is the lovely thing about cycling.  I met awesome Rose, a tri-athelete who was brimming with enthusiasm for the ride.
Chatting and cycling makes the ride go by much easier.

And the hills seem a little less daunting.

 After lunch the rains came in. Hours of riding into a wet headwind.

But I still had a smile by the end.

Thanks to Ian for organising a memorable group ride & taking pics to fondly remember the occasion ;-p

Deepest, remote Wales

Nine miles from its nearest town, down the single track, twisty, steep mountain roads through the woods, we eventually found Dolgoch Hostel.  We took some wrong turns when the GPS gave up on any signal & no mobile reception meant we couldnt phone anyone to check - we asked for directions & were sent off down the wrong road, so we got more directions to finally get on the correct road - the Abergwesyn Mountain Road with the infamous Devil's Staircase along its route.  It was pitch black when we got there. We went to the common room, into a semi-darkness; our fellow Rough Stuff Fellowship riders sporting various headlamps and torches as they made their way to the electricity free bunk rooms.

The morning sun was bright & after ten minutes of peddling, we could see the lone hostel where we had cycled from.

The first day's ride (gpx file) was 30 miles round forest tracks & quiet lanes as we made a big loop around Llyn Brianne, the curiously spidery shaped reservoir that covered over a number of houses when it was originally made.

It was a fairly undulating ride with just over 5k feet of ascent in all.

We climbed the Tywi forest tracks and then descended to the Towy River where we soaked up the sunshine as we ate outside the Towy Bridge Inn & sampled some locally brewed beer.

beer and bicycles

.After warming into the latter half of the ride, I got a spurt of energy and powered the last fiveish miles back to the hostel, whizzing past my fellow riders & relishing the sun on my back & the warm breeze in my hair.
I was chef for the evening... I'd expected to cook for at most eight, but it ended up being spaghetti for 18! Thankfully there was just enough to go around & I think it was enjoyed. Steve made a lovely fruit salad followed by a local history lesson about the hostel and the area.

Day two (gpx file) started damp & it just got wetter. Most riders peddled over the Devil's Staircase, but since S & I would be driving home after the ride - we parked up over the other side (after 4 days of solid cycling, I think Stephen was glad of the small reprive).

A shorter, slightly less hilly ride today; through Trallwm Forest to Beulah via some off road bridleways.

It was lovely to meet different members of the Rough Stuff Fellowship who reside far south from where I'm based. Nice to hear different stories, see different bikes and ride at a different pace. Since this area is so devoid of cars, there was a bit more riding on lanes than we tend to do in the industrialised areas up north (& no cobbles!).

Challenging Lake District trip. 80 miles, 10k feet of ascent, plenty of off-road. Heaven.

A blustery Tuesday morning, fourteen riders set off from the remote bunkhouse at Tranearth to traverse the shoulder of a mountain as Brian led his 'Three Colls' ride starting with the the tough ascent to Walna Scar Road.

 

A handful of walkers passed us by, probably wondering what sort of people push their bikes over this rocky pass into the Duddon Valley (it felt like a journey to Mordor). Many of us wondered the same as the wind stopped us in our tracks repeatedly as we slowly made our way the few short miles to the summit.

The descent was slightly easier, although the wind so fierce that peddling hard was required - gravity was not sufficient! I could hardly see anything as my eyes streamed with the biting wind, tho I managed to see the remnants of snow and avoided blowing off the edge of the track.  A fun technical and rocky track all the way to the lunch stop at Seathwaite. We had only come three miles and it had taken all morning.

Brian seemed a-feared for the evening, wondering how Judith might take her revenge with the available cutlery at base.

The second of the three colls was over Broughton Moor. A much easier ascent that was thankfully mostly rideable and had some easy smooth lanes on the other side.  We climbed a beautiful lane towards Wallenrigg Farm; behind us views of the sea opened up and infront stretched the tops of various Lake District passes. Geoff suffered a broken chain, but managed to fettle it enough to carry on and we headed for the opposite side of the valley.

A grassy bridleway took us up the last coll of the day to Yew Bank. Judith spurred on Hilary & myself as we led the ascent ("girly power" apparently), but gate-holding duties stopped the ladies winning the climb. The bridleway turned into a lane that took us all the way back to Torver, straight into The Church Inn (where Geoff and Cary were stopping rather than at the bunk house) where beers and coffees were enjoyed.

Day Two and despite the forecast for rain, four more members turned up. Tim rode over from Hawkshead to join us with his company for the day.  A heavy drizzle remained with us all morning as we climbed the slopes of Bethecar Moor to the east of Lake Coniston. Again, there was much pushing over rocks and boulders until we reached the tops where we negotiated deep puddles over the peat moorland. Stephen had a slight mishap when his wheel sunk all the way down to the forks. From this point is was downhill all the way through the woods into Grizedale Forest with plenty of technical singletrack that put all our brake-blocks to use all the way to Satterthwaite and onto the lunchstop at the vistor centre in Grizedale.

Geoff's picture of the group

As we climbed more forest tracks the rain really set in and those with raincapes donned them for the afternoon. By the time we got to the cafe in Coniston village, we were all ringing wet and we certainly steamed up the windows. From the cafe we followed the track beside Coniston and through the caravan sites all the way back to Torver. The track to Tranearth was awash in places and the river, torrential.  As Wednesday evening proceeded, the howling wind turned into gales and the rain thrashed down, I'd expected that the bikes would be blown away through the night.

7am Thursday morning; The bikes were all still in place, and the wind had died down.  By the time we were ready to set off, the rain had stopped.

We took the meandering woodland track alongside the Ambleside Road before joining tarmac to climb towards High Tiberthwaite, once more onto rough tracks we headed to Elterwater where a couple on bicycles warned us of the flooded paths by the riverside.

The lunchstop today would be in Ambleside, yet at every signpost that said 'Ambleside' we took the opposite direction as we toured around the valley, eventually joining NCN Route 37 into the pretty town where we all made our own way to various food establishments.

We headed back to Elterwater by road where Brian informed us that the river levels had eased since the morning. There was a vote for 'road & traffic' or 'exploring the wet river path, possibly swimming & no traffic' - in true Rough Stuff fashion, everyone chose the latter option and we all enjoyed racing towards lengthy puddles, lifting our legs up from the peddles and hoping to make it to the other side upright and with dry feet, much to the amusement of some walkers.  Part of the path was completely immersed by the river, most of us traversed the muddy hill, but Ralph and Mike peddled through, undeterred by the deep waters.

Once again we climbed roads and stony tracks skirting Lingmoor Fell with stunning views of the fells reaching up into the thick clouds. The final significant climb of the day took us up to Hodge Close via Little Fell and the quarry by Holme Fell where Mike stopped to visit a friend. The rest of us enjoyed a fast descent all the way back to Coniston.  Judith bought some beers from the brewery in the village and after a coffee stop, we shared out the beers between bottle cages and panniers to get them back to her car in tact. Once more we followed the lakeside track and the sun came out for this final three mile stretch where some people said their goodbyes before the rain returned.

My thanks go to Brian & Mike for leading these brilliant & challenging rides (they came up the week before to try them out when there was still a lot of snow on the tops). It was the best Rough Stuff trip I've been on & I feel like I've achieved a heck of a lot in those three days. Brilliant company of course made it extra special.

When we tried leaving, the rains had been so heavy that my car was stuck in the mud, wheels spinning and digging down. It took Stephen 40 minutes of moving gravel and stones with me slowly edging the car backwards and forwards before we managed to set off driving. Stephen found that his best accomplishment of the week.