Rain!

It's been wet. Very wet. So wet & blustery I've not been cycle commuting to work for a week (getting blown around when cars are about is not my idea of fun).
I've been going stircrazy through not riding. In a super grumpy mood.
But yesterday's club ride came along and the forecast was terrible, I had hoped nobody would turn up, but six of us blasted round the Guild Wheel and actually I really enjoyed it :-)

And today at work, I managed a quick ten minute blast around the hills through some very long puddles. Two were at least 20 foot across so I pushed as hard as I could, lifted my feet up and clear of any splashed & hoped that I could make it through without needing to pedal any again. Best way to spend part of my lunch break.
Tomorrow looks bobbins again. Here's to cycling on Weds.

The weekend ride pics

Stephen hasnt done much cycling over the last few months, which was very apparent on saturday when he was worn out after just a couple of little hills.

We climbed the rugged moor edges - feeling like you were in the middle of nowhere...

Until we turned round at the top of one climb to see the beautiful mill town spread out around the whole valley (Queen St Mill is where they filmed scenes from The King's Speech - I still havent seen the film & I've still never visited the mill!)

So we climbed some more!

We had made it to the lunch stop at the top of the moors, only to discover it was closed! So we freewheeled down towards the rows of terraced houses and headed for the canal to find a different food stop. We ended up at Parkview Cafe in Barrowford and were treated to a really lovely lunch - all delicious home made fare; Stephen had the biggest solo meat & potato pie that I've seen, I had a very spicy soup that warmed my frozen toes & fingers through after just one sip & we both had a massive cherry scone a piece. A bargain too! I'll be visiting again soon.  We then popped in to see my aunty for a lovely catch up. By the time we were ready for the return, Stephen had ceased up somewhat, so we plumped for an easy canal return leg & were treated to some dramatic skies.

A mere 21 miles with 2300ft of climbing. Stephen now shocked into how lazy he's become over the last few months. If we are planning on a tour to Cardiff from Chester, he has some work to do!

Happy New Year

Holidays are great for utility cycling. Most people are not rushing about in their cars! And as such, it makes for happy stress free pedalling. To make my ride home from Stephen's even more enjoyable, I picked a different route; about a mile & a half further, but avoiding the shocking potholes of Intack & Accrington and the pitiful, pathetic new road layout east of Accrington, which I contend with on my commute.

The route I chose passed mainly industrial estate areas and fewer residential places, so with it being new year, the traffic was at blissful minimum. 

The holiday cold still hanging on, the 13.5 miles was a little tougher than usual so I was happy that there was a significant amount of freewheeling available to me until the last few miles.

 And what a lovely day to be out & about in the sunshine.

Pendle Hill with Moorhouse's Brewery in the foreground

The new year will hopefully see S & I in our new house together, so this ride will be a thing of the past. No more need for two hair-driers, two hair-straightners, two lots of pretty much everything. And more free time to enjoy rides together :-)

Best wishes to you all for the new year.

Boxing Day Cycling

I'm getting to grips with Do It Yourself Audax rides. And with the niggles that seem to crop up. First I plot in Memory Map, then I do the Google Man walking distances. Then when I ride the route and pull the tracklog data off... the distances never tally & of course the elevations are never on mark (but that seems a universal issue & I'm too lazy to count contours).

Coal Clough windfarm, Long Causeway

Yesterday I decided to have a go at my second short hilly ride after thoroughly enjoying the first a couple of weeks ago.
Later this year I'd like to do some of the hilly 100 / 150k calendar rides, but I'm building up to that. That distance on a non-hilly ride is a piece of pie, but I'm a slow hill climber (I'm really an off road rider - so low gear & chill out going up), so I need to get my legs in gear for a faster pace. Doing short hilly rides seems a sensible option & there are no shortage of hills where I live.

Google Man had tallied the most direct routes at 53.5kms, but the tracklog was a mere 49.8. It probably wont count. Which will be the second duff DIY route I've done (the first was a gps problem when it lost signal).

In any case, it was a lovely Boxing Day ride. I probably should have rested with the cold I have, but I'd have hated missing out on a beautiful day.  The first six miles were hard as I warmed up, but the rest was lovely and the massive thumbs up from a German couple driving past me on a steep hairpin gave me an extra big smile as I continued climbing.

And of course, I got to cycle past where my Dad's ashes were scattered. He'd usually drag me over this way on very cold boxing days when I was growing up, so it's always nice to relive that tradition.

Widdop Reservoir

That road in the distance snaking past that tree- that's where I'm heading. Very deep valley just below with one of the toughest inclines I can think of... thankfully it's quite short.

Thursden Valley

I wont be making the Rapha Festive 500 this year. Right now, my nose is a tap and I'm living off vapour rub & I'm not a martyr to cycle in gale force winds either (well not on road anyway).
So time to spend a couple of days tucked up, vegging out & watching cartoons. Hopefully I'll be fine for the club ride on Sunday. 

ARGH Road redesign / narrowing / pinch point roll outs?

Over the last few months whilst commuting to & from work - some works were going on which I've discovered are pinch points where the pavement is now curved out into the road to reduce the width of the road presumably to make a shorter crossing distance for pedestrians (this particular stretch, although residential is 40mph). The road previously had a semi-decent painted cycle lane that was between parked cars & the flow of traffic (never ideal, but at least it was away from the door zone).  Now the road is narrow, these pedestrian areas are often hidden by parked cars - as are the posts with hi-viz strips for cars to see them. This is forcing cyclists into the flow of traffic when approaching these areas.


Since getting irritated at this happening on the ONLY road connecting my home town with where I work (other than the motorway), I have noticed that this seems to be happening on the majority of arterial roads within the region. I can only assume this is being rolled out as a standard road feature country wide.  The roads in question are usually A roads that are jammed with parked cars and now this additional road clutter which is making it much more stressful both cycling & actually when I drive - and I am both a confident cyclist and driver (I cycle over 5000 miles per year).


I dont recall reading any consultation about these road redesigns and certainly nothing has been mentioned about them at the County Cycle Forum. Which begs the question - why on earth are authorities doing this? Surely if it is for pedestrian safety they should be looking at stopping traffic with crossings or reducing road speeds rather than making cars weave along roads and forcing cyclists into incredibly vulnerable positions on these roads, which are all narrowed by parked cars and pedestrian refuges and are now even narrower.

I've been commuting by bike regularly for over five years now and this year I have noticed that I feel much more vulnerable than previously by the way that the roads are being used. Near passes, more left hooks than ever before and I am having to commute early & early in a morning and much later in an evening to avoid heavy traffic. So these road changes are really unwelcome. Has anybody else noticed this and is there anything that can be done to undo this?

Sometimes I just feel like sacking off the cycle commute. But my bank balance and waistline would suffer. As would my off road hill climbing legs.
Feeling frustrated. And like my personal choice to not pollute on my way to work is being forced away from me. 

New roads, new smiles

The last few months have pretty much been dominated by long days at work meaning virtually all my cycling has been commuting in the dark at both ends of the day.  My road commute is grim. Unavoidable A-roads (the off road route is not suitable this time of year). I think grim commutes dominating life can make you forget how much you love cycling.

Recently I've taken a reduction in hours at work - I get one day off per fortnight so I can spend the day with my mum. And the last two freedom days I've enjoyed leisurely cycling from Stephen's back home after the morning rush hour traffic has dissipated. Last time I took the most direct route, which is usually pretty dull and busy, but I found myself enjoying a quite ride in the sunshine.

So today, I chose a longer, hillier route on roads I'd never been on before in my life.  When you've lived in the same place your whole life, there's something wonderful about discovering new roads and seeing familiar places from a different perspective.

 I smiled the whole way. And happily this seemed to make many motorists smile too. As I was enjoying a fast descent towards Whalley, an older gentleman beamed back at me from his delivery truck. Being up on the open moors is a wonderful feeling and I hope everyone was enjoying the beautiful day as much as me.



I extended the ride by riding around Pendle rather than through Padiham. Familiar roads, but good ones! Back Lane is usually devoid of cars and after the initial double chevron climb, once you're up  there you ride along a ridge, meaning no tough climbs, just speed and the wind rushing by.

I ventured through Higham village for the first time in my life (usually I leave the ridge at another point) - very pretty and I must visit the pub for grub there sometime soon.


The last stretch was mainly in town traffic, which did stifle the smile a little, but I sped through and was in the park and back home in time for lunch.

22.2 miles, 2630ft of ascent, almost no flat  - which is why living in the Pennines is amazing!

Eskdale Trip Days #2&3

Apologies for the huge gap in blogging. It's been manic!

Stephen's birthday was our second day away. To be kind to him, I let him have a day off the bike. He's always wanting to go walking, so I obliged. And like the last walk, I was determined to walk his feet off so he wouldnt make such a daft suggestion again!! That's his theory anyway, for why the walk was so tough.

Birker Force was torrential so we decided to take a closer look. There's actually no path to the waterfall itself, so we clambered over rocks and bracken to take a closer look. We were drenched in no time. The falls were dramatic, but not very pretty.
We returned to the bridleway, but the bottom of the falls had burst their banks and the bridge only crossed part of the waters. A family were at the other side trying to figure out how to get across... my solution was the only solution that a bad-ass girl could come up with

Even though the weather was damp, the path to Stanley Gill was pretty busy. This is my favourite waterfall and I'd never seen as much water gushing down the valley before, so I was looking forward to seeing it. The usual trickles from the sides of the dell had turned into waterfalls themselves.













A well timed lunch at the cafe at the end of the Ravenglass Eskdale railway meant we avoided a massive downpour before the afternoon section of the walk.

We continued down the valley towards Eskdale Green following bridleways meandering around the hills en route to the Japanese Garden at the wonderfully named, Giggle Alley.

The Japanese garden is growing wild since I last visited it afew years ago. It had been maintained by a group of volunteers, but I guess that has fallen by the wayside. It still looked beautiful though, but not quite the manicured preciseness you usually find in J-gardens.

Darkness was creeping in as we heard distant rumbles of thunder. We were still at the furthest point from the hostel.


As we climbed back to the hills we watched the dramatic clouds moving across the landscape.

The grey soon cleared to let the glow of the setting sun warm up the view of the valley below.

The last few miles of the walk were getting darker fast. I enjoyed the fun of clambering round in the gloom choosing to finish the walk on footpaths rather than on the road.
One last waterfall, which is called Whillan Beck... not beck like today, more like Whillan Force.

The walk had been hard work, but stunning at every turn.



 
We hung our wet gear in the smelly drying

room and Stephen enjoyed some of the robot chocolates I'd made for his birthday. Well deserved too.




The last day of the trip was an easy 20 mile ride, mainly on road to the end of Wastwater to lunch at the pub at Wasdale Head. The road goes nowhere, so it's pretty quiet for traffic.
Britain's favourite view was obscured by low lying cloud, but still stunning, as the Lakes always is.

Stephen had hoped it would be a mainly flat ride, but as usual, I managed to get some hills into it as we climbed into a headwind heading back to Gosforth. It did mean a wonderful last view before a fast descent to finish off with. Always an ideal way to finish a trip.