Hills and drizzle

10°C, sunny out but bands of drizzle in the afternoon, light S wind.

In the morning, feeling lively, I took on some hills – Dalton and Bannister. The Arrow is great for long steady miles. The steel frame soaks up the bumps along with 28C tyres set to 70psi. That was a nice ride, not even the rain made it cold.

The frame needs some attention. There are some rusty pits hidden beneath one of the tubes.

Twycross by Arrow.

10°C, sun, light breeze and dry.

Stopped by the bunker

The photo was taken near an underground bunker by Elford. Such a strange structure which now has a visitor’s book. Not an official one, but an old sketchbook with a few mindless comments and badly drawn porn.

A slow and steady ride which passed Twycross Zoo. This time of year, their hedges are bare so you can see in. I looked in and two giraffes looked out.

Just like old times when I lived here, the miles effortlessly rolled by on he near empty roads. My mind wandered all over and the effort to ride got lighter and lighter. This bike used to by my steady winter ride (and commuter) but now I have others.

One thing I always like about these silhouette shots is the halo around my head. It’s something in the way leaves reflect light back along their path. I don’t mind the shallow ego boost nonetheless.

Ninety minutes at night

6°C, cold and dry.

A 1½ hours after work. This is a return ride after over a week of feeling poorly. I’ve really felt the cold but, unsurprisingly, it’s not noticeable after the ride.

As you can see, the speeds are quite low, partly because of restrictive warm clothing. Ironic that I overheated slightly. A week of no exercise does make the cold air more biting.

Many miles, but. little.. strength…

11°C, some sunny bits, but you know – it’s November.

A much used route.

Nothing seriously wrong but I didn’t have a lot of energy on tap. The ride was nearly 50 miles but I avoided the bigger hills because of that empty legs thing.

This old Arrow bike is running nicely with its new brakes, chainset and BB. The next bit to fail will be the Sora shifters, they are quite loose now after 20 years use. This used to be my main commuter and winter bike so it has some huge miles in its history.