That’s why I’m so hungry

Posted on 7th Oct 2012 by essiep

12°C, no wind, sunny. CR˜61.4 miles.
I feel this way every week when I get back. Some slight aches, thirsty and refreshed. Above all- hungry.
The phone app says I used up 3,227 calories on this ride alone. Hence this insatiable hunger. No matter how much I eat, even with a full belly the hunger is still there.
The phone app is probably more trustworthy than the speedo that claims to record calories. It can’t because it doesn’t know my weight, nor does it record hill climbs. The app does both, so I’m inclined to believe it.
Anyway, good ride and dinner is in the oven.

Parbold hill

Posted on 30th Sep 2012 by essiep

12°C , brisk westerly, light cloud. CK55 miles.
Saturday ride on the fixed, a good few hours ride that started with some difficulty- perhaps I didn’t have enough for supper before.
Anyway, I got up Parbold hill on the 42×16 gear without stopping. While not a very blog-worthy point, I get a lot of satisfaction from this first. Last winter, I could only make the summit with the last part on foot. Then in the 17 tooth gear I gasped to the top.
It seems that my physical energy has been liberated by that drop in work-stress.

Momentary misjudgement

Posted on 27th Sep 2012 by essiep

12C clear.
It was only a tiny slice of time, it was enough for the axe to swing its errant path. The hit only took a thin slice from my thumb. Lucky it wasn’t worse, or unlucky to happen in the first place. That makes me luck-neutral.
A cut from a sharp edge is usually less painful, and less prone to infection. My only grumble is the site of the injury- it’s on the side of my the joint just where I normally apply pressure when changing gear on the commuting bike.
Perhaps change gear like a good fixed-gear rider.

Profile of a commute

Posted on 20th Sep 2012 by essiep

this profile show works on the left and home on the right.

14°C westerly
Mapmyride has updated their app. Now a week has passed and no broken routes appear in the gps tracking.
For 10 years I have ridden this route to and from work. In all that time I have never been certain why it takes of consistently longer to ride in than back home. Now I know. There is both a general climb in altitude and prevailing SW winds to make the morning route harder. Home is closer to sea-level than work.

Tracked 47 miles

Posted on 17th Sep 2012 by essiep

17°C westerly breeze, brisk
Used an app to track my Sunday bike ride. It ran alright to start with. I admit that it takes a while to learn the program, but it did raise other problems. It missed 11 miles off the route, also I can’t see how to pause it during a cafe stop. Still, there is some promise. The missing section was a loss of gps signal I’d say. Either that or some space warp/hyper-space effect occured.

Heat in Duxford

Posted on 9th Sep 2012 by essiep

26°C, no cloud ’till later.

September Airshow, 2012. It’s a long but easy drive and for the first time we got there to join a queue. Don’t know why it should be different this year. I have to say, upfront, that I don’t know why I’m less thrilled by this event this year. Even the 4 year interval hasn’t helped my dulled enthusiasm. It was nice to see the Vulcan fly over, we wowed at the noise that made your clothes flutter. The event was worth the trip, but only just. Perhaps the last for me.

Bearing in

Posted on 22nd Aug 2012 by essiep

New school/old school crankset (credit: Wikipedia)

17°C, cloudy & light westerlies

It is in, the fix is in. This morning I put a new bottom bracket bearing in the race-bike. Will ride soon to test it out and try out the larger inner-chainring. It’s now 42-53, a smaller jump than before. That should put an end to the triple shifts that I often am forced to do when shifting chainring.

Continue reading →

Getting dark

Posted on 20th Aug 2012 by essiep

22°C, cleared by lunchtime

It’s dark earlier here. Much darker and sudden. It goes with that heart sinking realisation that a holiday is over. The sun touches down in Scotland at something like 21.10, here it’s half an hour earlier at least. How deflating. What would it be like to live up there in Scotland?

I asked some locals during my camping trip where folks fit screens on their windows to keep the midges out. Their answer was “to be fair, there are not many time you can open your windows in Scotland”. Perhaps the late evening are compensation for the much darker winters. But so what, they have the mountains & glens. I’m still intoxicated by all of that. Is there any way I could do just a year up there to see whether I could do it.

I have been hiking with Rosie in the Highlandsagain. There is a lifetime of holidays in those hills. Such holidays cost barely any more than living here- camping is costs about £5 per night and other needs would cost the same down here. I drove back on Friday thinking over what it is that is so beguiling.

Rannoch Moor in the scotch mist

The bleak Rannoch Moor was thick with Scotch mist. Mountains I knew faintly loomed out of the mist, sometimes with skirts of lacy ragged clouds. There are few roads across that strange landscape- the A82 was straight, but distorted by harsh winters of ice and lengthy snow cover. Tall reflective posts marks the road’s edges- presumably sometimes it’s the only way to know where the road ends and the moor begins.
I stopped a few times to take photos and take in the atmosphere. Soft drizzle penetrates clothes and camera. A few minutes pass and the midges gather, some to cloud around others to bite. They seems to prefer eyelids and neck. You have to move around to evade them, stand still and these slow flying insects catch up with you easily.

As if the landscape is a conscious entity, it draws you in with a spell and wants to swallow you up. It was so hard to tear myself away on Friday.

Scotland’s weather: midges bite the dust amid drought (scotsman.com)

Wild camp

Posted on 16th Aug 2012 by essiep

19°C, light cloud with a SW breeze.

There is a great upland route near Glen Finnon. It’s a horseshoe of peaks that includes two Munroes, a long undulating ridge and magnificent views of glens, mountains including Ben Nevis, and views out to sea of the isles of Eeig & Rum. I could find no proper campsite near the route’s start so I chose a spot for a wild-camp. It was fairly near the road on a col that looked deserted except for a trainline that carried a steam-train twice a day.

With a site selected, I put up the tent rather later than usual after cooking & eating supper first. Discretion is the rule here, put up the tent at sunset & take it down as soon as you can after sunrise. I bedded down at about 10pm and read for a while. The ground was a ripe breeding ground for midges and some got into the tent & bugged me while I lay there reading my book. Some of those midges are still there, adding punctuation to the story.
Later in the night, probably about 2am I was woke suddenly to an animal sound. A loud deep sound that was quite percussive. Despite choosing a spot out of view for humans, it wasn’t so hidden from deer.
I’m still naive about deer, I lay there heart thumping when the sound came again. A sudden burst of air somewhere between a grunt & a snort. Clearly the sound came from a big pair of lungs. My fear cortex ran overtime & I could picture a scene where a herd was making its way along old tracks that they have used for decades. All it would take is a slight disturbance and they would gallop in the dark in fright. There I lay, in a tent made of light thin fabric and only a summer weight sleeping bag for protection. Deer hooves are sharp, they use them for defence. These thoughts occupied the front of my mind. Strangely in all of this, Rosie my trusty dog wasn’t too bothered.
I decided to take the situation onto my own hands and got out of the tent with a torch. Good, they weren’t in immediate sight, so I scanned the horizon and hillsides with the beam. The stars shone brilliantly, the midges bit my bare legs but only one pair of eyes shone back in the darkness. After a short moment, even they were gone. Relief, they have fled. I stole a moment to look up at the filigree milky way and Cygnus blazing brightly overhead while the midges finished their meal.

I did eventually settle back to sleep though woke once more to pee. This time, peace, I could enjoy the image of a thin cresent moon next to the fixed brilliance of Venus as a morning star. There was another planet nearby but I don’t know what it was (probably Jupiter).
A big day lay ahead, a very long walk was the reason to camp in such a place so I grabbed more sleep.

The day went on from there as planned.

Bearings

Posted on 1st Aug 2012 by essiep

18°C, clear but some showers. CR:44.5 miles

It’s no real dilemma, the choice between watching sport on TV (Olympics or Tour De France) and going out for a ride in the sunshine. This year’s Olympics is different; the events are on during the day unlike the last few where we woke in the morning to find ay results we’re interested in. Bradley Wiggins got his gold medal while I was pedalling alone in the lanes of Leicestershire. I can’t deny the thrill I got on arriving home and putting the radio on: he got it! He got gold.

The ride was good, I felt strong and would have a better average speed if the wind was less fierce. Incidentally, I’m still procrastinating putting in that new bottom bracket bearing. It’s still making horrible crunching sounds but running smoothly. Well, I say smoothly, it has started making odd noises when I push uphill in the saddle. That bike will be so nice when the bearing is replaced, and I should change the inner chain-ring to a larger one too. 39-53 is too much of a jump for me, it forces double shifts on the rear 8 most of the time. there is a 42 tooth ring in the shed. Maybe when I get back.

Micycle

Mike thinks b/hikes

Category Archives: Travel