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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
19°C, light rain
grassy approach with the quarry on the hillside in the distance
I drove away from Snowdonia with a heavy heart this afternoon. A polar opposite to the feeling I took with me last Friday. It felt almost routine, and would perhaps, be not such a big deal. Saturday I climbed Rhinog Fawr along a similar route to previous times. The route included some excursions off the track, and the final ascent was over rougher scrambling ground.
Sunday was supposed to be a lower level walk over to the next valley (Cwm Nantcol) in search of a sight seen last year partly hidden in the bracken. After coming down from Rhinog Fach, I passed a strange sight near some over-grown quarry workings. The land was claiming back buildings and tip constructions which had become part of the soil. The land had coated them in moss, malm grass, heather and bracken. However, part hidden in the lush vegetation was a staircase. A staircase out in the wilds that plunged down into the darkness. What a sight! No time to take any pictures- I felt some stress caused by time pressure and the fear of loosing daylight. The image strongly burnt into my mind, though I regret its location was not strong fixed enough in my mind’s map.
There were interesting sights to be sure. But even with 2½ hours of searching, I could not find that staircase. It can’t have gone, a solid structure like that, made of slate isn’t going to collapse into the soil. A trip back seems like the best idea now. I will have to approach it from the same direction as last year’s hike: may as well climb the mountain (G. Fach) too before descending by the same route. Maybe that’s the secret. Continue reading
25°C, sun & light wind. feels hot & close. CR:30.7 miles
Same route as last time, but slightly slower. The bike is running well if rather clunky. Should I get up and change the bottom bracket bearing or pack hiking gear?
23°C bright sun & winds. CR:33 miles.
What are these things I pass on my ride so often? The girders seem to be aligned north-south and are on a pivoting support. Will solar panels be fitted sometime soon? There are just the two structures pictured here, both connected to a trough dig into the grass. 
It’s Sunday, the first after we broke up for the summer holiday. I feel the spirit of the holiday already which normally I don’t count until we get to Monday. We don’t work Sundays any time of the year but today is different. There is none of the pre-work nerves that so often blight this day of rest. So, let’s count today.
The Tour De France– Haven’t watched this for years, but the prospect of a possible British win drew me in. Bradley Wiggins & Mark Cavedish took 1, 2 this afternoon in Paris. An unbelievable result. I raise an imaginary toast.Can’t say I give a damn about the Olympics yet though.
Micycle 