Category Archives: Travel

This time last year…

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10°C, rain

This time last year I camped in the Rhinogydd range. This year it’s unlikely that I will camp during this Easter break. A week of rain, sun and heavy showers is forecast. This morning I took Rosie to the local woods for a run and it was gorgeous, the rain didn’t matter. In practice, the rain brought out all those smells that subliminally speak of spring. The problem arises when you are cooking on a stove outside your tent. Rain gets through to your skin and it becomes very difficult to keep warm. Campsites that offer log burners are best at these times. I can but dream of Llyn Gwynant.

Plans aren’t working out. The original idea included a visit to Betwys-y-Coed to get some new hiking gear. My hiking coat is, strictly speaking, a size too small (but then most of my clothes are a bit too small). I knew it at the time but it was in a sale and I had no idea how much I would come to use it. If I knew, I would have paid the extra and got something that fitted well and was probably a better, more breathable fabric. Goretex is the one to look for. Last week I tried on a few coats in Cotswold, the outdoor shop. Berghaus is still the best one, only because the cut is long and so fits my proportions better.

Stiff link

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Bike chain and chain tool on the ground

Bike chain and chain tool on the ground (Photo credit: londoncyclist)

12°C, grey with some drizzle CR:46 miles.

It’s never simple is it? Spend the morning finishing the bike service and it runs sweetly while hanging from a rope in the shed. Have lunch then set off on a ride to dodge the rain clouds. Next comes the bit I still don’t understand- the chain develops a stiff link. How can that happen, unprovoked after 6 miles? I stopped a few times to try to free it, but only to give up and turn back for home. The return ride was rather crunchy as the chain skipped across the adjacent gears. By the time I got home, my knees hurt.

I decided to thoroughly defeat this one and removed the links either side and insert a fresh piece of chain. I have, remember, only put this chain on yesterday. Okay, done, the bike ran reasonably smoothly for the rest of the day. I still can’t adequately explain how a link can stiffen up after only a few miles on a new chain.

Bike servicing: Indexing

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8°C, grey. CR:34 miles

Ordered spares for the winter bike last week. Yesterday was the promised delivery day. No phone call, so I went in this morning. The parts have not arrived. “They’re made in Japan and haven’t arrived on the ship yet”. That’s such an old excuse, I’ve heard it so many times over the years. Presumably there are still open orders from the days I lived in Bristol. The ship will never come in.

Spent all afternoon servicing the race bike. It’s had an on-going problem for years- indexing the gears has been poor. I was very close to a per-d’oing moment- on opening the rear bearings it looked as if the whole thing would spring apart and be impossible to re-assemble. It seems to be okay now after fiddling with sticky grease and poking about with old spokes used like a chop-sticks. It still doesn’t index perfectly even now. Tomorrow, I shall probably try replacing some of the outer sheaths.

Finally, I got my thousand miles done, only just, I might add. It’s a standard that I have hit each year for the last 25 years. Actually, the figure is somewhere around 1,150 this time. 2011 had a very late Easter, so I clocked up 1400 miles that time. Check the cycle-computers again in the morning.

Goodnight.

cold shirt

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9° to 4°C, rain then cleared

I didn’t mind the ride to work in the rain, it fell a little thicker than drizzle & blew my road speed downwards. However, I was comfortable. The heated pipes that can be relied on to dry my clothes, ran less hot as we approach the start of spring. Putting on a wet, cold shirt in preparation for the journey home is the bit I react to. It’s a kind of physical jolt from the part of us that does reflex actions. It only took about 3 miles before body warmth raised the temperature of the water that had soaked through every layer of clothing this morning. Body heat is good at that, and you generate more of it at speed.

Shining Tor

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0 – 6°C, Snow , wind & sun

Drove from Macclesfield to Buxton on the way to Alstonefield for a foodie feast. In the village pub has an excellent range of food including the amazing pudding pictured below. That snow shot was taken in a layby in Deryshire. I pulled the car into a stopping place and I got out with my camera-phone. Just as I was turning the snow yellow- a couple of heavily wrapped cyclists rode by on thin tire, racing bikes. They did look rather nervous at the top of what must be a big big climb, and not because they’d spotted me. The fog was too thick for that.

Here is food that I’d journeyed through snow for. Look at the photo from left to right- there is honeycomb, chocolate mousse and lemon sorbet. All of that was presented on a skid-mark of chocolate sauce on the square plate. The most spectacular part was found inside the mousse. The brown cylinder of rich chocolate was rather rich but once cut inside- it bled from the wound a yellow-orange thick sauce oozed. That alien blood was rich and tangy and countered the rich sticky body of the pud.
Most striking.


Go and try some!

Crying Shame

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+9 to 0°C, Sun, wind & snow

Rosie has a good 2 hour run on Formby Beach. She slept well in the evening but woke with a haunting mournful howl. A dog nightmare? I’ve written about them before here, but it’s impossible to confirm. I claim dog-owner’s intuition.

Two weeks on

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9°C, sunny. CR56 miles

After 12 days I am recovered. Today’s ride was far better than I expected, I have lost less form though gained some weight (it seems). Anyway, spring is in the air, flowers out and the sunshine bright enough to show up how much cleaning is required.

12 mph

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-4 to +1°C. Light clouds. No ride, 40′ on turbo.

Drive to work. It’s far too icy after last night’s fog dropped to the ground in the early hours. Then it froze. Traffic was thick which meant an average road speed of 12 mph. That is crap, if I did a speed like that on the bike, I’d be ashamed of myself and would keep quiet about it.

The car wasn’t entirely happy about today either. When I start it, the radiator fan runs on full even with ambient temperature at -5°. Does that mean a temperature sensor has failed?

My moment of maths glory today. A guy at work showed software that draws graphs and he placed a circle on the origin with X^2+y^2=4. His question was how to double the radius of the circle. And, it was me that got it out of all the staff. Then, warming to the subject, I got the expression that moved the circle along the x axis too. My moment of glory you must admit.

Hard underfoot at Hulme End

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-5 to –3°C with snow

Hard ground, hard mud and hard cowpats is what we found in the White Peak area. The grass crunches and rock sold mud ridges jarr underfoot. The temperature has barely been over 0°C all week. I’ve been up there for a Duke Of Edinburgh Award related course which went well. We did a short walk which had a route that would prove tricky for the kids doing their expedition. At the half-way point, we stopped for sandwiches. This is when the snow started. Firstly light, but it fell on hard frozen ground and stuck immediately. Some of the flakes were visibly perfect little hexagonal starfish. We were all well wrapped, so no discomfort.
It’s like this kids; all the paths are marked white on the ground, so they’re dead easy to follow.

The drive home was a different matter. I had to drive at about 25mph after sliding about behind a lorry that was floundering sideways up the hill at Draycot. I’m not so worried about crashing and getting hurt, not at that speed anyway. I really don’t want to wreck my car, that’s all.

Anyway that’s enough for tonight- a lot more of the white stuff to come, we’re told.