Category Archives: Travel

Scrumping ride.

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18°C no wind, grey sky.
Distance: 18.27mi, time: 01:10:46, pace: 3:52min/mi, speed: 15.49mi/h.
http://mapmyride.com/workout/718843607
This app is becoming very unreliable. This morning, it took 9 minutes to load, including many re-starts and a phone re-boot. This afternoon was no better.
Cycling jerseys usually have three pockets in the back. Today, I discovered that they are ideal if you have picked apples. These apples are from a tree that I pass every day coming home. It’s an old tree covered in lichen, surely a sign that the tree is clean of sprays.
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New term, ride 1.

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18°C, E3. Sunny.
Tracked with MapMyRide! Distance: 24.99mi, time: 01:31:54, pace: 3:41min/mi, speed: 16.31mi/h.
http://mapmyride.com/workout/715974499

Back to work, first ride home in this new term. Sitting all day in work does not help my tendon recover. This last two weeks has seen considerable improvement. It’s still stiff, but I can bear my weight easily. Couldn’t do that last term. I must get up and about more at work, even with long periods of admin. The swelling has mostly gone down, so both pretty much match.
Some splits were good today, but traffic spoilt others.

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26 mile refresher

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Sat. 17C, grey, WNW4, dry.
Warm-up ride for tomorrow, an hour & a half ride through routes not used by me for years.
Looked at Specialized and Giant bikes. They both do cross machines that are commute-adaptable. The Giant does not look great, perhaps unnecessarily heavy too. The Specialized may be a difficult fit for a rack.
Both makes used a mountain bike wheel-set, 29er wheels are The same size as road bikes.
So they’re standard sizes, that opens the possibility to buying a second set of wheels, one for summer…

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Twice, in one day.

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Thu. 19°C, SW4, sunny. Nice day.
Why, on a nice day do some blokes lose their temper while driving?
My journey started with one and ended with another.
Near home, I pulled out onto a road where visibility was blocked by endless parked cars. Suddenly, a car appeared as I turned right. I cleared it by 2 car lengths and it stopped. He looked wild inside that car, stopped opposite and was shouting and gesturing inside. I don’t know what he said, both his and my windows were closed. Then, I saw in the mirror that he was reversing after me!
You can only drive so fast in reverse, he realised this and gave up.
90 miles later…

Near the end of my journey, a BMW zoomed up behind and cut in front, only a car length away. I blasted the horn in response to this threat. I was doing 40mph (the limit). Then BMW stopped in the road forcing me to an emergency stop. One brake light was out.
After too long, he sped off, well over the limit.
His advantage vanished at the next set of lights as I rolled up behind. In a futile repeat, he stopped again as the traffic rolled on through the green light. Again, another emergency stop for me. No, because he did it one last time before racing off towards Ormskirk. I turned, glad he’d gone the other way.
This and normal are distant cousins. Was it cocaine, or some mental illness? If he was in such a mad rush, why stop three times unnecessarily?

Almost there, there was a BMW with a brake light out parking near a church. Perhaps the road rager; was he a vicar?

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Followed by a little voice.

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Sunday, 16°C, SW2, half sun.
I rode with MapMyRide! Distance: 74.43mi, time: 04:46:02, pace: 3:51min/mi, speed: 15.61mi/h. It didn’t fail this time.
http://mapmyride.com/workout/703244445
Surprising how often the GPS drops the signal. Each time it does, the voice says “workout paused”. It happens even riding under a tunnel of large trees. Unfortunately, it also gives confirmation of Workout Resumed when moving forward in the queue of a shop. I really needed that flapjack, but it’s embarrassing. Cyclists look gorkey enough as it is.
I cut the ride after 70 miles as I had 30+miles in my legs yesterday.

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Bib shorts.

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Sat. NW3, showers unforecasted. 16°C.Racelite, tracked with MapMyRide Distance: 33.24mi, time: 02:06:19, pace: 3:48min/mi, speed: 15.79mi/h.

http://mapmyride.com/workout/702136043

After all these years, I have a pair of bib-shorts. For non-cyclists, they are cycling shorts with shoulder straps. I have not bought a pair before because it has been difficult to get long enough straps. I am quite tall.

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Amazingly comfortable. They are a close enough fit to prevent the luggage moving about.

Voice feedback– if you reinstall an app, it’s too easy to forget your own usual settings. Today, I forgot to switch off voice feedback. The thought of that is almost embarrassing. What happens is an electronic voice which sounds like a distant platform announcement, comes from near your bum.

Actually, I can see a use use for it. It spoke out after each mile distance, average speed (for that mile), and stuff like that. If a little voice tells you that the last mile’s speed is too low, that can urge you on to raise the pace. I should have used it when I hired that bike in Portugal. The bike had no speedo, but the voice could have told me the running distance.

It is useful to know your half-way point, say you decide to ride for 50 miles, if you know when you reached 25 miles, then you can turn home.

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GPS failmyride.

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Weds. Sunny, 15°C, NW3.
I rode the fixed gear with MapMyRide! Distance: 61.27mi, time: 03:35:36, pace: 3:31min/mi, speed: 17.05mi/h.
http://mapmyride.com/workout/698192099
Mapmyride has new bugs since the last update. Firstly, this good ride not completed the whole course of the ride. It only recorded half.
Their website can be used to update, or add new rides (or hikes). The app cannot synchronise from the site though.
Still enjoying the new sprightly wheels. This last few rides are considerably faster, over 17mph. This ride takes the year’s milage over 1,021 miles. That means it’s time to check the chain for year.
Best of all, it’s fun.
Look that this cloud-
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Reminds me of Suilven.

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CXP22

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Tues. 16C, sunny NE3, few clouds.
Tracked with MapMyRide! Distance: 32.33mi, time: 01:52:37, pace: 3:29min/mi, speed: 17.22mi/h.
http://mapmyride.com/workout/696675245
New wheels,buying these could become addictive. The new wheels that I blogged about a few weeks ago have been out for the first time. The first impression is of lightness. Holding a old and new wheel in each hand does not show much difference, but riding them does. Even kicking the crank into the starting position was considerably easier. There is far less flywheel effect. Acceleration and hill climbing are newly liberated. Riding out of the saddle is far more natural.

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I like the colours better too.

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Come on down.

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Rain showers, NW 4, sunny later.
Long drive home, 485 miles that took 10 hours not counting breaks.

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Tey Bay Services.

This is surely the same shot I took last time. The weather wasn’t that different either.
Tomorrow, will be a good enough day to dry the tent in the garden.

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