The "Photos From Today's Ride" thread...
Discussion
Good man! Keeping the spirit of summer alive with an icecream.
Just a thought - Has there ever been (or would anyone be up for organising) a PH-FOD ride?
I've only done FOD once, it seemed excellent but that was a few years back and I'm sure a bit of local knowledge wouldnt go a miss...
Just a thought - Has there ever been (or would anyone be up for organising) a PH-FOD ride?
I've only done FOD once, it seemed excellent but that was a few years back and I'm sure a bit of local knowledge wouldnt go a miss...
Steamer said:
Good man! Keeping the spirit of summer alive with an icecream.
Just a thought - Has there ever been (or would anyone be up for organising) a PH-FOD ride?
I've only done FOD once, it seemed excellent but that was a few years back and I'm sure a bit of local knowledge wouldnt go a miss...
I'd be up for a PH FOD ride.Just a thought - Has there ever been (or would anyone be up for organising) a PH-FOD ride?
I've only done FOD once, it seemed excellent but that was a few years back and I'm sure a bit of local knowledge wouldnt go a miss...
RapidRob said:
Not todays ride, last friday/saturday I rode a modified verison of the 'Old roads and drove roads' audax route, a round route from Didcot to Wylye and back with an overnight stopover at the relatives...
Friday- 65 miles, with a section of salisbury plain grrrravel...
https://www.strava.com/activities/1151643156
Checking that the red flags were down-
That's pretty much my back garden, great area for cycling.Friday- 65 miles, with a section of salisbury plain grrrravel...
https://www.strava.com/activities/1151643156
Checking that the red flags were down-
Tuesday I set out to ride some trails on MOD training areas close to home. But the Army were out in force, lots of training going on, and it quickly became clear that if I tried to ride those trails I'd be getting in the way and giving MTBers a bad name. So I put on my "Dora The Explorer" hat and headed out to some long since disused trails in a neighbouring woodland area .
I rode a few bits that were easily found and fairly free from obstruction. I removed obstructions from a few more, and pulled up a few hundred metres worth of bracken to try to make the trails easier to follow. But it was frustrating work on my own, so I decided to not 'waste' any more precious riding time and tried to ride some sections without first clearing them.
Some trails I remember from long before Strava were completely destroyed by tree felling, forestry management and drainage works, and sand and gravel extraction by Cemex. Some pictures from the ride...
Field Fortifications training in progress. Access to/from one good single-track run (in the trees behind the fence) was out of the question with that lot of Hesco Bastion and razor wire in the way...
So I headed for a climbing section, only to find a section of sappers heading down it. I moved off the trail to see the last of the section running across a track junction. Run Forest! Run! (...and what about your VP drills boys & girls?)
There's definitely a trail in here somewhere! It roughly follows the fire break space between the trees on either side. I 'wasted' my time clearing several hundred metres of this trail only to find the it had been used by MotoX races. As such, it ended in a crazy steep drop onto a gravel fire road. I'll have to go back to work out a more level descent to the fire road but I think i'll need help to get that cleared.
I remember when I were a lad, all this were mature pine trees! It had some properly nice fast trails in it too. But Cemex have used it for sand and gravel extraction for a number of years now, and seem to be in the process of filling in the deep excavations with waste from their next extraction site a mile or so to the west. Such loose gravel is entirely unrideable though, so this part of my route was a complete washout.
Still seeking out old single-track sections that had survived the MotoXers and years of neglect, on the ride back I found one fabulous run that I'd ridden just a couple of years back when it was clear and in good shape. But there was a sudden and complete loss of drive. I stopped, fearing a freehub failure (a common fault on this hub) but I looked down to find this little lot. I'm pretty sure it was a ten speed when I started riding? Maybe there are some more gears hiding under that greenery?
After clearing the first fouling of the cassette, I rode on, pretty keen to get home to get dinner on. But in less than 100 metres it was totally fouled again, with no drive whatsoever. Grrrr! This was was a lot greener too, and more difficult to get off.
Ah well. There's always the option to wait until October's Motorcycle Enduro event has been through the area. It'll solve the problem of fouling the cassette, but sadly it'll mean the trails get shredded and left with deep trenches which'll be impossible to pedal through. Harumph! Back to the MOD training areas then, while trying to avoid the Bill Oddies running about the place...
I rode a few bits that were easily found and fairly free from obstruction. I removed obstructions from a few more, and pulled up a few hundred metres worth of bracken to try to make the trails easier to follow. But it was frustrating work on my own, so I decided to not 'waste' any more precious riding time and tried to ride some sections without first clearing them.
Some trails I remember from long before Strava were completely destroyed by tree felling, forestry management and drainage works, and sand and gravel extraction by Cemex. Some pictures from the ride...
Field Fortifications training in progress. Access to/from one good single-track run (in the trees behind the fence) was out of the question with that lot of Hesco Bastion and razor wire in the way...
So I headed for a climbing section, only to find a section of sappers heading down it. I moved off the trail to see the last of the section running across a track junction. Run Forest! Run! (...and what about your VP drills boys & girls?)
There's definitely a trail in here somewhere! It roughly follows the fire break space between the trees on either side. I 'wasted' my time clearing several hundred metres of this trail only to find the it had been used by MotoX races. As such, it ended in a crazy steep drop onto a gravel fire road. I'll have to go back to work out a more level descent to the fire road but I think i'll need help to get that cleared.
I remember when I were a lad, all this were mature pine trees! It had some properly nice fast trails in it too. But Cemex have used it for sand and gravel extraction for a number of years now, and seem to be in the process of filling in the deep excavations with waste from their next extraction site a mile or so to the west. Such loose gravel is entirely unrideable though, so this part of my route was a complete washout.
Still seeking out old single-track sections that had survived the MotoXers and years of neglect, on the ride back I found one fabulous run that I'd ridden just a couple of years back when it was clear and in good shape. But there was a sudden and complete loss of drive. I stopped, fearing a freehub failure (a common fault on this hub) but I looked down to find this little lot. I'm pretty sure it was a ten speed when I started riding? Maybe there are some more gears hiding under that greenery?
After clearing the first fouling of the cassette, I rode on, pretty keen to get home to get dinner on. But in less than 100 metres it was totally fouled again, with no drive whatsoever. Grrrr! This was was a lot greener too, and more difficult to get off.
Ah well. There's always the option to wait until October's Motorcycle Enduro event has been through the area. It'll solve the problem of fouling the cassette, but sadly it'll mean the trails get shredded and left with deep trenches which'll be impossible to pedal through. Harumph! Back to the MOD training areas then, while trying to avoid the Bill Oddies running about the place...
Passing the pig Farm up from Annington
I tend to avoid the climb from Sullington because of this. If we've had any rain it gets like this very quickly, everywhere else can be bone dry. The climb after this is severe, steep and quite often covered in cow s
te. It then gets rough and bump, and covered in ste. Shame as it's a good balance between metres climbed and not having to go looking for it, after a day at work sometimes you want/need to get home 
From cycle to work day. Thanks to roadworks, I could pass solid traffic all the way up from the 27 to Findon and then I had my own coned off lane
I got up to the Peak District for a lap of Linacre Classic, a fun 35km loop with maybe a few too many paved sections but a wealth of narrow singletrack. I expected it to be muddy, and it was, but nowhere near as bad as it could have been. Dodged showers all day but stayed dry, and had a half-way pub stop. Success!
A bit of a different ride for me this weekend, I did the Coventry City ride with my wife and my son on the back of my bike.
Coventry City Ride by Lewis Craik, on Flickr
Coventry City Ride by Lewis Craik, on Flickr
First time out on the LR Stealth since I built it, nothing fell off, which impressed me as its my first build 
2017-09-18_01-29-08 by Old_Chad, on Flickr
2017-09-18_01-29-08 by Old_Chad, on FlickrI'm stretching the definition of 'today's ride' with this one, but I just found an unpublished blog entry in my drafts from Paris-Roubaix weekend. After the (eventful) Paris-Roubaix Challenge ride I also got to race on the Arenberg Trench at night. It was tough in enough the first time around, in daylight, before I'd sunk a load of beers. https://theadventurecapitalist.wordpress.com/2017/...
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