Somehow it always seems to rain for the Wayfarer's annual sausage sizzle and this year looked like it was going to be no exception. Sizzle in the drizzle seemed to be on the cards as I cycled to the meeting place at Merstone where six of the usual stoving suspects were gathered. We were soon [...]
I don't normally set goals for my cycling but since joining Audax UK at the end of last year I've had one clear goal in mind – to ride 200k. Although AUK validates rides from 50k upwards, 200k is really the basic Audax distance – it is 'the long distance cyclist's organisation' after all and [...]
The weather gods smiled on us this year and the 1833 participants in the IOW Randonnee enjoyed a beautiful sunny day. I rode the route on Saturday (when it was cold and windy!) and then spent Sunday on the checkpoint at Whitwell helping to keep the riders well stocked with cake, chocolate and tea.
It hasn't been the greatest start to 2013 cycling-wise. I had a pain in my left knee which was diagnosed as a bruised cartilage, coupled with the sensory nerve damage in the other knee meant that I was restricted to rides of less than 40 miles and no hills for quite a few weeks. But [...]
Ilkley Moor In Skipton, as we set off to cycle up Ilkley Moor, an elderly chap shouted: "Tiny Thomas!" "Who's Tiny Thomas?"
Windless, cloudless, it's almost a perfect morning. Just 3.5 degrees. The sky is hazy blue but towards the east the light is gold. Limbrick is a tiny village about half way between our house and where Bradley Wiggins lives. In all the years I've been cycling I have never (knowingly) seen Sir Bradley although Jason [...]
A Manx Patriot – Sir William Hillary. The Founder of the Royal National Institution for the preservation of life from shipwreck. Born, 1771, Died, 1847. The Tower of Refuge, on St Mary's Isle, now known as Conisters' Rock
There are only 2 things guaranteed to keep me from cycling – illness and snow. Unfortunately in the last week I've managed to have both! I was away for a month, then had a stomach bug, so I'm just beginning to get back into cycling again. This being March, I wasn't unduly worried when the [...]
Structural Cycling is a term I recently thought of to characterise the type of cycling I do mostly. It signifies cycling as a structural part of one's life. It is not essential for survival as are eating and drinking but has status equal to, say, tooth cleaning, nail cutting, shaving, hair washing, tidying the house, [...]
Sancton Hill Wind Farm On Sunday the frost was replaced by strong winds from the west. So I headed in that direction to take advantage of a tailwind on the way home. I really struggled into the headwind and the gradual drag up to the highest point of the southern edge of the Wolds. Four [...]
I haven't managed to go on many Autumn Tints' mainland rides this year. On several occasions the weather has been so foul that the ride has been cancelled and on a couple of rare occasions when the sun did shine, I had things that I needed to do. November's ride would be the last mainland [...]
I recently joined Audax UK and now a whole world of obsession awaits me! I'll never make a serious audaxer – I'm too fond of my sleep, but I'm hoping it will provide the motivation to try a few events further afield that I always mean to do but somehow never get round to. The [...]
Darkening skies over Dorset Does anybody object to commercial add-ons to normal road direction signs? I do, especially when the original one is a nice old-fashioned type with interesting place names – even when the add-on points to an award winning country pub like the Drovers Inn at Gussage All Saints: Dorset Country Pub Of [...]
The Gridiron is getting to be a bit like Christmas – what that time again already? This is the fifth time I've done this ride and when combined with the ride to and from the ferry it makes a satisfying century. The forecast had been pretty iffy all week but then suddenly it was transformed [...]
The plan was to put the bikes in the van, drive to various places in France, then ride. It had worked in Germany but not this time. I have come to the conclusion that generally, the French do not cycle very much. Col du Tourmalet (near the top)
Many months ago, the whole of South Cave Road Club decided it would be a good idea to do the inaugural Marie Curie Etape Pennine Sportive. I should explain that South Cave Road Club (SCRC) has a total membership of two (although others are trying to join). It consists of myself and my frequent riding [...]
Not content with just looking at bikes on our recent trip to Wales I managed to fit Why?Bike in the back of the car for a spot of Welsh cycling too. I was relying on picking up a leaflet from the Tourist Office which described a circular route from Llandrindod Wells. As this was supposed [...]
In my continuing effort to ride every road in Cornwall, the other day, I decided to ride to the Shops. “Shops as well as roads?” I hear you all ask, “How many shops are there? There must be millions!” “No, not shops, silly – Shops!” In Cornwall we have Shops. These are places/hamlets/villages almost invariably [...]
I first did this event a few years ago with a friend and we made a real hash of it, losing the route and adding many extra miles on busy roads. Every year since I have meant to go back and do it properly but somehow it has never happened. This year I decided it [...]
Last Sunday, as the world's best women cyclists prepared for the Olympic Road Race, six somewhat slower cyclists set off for the lesser known, and much less arduous, Olympic sport of sausage sizzling. When I joined the Guides at the age of ten one of the first things we did was a 'cookout', cooking sausages [...]
The local television news last Friday night showed pictures of flash floods in the east of Yorkshire, Sky TV reported 42mm of rain had fallen on the ground where Leeds Rhinos were to play in West Yorkshire, and the Ouse had burst its banks again in North Yorkshire. Ever the optimist, I took this to [...]
A soggy ManxCat slips in another 200km Audax on this fabulous Sportive event. My goodness. I’ll try not to mention the weather more than just once. Not to be discussed again this year! You guessed it, it rained – and rained – and rained throughout the Isle of Man Lighthouse Challenge Sportive. Up and coming [...]
Rudston Monolith: entries for this month's caption competition can be made below It's July and only my second ride this year as leader of the 'B' group for the local CTC member group; the last was back in April. I missed the early ones through illness and, later, other commitments. It was particularly satisfying to [...]
One of the pleasures of planning a cycle ride is working out the best way to link various points. I have a vague plan of cycling from the church in Hull where I was married, up to Middlesbrough Cathedral (Hull is in the Diocese of Middlesbrough) and back one day this year. Or maybe next. [...]
A couple of roads (and any number of bridleways) across Salisbury Plain are often closed by Army training exercises. Perhaps the most (in)famous of these is the road through Imber village – whose entire civilian population was evacuated in 1943 to provide a training area for troops preparing for the invasion of Europe. Since then, [...]
Not many things can persuade me to miss a Hull Kingston Rovers home match but some months previous I had decided that the chance to participate in a 200km Audax was one such occasion (Rovers beat Castleford 70-12). Scott is a friend I go out for a ride with most weekends and he was also [...]
Victoria Day is a long weekend (a.k.a. bank holiday) in Canada, during which the Queen’s birthday is celebrated. Sort of. In cottage country May 24 is the traditional cottage-opening weekend after a long winter, although openings have been earlier in recent years due to weather changes. Canada’s head of state is Queen Elizabeth. I am [...]
Sunday morning is usually a quiet affair in the small village of Whitwell. When I arrived at 8.30 it was cold and raining, but the village hall was a hive of activity. Outside, gazebos were being erected with much scratching of heads, while inside cakes were being cut and wrapped and hot cross buns buttered. [...]
In between Francis's first 100-mile bike ride and a much shorter ride with the Cottingham Road Club I squeezed in my second century ride of the year on April 15th. The GHS rides, promoted by the Yorkshire Cycling Federation, are held annually as close as possible to the birthday of George Herbert Stancer. The man [...]
The ride to Champlain Lookout in Gatineau Park is the standard weekend ride for most Ottawa cyclists. Gatineau Park, in the province of Quebec, is right across the Ottawa River from Ottawa. It is closed to traffic until May 1st and every Sunday morning during summer, making it a cyclists' paradise. The return ride from [...]
A498: Llyn Gwynant on the banks of Snowdon Nant Gwynant, Nant Peris, Nant y Betws. I don't know if they are official names for the three valleys surrounding the Snowdon Massif in North Wales but they are written large on my OS Explorer map of Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon's Welsh name). Nant means stream, small river, [...]
My visit to 'Bespoked 2012' was actually the 'main dish' of a three-course cycling day. The 'hors d'oeuvre' had already been served very very chilled – a freezing, early morning ride to Salisbury train station to catch the 0730 departure to Bristol. The compensation was going to be a 'hot dessert' – my ride home [...]
Magazines at various times have articles which suggest there are random things to do before you die/reach 50 etc. I have completed quite a few of the tasks that often appear (both legal and illegal) but one goal, which up to April 1st 2012 had eluded me, was to cycle 100 miles in a day. [...]
Cyclist approaching – the bridleway between Bishop Wilton and Fangfoss After at least half a dozen visits to Hockney Country I thought this weekend we might at last have seen The Man. The weather was gorgeous – warm sunshine and almost windless: perfect for sitting at an easel to paint the English landscape. Sunday's big [...]
Sandra and I cycled the Monsal Trail the other day. The trail has apparently existed since 1981 but I hadn't heard of it until last year when it was announced that four ancient railway tunnels are now open to walkers, wheelchair users, cyclists and horse riders, after being made safe by the Peak District National [...]
The only photograph from Sunday's ride, and that was taken the next morning when I tipped out the soaking wet contents of the LiDL carrier bag I got drenched on Sunday completing the first standard ride of the year. A 70 in 6 from Cottingham Green out to Stamford Bridge. As last year I clung [...]
Tuesday. On my tod. Cloud. Bah! Strong westerly wind. Humbug! Tired..Sigh. Pfaff around until bigbad boredombites. Mrs.Lee golfing. Harrumph! Pull out the old rechained sprocketturnedThorn. Enthusiasmfreezone. Goongetgoing. NononoIwon't. Justdoit. Huh!
For my first post, I thought it would be a good to share a little of the countryside accessible during a 60 mile day-ride from home – home being Durrington in Wiltshire, a village on the south-east edge of Salisbury Plain about 9 miles north of Salisbury. Normally, day-rides in February require all sorts of [...]
The Granite Way is a cycle track built on the dismantled London and Southwestern Railway line – later used by the Great Western Railway, and still later by BR Southwestern Region – between Lydford and Okehampton, Devon. It is maintained by a partnership of Sustrans and Devon County Council. It forms part of Route 27. [...]
Its been AGES since my last blog. The winter doesn't entice me to drag out my camera, although I have still been plugging out my Audax rides. During the winter though, I tend to cycle my Perms rather than GPS because I am so rubbish on the computer, it takes me about 3 hours to [...]
Big Skies Bike Rides is the name given to eight cycle loop rides 'launched' in 2010. They take their name from the phrase used by David Hockney when he compared the sky over the Yorkshire Wolds to 'the big sky' he experienced in the American West. This 23.5-mile route starts in Bridlington and passes through [...]
Well, OK, that might be a bit optimistic but days are now officially getting longer and on a mild day like today it feels like the start of spring. I've never understood why people celebrate the summer solstice, its really the start of winter. The winter solstice is the magical time, the promise that the [...]
Local bikes mock Brown Bike's smallest chainring. "What use is that?" they say. "We live in SW Cambs, not Switzerland." BB politely replies to these local bikes, which are mostly MTBs (and BB is a tremendous snob), that he does sometimes venture to the badlands of the north. Besides, teeny-tiny bottom gears are sometimes handy, [...]
I've never ridden a sportive. I followed behind one once, entered it with a friend the following year, but then chickened out when she couldn't go. The Wiggle Wight Winter sportive is the first such event to take place wholly on the island and I was initially keen to enter it. However the doubts soon [...]
Wednesday's ride was the last mainland outing for the Autumn Tints until next spring. Unusually it meant returning to the island from a different ferry port than we left. I'd had thoughts of doing this ride myself in the summer as I liked the idea of using 5 different ferries. I was, however, put off [...]
Following the Bracken trail (and the pattern of the day) the other chaps pull away in to the fog Today's ride was a struggle. It's been three weeks since my last ride and a week since the Bailey household succumbed to the nursery germs that James brought home with him. Still, I'm glad I got [...]
Ruby Bike was feeling somewhat neglected. Possibly because I had been neglecting her. Autumn weather, and I really needed to kit her out properly, all the usual excuses. She overheard today's weather forecast: a bit of sun might break through the thick blanket of cloud. That's me, she said, I'm the summer bike, right? But [...]
"I went for a bike ride in the Yorkshire Wolds," I say. "Where's that?" they ask. "East of York." The Lincolnshire Wolds are north east of Lincoln, south from Hull, and although this part of the country is separated from the Yorkshire Wolds by the city of Hull and the Humber estuary, it is similarly [...]
Mainland rides are like buses – none for ages then 3 come along! Dennis went to a meeting near Newbury on Saturday so I siezed the chance to get a lift with him and ride somewhere different. The weather gods have been exceptionally kind to me lately and it was a glorious autumn morning as [...]
This is the fourth time that I've ridden the Gridiron 100k in the New Forest. It makes a splendid day's ride from the Isle of Wight and the ride to and from the ferry takes it over the hundred mile mark. Typical New Forest cycling
CycleSeven 2009-2013 [0.347/0.594 secs]
