Todays ride

[Scattamah]

A short 20Km dusk ride taking in some singletrack on Haughmond Hill...it's getting drier, but there's still a few mucky spots.

Greetz

S.

[HUX]

5mile uphill is a long way home when you've bost your saddle off!!

[Gari]

Wow, how big is that photo?! All I'm getting on my phone is the brake calliper and lots of Holly

[whitestone]

Wow, how big is that photo?! All I'm getting on my phone is the brake calliper and lots of Holly

It's 1820 x 1024 pixels in size! It also has a filesize of 0.9Mb.

[HUX]

Hmmm. How do i get it smaller? That was straight off fotobucket. Any other forum it will insert them at a reasonable size!! .......................
Cracked it. Bloody technology and mobile phones.

[Bearbonesnorm]

Any other forum it will insert them at a reasonable size!!

Oi, don't go blaming me ... just resize it to 1000 pixels max.

[whitestone]

If you are running windows then grab irfanview which is a free and fast image conversion/manipulation utility. It can convert/resize whole folders at once. Resize to something like 800px for the maximum dimension and the size will come down as well. Not sure what's available for the Mac or Linux but sure there's something similar. I've got Lightroom as my main image manipulation program which does it.

[Zippy]

I like irfanview. It's a very good utility in terms of what it does to stuff, and with batch processing utilities to boot.

[Alpinum]

Well it wasn't a todays ride, but ride home from work last monday on my regular route, which I ride about once a week. 59 km, mostly fast single tracks along streams and small rivers with roughly 500 m up and 400 down. Was able to ride an average speed af 23.99 km/h and thus broke my personal record, despite some bits in slushy snow
Ssp with 34 to 16. Hoping to up the commute to 2-3 times a week in the next two months and include more climbing. I have a 18t cog waiting in the garage...
Off to hike the Dunblane to Kinlochleven section of the Stevenson Way next week, but hopefully I'll be able to take that pace into April and through to at least end of May for another visit to Scotland

[Mariner]

Only 28 kms up over Dartmoor on the BB Bivy Route. I have been fighting a virus for about a fortnight that has severely curtailed my training. I was supposed to be riding eight hours yesterday but not up to it. Today felt better but only managed three hours.
Dartmoor was beautiful with clear blue sky good vis and a biting wind and dry as a bone. There is still standing water about and still squelchy underfoot off piste but trails rock hard. The last time I did this route it was cold wet and near zero vis so was amazed to see where we had actually ridden and some of the features we had passed which I was totally oblivious of. Nuns Cross Farm looked almost homely in the bright sunlight.
Saw something I have never seen before when I put up a small flock of LBJs which just rose about four feet and hung in the wind. Then I saw a small hawk rising from a rock nearby and LBJs fled downwind pursued by the hawk. It singled out one bird and was flinging itself about the sky while the LBJ just hovered and moved out of the way as the hawk tried to get it. They drifted off out of site so don’t know the outcome. Lunch in the Plume and small explore for half an hour before heading home. With more time could have done the route in reverse in the afternoon.

[voodoo_simon]

[Trail-rat]

40 k of what seemed like all climbing....

Millstone , bennachie and pitfichie.

No more green chunks after my virus last week.

[Zippy]

Last Monday on the commute home, nature pulled a stunner. I actually stopped to take it in (and made it my photo for the day!).


074 (14-03-2016) by Chris Reeves, on Flickr

[GregMay]

52km on the SS. Ended up covered in dust. Am confused.

500ml of water was not enough.

[whitestone]

The curious incident of the off-roaders in the night time.

We are doing the Braunton 150 next weekend so with a fine (if overcast) weekend promised we headed out in to the Dales for a training ride.

It didn't start out well - I realised after a couple of Km that I'd left the house door unlocked, just to make it obvious, I'd also left the key in the lock So I went back and caught Cath up at the supermarket in Skipton. Now stocked up we headed over to Bolton Abbey then up the dale to join the new section of the YD300 which now heads over to Nidderdale before rejoining the original/last year's route at the top of Park Rash.

At the top of the climb up from Skyreholme.


Crossing the moor to Nidderdale.


The heavy winter rains have had quite an effect on some of the roads. This one was also severely undercut just out of shot


After a cafe stop in Pateley Bridge we headed up the dale to Wath and the first of three steep climbs out of the dale. This one wasn't as steep as I remembered from the one time I'd descended it


Having climbed halfway up the fellside, the track now drops back to run alongside Gouthwaite reservoir. Fortunately things have dried up in recent weeks so it wasn't the mud bath that it can be. Eventually the track turns to tarmac but all too soon you have to quit this for the second climb. I think I could clean this on an unladen bike but not with full winter bivy gear so walked most of the bottom section to the first gate. The farm or estate have done work on this track and it's now ridable from there to the top.

At the end of the steep stuff.


The next few Km are traversing the edge of the dale along estate tracks. These vary from hard packed rock to sand to quite rocky bits. Although the tracks traverse, they aren't level!



The descent in to Woo Gill has been concreted but it's covered in ball bearings of grit and at 25%, it's a pain both in and out of the gill. By now it's starting to get dark so we pitch up in the stand of tree around the ruins of the old lodge above Scar House reservoir. It's actually quite a light night and it takes ages to get to sleep but I'm woken at some point by the sound of engines. Then lights appear and a couple of Land Rovers go past. We are just off the lane so they presumably don't see us.

Our bivy for the night.


Obviously since it was night time they didn't see this sign when they opened the gate. A note at the other end of the track indicates that enough off-roaders have been ignoring the voluntary restriction as the track is being closed to motorised traffic.


The track is basically unridable so we stuck in and pushed.


The section over the top and down the other side was OK until halfway down when "improvements" have been made. The bottom half now makes Potato Alley in the Peak District look smooth and solid. Road work up Coverdale to the top of Park Rash then it's a nice BW round the hillside and drop down to Starbotton. Time for a cafe stop, so down the dale to Kettlewell.



Refuelled it's time to gird loins for the climb up from Arncliffe Cote.


We are on home ground now and a couple of fast descents down to Street Gate and down from Weets Top to Calton are payback for the previous efforts. All that's left is to wander through lanes before the final climb back to home.

The battery in the GPS packed up just short of home (I'd packed the Anker battery but not the lead to charge up the Garmin ) Something like 130Km in about 28hrs including the bivvy.

[JohnClimber]

Battle on the Beach today.
Lined up with endurance cycling royalty.
No idea of the results (until it's on line in a day or two) but I bet he kicked my ar$e
https://flic.kr/p/FtMKJW

[burty]

managed to have a whole weekend off
peak district Saturday around hope, over to ladybower and over to Castleton way, even took the wife, and brought her back
then today just spent the day pootling around Cannock chase in the sun

[Lawmanmx]

my first offroad ride today since early January (sunday) I did 38 miles from home over Rivington and back, was Great to be out on the dirt again

[JohnClimber]

my first offroad ride today since early January (sunday) I did 38 miles from home over Rivington and back, was Great to be out on the dirt again

Great news Tony.
See you soon

[RIP]

Yep, a bit of Peak [Pp]ractice for me too. Weds lunchtime alighted at Grindleford station, thence via Stoney Middleton and track to Eyam where I figured I deserved a break at the Village Cafe after my 3 miles of exertions. Well it doesn't do to overdo it at my age. The climb up to Sir William Hill (little known factoid: named after the well-known bookmakers) was a bit of a shock although the views made up for it, including a touch of snow over on Edale Moor.



Various tracks through Nether Bretton and the Hucklows deposited me onto the somewhat eerie Bradwell Moor which is littered with old mine shafts and the bodies of mountainbikers who failed to heed the lone howl in the mists... A bone-shaking drop down Pindale, and time to stock up at Hope Spar - milk (drank half, saved half for morning tea), a one-foot square flapjack for a quid, bit of soup, bread, fruit, and half a bottle of white to make it an, erm, balanced meal. Found bivi spot up near Jaggers courtesy of Mr Fitz, hid the bottle in the stream below, then back to set up home. Very windy but Flying-V was fine. Chilled out for a while, then picked up the bottle which was now equally chilled, along with 500ml of Sawyered stream water. Water storage in cheapo and very light 300ml + 500ml drinks bottles. Mam Tor beckoned in the background:



Cooked up soup on 22g biofuel, helped down by the vino which was nicely served at stream-temperature. I was amused by its delicate nose and presumption. Reminiscent of Mrs Perrin in fact. New Montane down hat made light work of 2degC temps at bedtime (not *only* the hat...). Up at 7am to collect water and have a nice warm soapy wash. Well you’ve got to keep standards up haven’t you? I now travel with everything *including* the proverbial kitchen sink (silnylon, 40g) which I use for warm washing water. A frugal breakfast of tea and flapjack and it was off up Edale and onto Mam Tor via Hollins Clough, over Bradwell Moor again to Tideswell where a second-breakfast of tea and possibly the best toast I’ve ever had was partaken of at Vanilla Kitchen. The Pennine Bridleway led me over to Wormhill, past some haunted houses and the massive Tunstead quarry down to Wye Dale and onto the Monsal Trail and its entertaining tunnels. I defy you not to practice your steam locomotive whistle impressions.




Yet more limestone tracks through Priestcliffe and the nasty drop into Monsal Dale and the equally nasty bridleway up to the viewpoint and caff where I was stunned to be provided with the world’s most expensive sandwich – cheese and pickle: £7. £2 for the sandwich and a fiver for the view I suppose.



More amazing views up on Longstone Edge followed by the cracking long downhill into Calver and finally Grindleford. Whiled away the time in the caff with tea and the papers until I could sneak up onto Hathersage Moor and pitch hopefully undetected. “Dinner” was a dehydrated “Veg Hotpot” concoction from Be-Well (sale on at the moment). Two further days elsewhere doing other stuff and that was it.

“Learning points”? There is no upper limit for the price of a sandwich. Down hats are an essential not a luxury. BP-ing on a f/susp bike may dismay some purists but it’s a perfectly sound proposition. 250g is too heavy for an empty bar bag. Bamboo baselayer is incredible (not itchy, UV-proof, wicking, antibacterial, 10% of cotton equivalent land-usage, etc) – even after 4 days people were still prepared to sit next to me in cafes; the only adjustments being a couple of additional daily procedures involving the trollies, probably best not detailed in a family magazine....

"Reg"

[Ray Young]

Doing some tidying up of the Borders 350 today, rode about 28 miles. Found a rideable alternative to a push section near the end and plotted the actual route on the ground rather than the OS marked route on the map for a couple of sections near the start.
Not often I get to use the car so I really enjoyed riding away from home today.

[macinblack]

50K today, mainly trying out the Longitude around the red at Sherwood Pines a couple of times.

[Gari]

ride in to Glen Einich today. Nice and windy as always! Headwind on the way in, nice tailwind on the way back out. The light was nice and there were some great lines left on the west side of Braeriach, shame my knee is still too bad for skiing

[benp1]

Had a cheeky day off, kids at school so had a day of being selfish. Went for a ride! Weather was good, not sunny but dry and not cold

Haven't been out on the bike like this in ages

30 miles round the Chilterns today, including some of the ridgeway

[RobMac]

Gari just to remind you what it can look like, me and some of the lads