Hamsterley with my brother and his girlfriend. Couple of laps of the Skills Loop, Special K, Grove Link, climb to Black Hill, Dangerous Descent, climb to DH hut, end of Black loop.
Distance: ?
Climbing: ?
Surface: Off-road
Time: ? hours
Weather: warm and dry!
Bike: Inbred Singlespeed (32:17, with 2.2" tyres)
Monday, 13 April 2009
Friday, 23 January 2009
Brief update
Not coughing any more but not riding bikes (apart from commuting) until February to make sure I've fully recovered.
Growing a beard.
Growing a beard.
Friday, 2 January 2009
2008 Riding Round-up
January got off to a good start, with 202 miles on the clock it was further than I'd ridden in all but one month of 2007, courtesy of a metric century ride and a slightly longer commuting route.
February saw another decent mileage for the month, with the longer commute continuing and an aborted attempt at the Hamsterley Hill Rush.
March was a commuting-only month.
InApril I rode a bit of a local Sustrans route, but being away for Easter knocked the distance down a bit.
In May I found some local bluebell-lined singletrack.
June saw me getting in a 50 mile road ride and a group ride at Hamsterley, plus some extra trips about town on the bike, netting me my first ever 300 mile month. By the end of June, I'd ridden about 37% further than the same time in 2007, but that was the high-point of the year, and it tailed off a bit from there.
July was by first proper MTB race at Hit the North, though I didn't do nearly as well as I'd have liked (I was crap, rather than just bad).
August: Darlington - Swaledale - Bowes - Barnard Castle - Darlington
In September I used car to get to the and from a ride for the only time in the year, riding High Street in the Lakes with HTB. I missed out on my 'usual' road century and the Great Milk Stout Ride this ear, because they were reorganised and so fell on the same day, which also clashed with a friends' kid's christening.
After riding in the Lakes, I seem to have given up riding bikes for anything other than getting about, which is a bit depressing. I also seem to have given up blogging for the last part of the year, so I don't even really now why. Illness over Christmas has also stopped me from hitting the 2000 mile mark for the year, getting a total of 1953.5 miles for the year, which is only 15% more than 2007 (5.3 miles per day average, compared to 4.6 for 2007).
Most depressingly, I only did eight proper rides in 2008! That's officially crap, especially when doing more proper rides was a target for the year after only doing 14 rides in each of the previous two years. 36 rides in three years!?!
Update after some more number-crunching: My eight proper rides totalled 376 miles, which is about half of what I did in both 2006 and 2007. That averages to 47 miles per ride, which is about the same as each of the last two years. I did just over 1500 miles for 'utility' purposes, which is 50% more than each of the last two years.
February saw another decent mileage for the month, with the longer commute continuing and an aborted attempt at the Hamsterley Hill Rush.
March was a commuting-only month.
InApril I rode a bit of a local Sustrans route, but being away for Easter knocked the distance down a bit.
In May I found some local bluebell-lined singletrack.
June saw me getting in a 50 mile road ride and a group ride at Hamsterley, plus some extra trips about town on the bike, netting me my first ever 300 mile month. By the end of June, I'd ridden about 37% further than the same time in 2007, but that was the high-point of the year, and it tailed off a bit from there.
July was by first proper MTB race at Hit the North, though I didn't do nearly as well as I'd have liked (I was crap, rather than just bad).
August: Darlington - Swaledale - Bowes - Barnard Castle - Darlington
In September I used car to get to the and from a ride for the only time in the year, riding High Street in the Lakes with HTB. I missed out on my 'usual' road century and the Great Milk Stout Ride this ear, because they were reorganised and so fell on the same day, which also clashed with a friends' kid's christening.
After riding in the Lakes, I seem to have given up riding bikes for anything other than getting about, which is a bit depressing. I also seem to have given up blogging for the last part of the year, so I don't even really now why. Illness over Christmas has also stopped me from hitting the 2000 mile mark for the year, getting a total of 1953.5 miles for the year, which is only 15% more than 2007 (5.3 miles per day average, compared to 4.6 for 2007).
Most depressingly, I only did eight proper rides in 2008! That's officially crap, especially when doing more proper rides was a target for the year after only doing 14 rides in each of the previous two years. 36 rides in three years!?!
Update after some more number-crunching: My eight proper rides totalled 376 miles, which is about half of what I did in both 2006 and 2007. That averages to 47 miles per ride, which is about the same as each of the last two years. I did just over 1500 miles for 'utility' purposes, which is 50% more than each of the last two years.
Wednesday, 31 December 2008
Saturday, 27 December 2008
Poorly bad
With just four days of 2008 remaining, I've given up on reaching 2000 miles for the year. On Friday I started feeling flu-like, which developed into a chesty cough. It was only a fortnight since my last chesty cough, which knocked my asthma and made be get my first brown inhaler and a course of steroids, and this second cough knocked my breathing again.
So, I went back to the docs on Monday and got another lot of steroids, pus a course of antibiotics. I spent the period up to and over Christmas wheezing, eating very little and not sleeping.
I got to finish Christmas Day by going mental - a lovely side-effect of the steroids. Proper, curled up in a ball, making repetitive movements and being genuinely convinced that I would die. Not pleasant and not something that I ever want to repeat, but luckily only lasted a couple of hours, while the kids were in bed and while I wasn't in on my own!
Update: Another course of antibiotics started yesterday and I get to go for a chest X-ray next week if it doesn't clear up. And the steroids haven't given me moobs sorry, just temporary mentalness.
So, I went back to the docs on Monday and got another lot of steroids, pus a course of antibiotics. I spent the period up to and over Christmas wheezing, eating very little and not sleeping.
I got to finish Christmas Day by going mental - a lovely side-effect of the steroids. Proper, curled up in a ball, making repetitive movements and being genuinely convinced that I would die. Not pleasant and not something that I ever want to repeat, but luckily only lasted a couple of hours, while the kids were in bed and while I wasn't in on my own!
Update: Another course of antibiotics started yesterday and I get to go for a chest X-ray next week if it doesn't clear up. And the steroids haven't given me moobs sorry, just temporary mentalness.
Tuesday, 11 November 2008
Wednesday, 17 September 2008
Lakes Ride: High Street
Last Sunday I went for only my second ever ride in the Lake District. A group of four of us travelled over to Pooley Bridge, rode down the lakeside bridleway to near Glenridding, then two of us carried on to Hartsop, from where we carried the bikes 2000' upwards over the space of about two miles, then rode along the top of High Street back to the cars.
Three days later my shoulders are still sore from the carry up to High Street. I'd though the SS would be a handicap in the Lakes, but the climbs were mostly ridable in middle ring or carries, so it wasn't a problem, with just a few points where I was pushing while others carried on riding, and there was no real difference in speed.
Distance: 25 miles (map - our route was slightly different and started just off the top of the market route)
Climbing: 4800 feet
Surface: Off-road
Time: 7.5 hours
Weather: warm and dry!
Bike: Inbred Singlespeed (32:17, with 2.1" tyres)
Three days later my shoulders are still sore from the carry up to High Street. I'd though the SS would be a handicap in the Lakes, but the climbs were mostly ridable in middle ring or carries, so it wasn't a problem, with just a few points where I was pushing while others carried on riding, and there was no real difference in speed.
Distance: 25 miles (map - our route was slightly different and started just off the top of the market route)
Climbing: 4800 feet
Surface: Off-road
Time: 7.5 hours
Weather: warm and dry!
Bike: Inbred Singlespeed (32:17, with 2.1" tyres)
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