Where did you ride today?

paul.skibum

First off road ride in 8 weeks today - easy trails in lost lake (gravel compressed paths mainly) to test thumb out - seemed fine, sore to change gear but otherwise good. Legs felt good too but tired after a few days on the road bike.

iwilldoit

Cracking Saturday with the mountain bikes, Saturday morning my son doing his second MTB XC race, dad was well chuffed he came 5th, he was 7th in his first one so heading in the righ direction.

Afterwards dad had a 20 mile ride over the tops in gale force winds, did think I was doing the wrong thing then bumped in to 5-6 lad doing the D of E silver on mtb's towing trailers it all seemed a lot easier after that

paul.skibum

Rain stopped and sun came out shortly after I got home from work so I grabbed the bike and headed out for a quick run round Lost Lake - thumb held up great, legs were OK too! Got muddy. It was good.

Caveman_Chris

Double run down chopwell woods power line this morning. Smashed my PB by 20seconds! Well chuffed, even though I'm still 1m40s off the KOM.

Just swapped the rear tyre from a tubed ikon to a non-tubeless ready beaver w/o a tube and felt great. Really starting to pile on the confidence now and trusting the bike more and more. So much so I'm letting it drift on the shallower berms.

Whenever I do two runs there I always feel faster and more pinned on the second run, but have almost identical times. Very strange.

CC

Qui3tman

Not today, but went round a good chunk of the red at Dalby Forest on Saturday. Absolutely loved it (third time there but with a sizeable time gap inbetween visits) and it actually felt like I was riding something approaching acceptably!

Was really trying to nail the corners and did a lot of descents that previously I would have chickened out on - Really improved my confidence and has propelled me to look at entering some events in 2015

paul.skibum

30k ride today, upped the difficulty a little with the distance and had a good ride despite the slick roots and mud! Had Strava on and it appears that 8 weeks of the bike has stripped back my fitness to where I was in May! Dammit.

apple eater

paul.skibum wrote:

30k ride today, upped the difficulty a little with the distance and had a good ride despite the slick roots and mud! Had Strava on and it appears that 8 weeks of the bike has stripped back my fitness to where I was in May! Dammit.

sucks doesn't it!

I had 6 weeks off due to busted ribs,

1st road ride was 10 miles
2nd was 20 miles and it took forever. plus i was knackered afterwards.

Then i've had another 2 weeks off with a chest infection.

rode 12 miles on saturday nd ended up having a power nap in the afternoon. Shocking!

paul.skibum

apple eater wrote:

paul.skibum wrote:

30k ride today, upped the difficulty a little with the distance and had a good ride despite the slick roots and mud! Had Strava on and it appears that 8 weeks of the bike has stripped back my fitness to where I was in May! Dammit.

sucks doesn't it!

I had 6 weeks off due to busted ribs,

1st road ride was 10 miles
2nd was 20 miles and it took forever. plus i was knackered afterwards.

Then i've had another 2 weeks off with a chest infection.

rode 12 miles on saturday nd ended up having a power nap in the afternoon. Shocking!

I actually didn't see to bad climbing and covering the distance (cut the ride short a little due to impending rain rather than exhaustion) but one climb at 15 mins was 2 mins longer than my best strava'd time and I seem to have lost similar proportions on the downs which annoys me as the bike seems to be behaving better - but wet weather and nursing my dodgy thumb a little may explain some of it. Perhaps I am too harsh on myself!

BloggingFit

Strava runs slower in the winter, not the rider

step83

nice 20k jaunt with me new front tyre on today, fitted an on-one chunky monkey really pleased with it tons more grip off camber. plenty of sand up my way so make sense to have a wide front but you pay a penalty on the muddy bits. Really need to sort something to protect me from the crud that tyre throws up

paul.skibum

Had a great ride today witha couple of colleagues - knocked out some known trails which in the wet felt less well known. Heading out tomorrow to try some new stuff.

The Rookie

BloggingFit wrote:

Strava runs slower in the winter, not the rider

[Pedant]I think you mean it runs faster, so we appear to be going slower.......[/Pedant off]

No ride over the weekend, but ridden to work this morning, nice easy 6.7 miles, currently takes longer than usual as the traffic jam at the road works slows me down quite a bit (not as much as it slows those in tin boxes though!)

paul.skibum

Good ride today but its was COLD - think we set off while it was below zero and it maybe struggled up to 1 degree by the end - did a gruelling climb to a trail called Green Monster - some wicked rock rolls and steep sections in there, followed by some playing around in the woods. Ended the ride sat with some cake and a coffee in the sunshine, soaking up some rays and looking up at the snow topped peaks. Beautiful.

poah

Went to innerleithen for the first time yesterday. managed to do make or break, caddon bank and the gold run before my shoe broke in a fall and I lost a cleat.

also need to get wider bars

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=if96aondsLw

marcus'73

I rode the XC loop out of QE park ride yesterday splitting off and finishing on the red trail. The MBUK van was parked up with Rob Weaver building up a very yellow new bike, judging from how caked in crap my bike was after the ride I'd say he'll be able to give a proper account of how well sealed the bearing etc are... Anyway I left him to it as no one likes to be harrassed whilst they are working...Nice work but still work I guess!

paul.skibum

Not ridden yet as I am about to finish work but i have my gear with me to go - its just that its -10 degrees outside....I want to go but on the other hand almost anything sounds better than that!

BLW

We went up to Wharncliffe Woods (near sheffield) last weekend for the first time, really enjoyed it.

3 runs on the red and 3 on the black DH runs and then a potter on some of the red trail at the other side of the car park, it was very wet and boggy on there though, came off I think about 3 times on the normal trail route due to slippery roots oh and some boggy lakes that were deeper than they looked!

Bit of pedal slap, brought home half the woods, got very wet, very smelly...but all good fun.

Now I have some nice shiners on my left leg, I'll never have 'lady like legs', looks like I'll be wearing tights all year round at this rate!

dirkpitt74

Spent the day up and around the Wrekin in Telford yesterday.
Not the best day for it - really misty/foggy and somewhat slippy and muddy!

A great day though and a climb of 1000ft - the descent was fun! the single track around the base was good fun too despite the mud.

iwilldoit

Out for a fantastic ride with my son, some moorland, slippy dirty old tracks and a couple of gravel tracks around 30 miles all together.

Told him to pull his finger out and he replied it's not a finger it's a thumb !!

.blitz

Cannock!

steg666

I love seeing all the pictures here on what everybody has been upto. Mine a backing up currently to photo bucket so don't have any to share at the moment.

Sunday and today have been cold but beautiful autumn days, it's just a shame the daylight hours are dwindling. Stupidly I headed out yesterday after 1pm, I got 15 odd miles in but found I was chasing the daylight at the end (no lights - can you hear me Santa Claus ?).

Recently instead of driving off to other forest sites I've been heading out from home, it's amazing what is on your doorstep with abit of exploring. Saves the petrol money when you are risking the weather at this time of year.

iwilldoit

steg666 wrote:

I love seeing all the pictures here on what everybody has been upto. Mine a backing up currently to photo bucket so don't have any to share at the moment.

Sunday and today have been cold but beautiful autumn days, it's just a shame the daylight hours are dwindling. Stupidly I headed out yesterday after 1pm, I got 15 odd miles in but found I was chasing the daylight at the end (no lights - can you hear me Santa Claus ?).

Recently instead of driving off to other forest sites I've been heading out from home, it's amazing what is on your doorstep with abit of exploring. Saves the petrol money when you are risking the weather at this time of year.

We have loads around us and that's what I find fun trying to put them all together to make a 90% off road run, we added a new trail and it need a bit of clearing.

Good things young ones, he really thinks this is great fun

homers_double

Did a few laps of Hollingworth Lake last night on the Heckler, not exactly real riding but more of a "lets get that fat arse moving" type of ride.

Followed swiftly by a loop of Crag Vale on the road bike this morning.

The Rookie

Tried to do a 200km ride over the weekend (a Randonneur on Indian 'roads'....

Started off badly and got worse, weather forecast was bad, awoke to torrential rain, set off on the 13km to the start and was soaked to the skin within 2km, the touch screen phone wasn't as useable as normal (the touch screen doesnt like the wet!) for navigating to the start so I ended up doing about 18km, street lights went off at 4:30am so riding to the 5am start in poring rain I went into a pothole I couldn't see through the sheen of water and pinch flatted the tyre, tube was scrap as the hole was about 1/2" long, more punctures ruined my remaining tubes before I'd done 50km and I had to get a recovery, my ride partners didnt fair much better with another stopping after his third puncture and the other being OTL at the half way checkpoint.

steg666

Did a 22 miles today on mixed grounds. First stop was local bike shop as I was cycling without carrying a spare tube.

Two bad moves on my part coming up, 1, my saddle bag is too small to fit in a 29" tube, multi tool and levers. I ended up carrying the tube in my coat pocket - idiot.

My second bad move was I bought a sneaky energy bar just incase I was travelling far, I left it on the counter .

The ride was great though, I love the glorious fresh autumn mornings. The sun was blazing and you really don't feel the cold until you stop. I road up what's called an "old coach road" here. It's a 4 mile straight road gated of at both ends so only the residents can get in but it's open to walkers, cyclists and the farm trafffic. The good part is that it's pretty good in all weathers. It's got a few elevations but nothing major, very good at getting that feeling of 'getting away from it all' that I crave.

The last part that I was trying to find was some newish volunteer made trails in Bickerstaffe. Didn't quite get to them, will need to check my strava maps to find how close I was.

paul.skibum

3 days 3 rides for me - Saturday was a trawl up to a lovely fast descent - 700m climbing in a 15k ride, one new traverse/down trail and then only my second ride down the nadgery technical Duncans/IBT. Sunday back up a similar route to two new to me trails - the first was 50% fun 50% washed out, the second was just fun. 650m up for 650m pretty much straight back down. Monday an easy cruise - couple of classic trails and some leg spinning on the valley trail - 300+m climbed over 18k so pretty easy going.

Trails are frozen and grippy and fast although you have to watch for patches of ice, usually lurking at the bottom of some rocky tech!

dirkpitt74

Did an 11 mile ride over the Chase last night with a couple of mate - only did the blue route and a bit of Birches Valley (by the pools) but great fun.
The 'diffuser lens' on my cheapo-Chinese-cree light worked a treat for lighting a wider part of the trail.

buddy_club

DirkPitt74 wrote:

Did an 11 mile ride over the Chase last night with a couple of mate - only did the blue route and a bit of Birches Valley (by the pools) but great fun.
The 'diffuser lens' on my cheapo-Chinese-cree light worked a treat for lighting a wider part of the trail.

Got a link?

dirkpitt74

buddy_club wrote:

DirkPitt74 wrote:

Did an 11 mile ride over the Chase last night with a couple of mate - only did the blue route and a bit of Birches Valley (by the pools) but great fun.
The 'diffuser lens' on my cheapo-Chinese-cree light worked a treat for lighting a wider part of the trail.

Got a link?

Got the lens from here: C and B Seen

buddy_club

DirkPitt74 wrote:

buddy_club wrote:

DirkPitt74 wrote:

Did an 11 mile ride over the Chase last night with a couple of mate - only did the blue route and a bit of Birches Valley (by the pools) but great fun.
The 'diffuser lens' on my cheapo-Chinese-cree light worked a treat for lighting a wider part of the trail.

Got a link?

Got the lens from here: C and B Seen

Cheers