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I won't be riding over there then. I have my reasons for not wearing one.Quote:
Originally Posted by Travs
Forgot to mention, i had to stop twice on the ride up the chevin; once at the bottom for a comfort break, and then again half way up for a snack bar when i ran out of petrol. I got that empty feeling in the pit of my stomach and knew i wasn't getting a lot further without food.
Standard 50m to the craven arms and back yesterday, a lot of my aches and pains are beginning to back off now. I had sticky toffee pudding, which scored through the roof on the stickyness scale. People overtaking into oncoming traffic on the chevin made me rather mad..again.
Going down East Chevin Road?Quote:
Originally Posted by mr brightside
I am still pootling about and passed 500 miles this year before February finished. Yesterday (Sunday) it felt like the first day, albeit a chilly one, of Spring as I did a short 30 miles to Arthington and up the Eccup Road climbs to Bramhope and then home.
As I was spinning along without a care in the world I heard an awful blaring sound behind which was issuing from the mobile phone of a couple of passing riders. I was so shocked with this noise pollution that I was tempted to chase them down to give them a piece of my mind but thought that my beating the man to a pulp for disturbing my tranquillity might upset his adoring female partner; so let them be.
What is the world coming to?
Coming up east chevin road, up the hill. People overtake you into traffic coming down and overtake you on crests and bends. Basically it's your legs that their car hits when a van coming the other way shunts them towards you.Quote:
Originally Posted by Graham Breeze
People rushing to escape Otley! Don't blame them - people like me live there!Quote:
Originally Posted by mr brightside
An interesting article on the BBC about Christian Meier. Professional cyclist turned mountain and ultra runner.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/68427968
The river Tame is one of the few natural water courses in the Birmingham conurbation. The (rather grandiose) river Rea being the only one that passes through the city centre though most people would be hard to find that - it is not much more than a brook until it converges the Tame near Lichfield.
Having researched a planning issue with my daughter, we noted the source of the Tame as in Oldbury and only few miles from home. According to Wikipedi, it was under a section of the elevated of M5 but on further inspection, there was already a significant water flow there from a subterranean culvert
This seemed to emminate from the other side of the M5 and having checked the OS map, Hurst Green park looks good. It was very muddy but a significant amount of water had been diverted under the M5 and the canals and feeder system. The source was very muddy so thankful I was on the MTN today.
I tried to follow the river downstream but it is subterranean for lengthy periods and undercuts the canals too . I rejoined the canals on the Birmingham mainline and then joined the Birmingham and Worcester home. 35k in all.
Don't be tempted to buy a pair of sealskinz dragon road gloves. They are meant to be waterproof, but aren't and let it in readily. They also do that annoying thing of letting it in, but not letting it out when you clench your fist to wring them. It was pretty grim out today, never a dry second and i needed every drop of my 3 pints of Semer Water ale to acquire an adequate beer jacket. 50m in total.
Well everyone likes rivers and the Aire and the Wharfe lie within about 3 miles of each other on either side of the Ilkley Moor water shed. I can't ride anywhere, except maybe to Tesco, without passing by or over one of them (although Tesco is sited on the old sidings and cattle pens beside Ilkley railway station so even a trip to buy more porridge has a good side).Quote:
Originally Posted by PeteS
The moor has dozens of minor streams which all coalesce into maybe half a dozen major streams which have to pass though Ilkley en route to the Wharfe. Within Ilkley they are now all in culverts (Brook Street used to have a brook coursing down its middle - but no more), so are silent and invisible to our tourists. However if you head south towards the high moor, where the grand houses were built in Ilkley's days of spa glory, you can see and hear water everywhere and at night in the absence of traffic noise it is joyous to walk and listen to the sound of rushing, plashing water as one encounters stream after stream.
Several streams meet on the road on which I live so, naturally, one house is named Watersmeet.
Aaah!
Having extolled the virtues of the R. Wharfe I thought I should check it is still here so today I following it from Ilkley through Addingham, Bolton Bridge, Burnsall to Grassington and then returned via Threshfield and Cracoe following the private railway line that runs from the Cracoe quarry to Skipton where it joins the main line. A nice ride with the chance of seeing a General Motors Class 66 diesel using some of their 2500 HP to pull thousands of tons of limestone and keeping HGVs off the roads.
When British Railways started to introduce diesel locomotives in the rush to eradicate steam every two-bit engineering company that claimed it could build diesel locomotives was given a contract to provide locomotives to see if they actually could. BR ended up with a hotch potch of classes of different wheel arrangements and power. Some were Diesel-Electric and some were Diesel- Hydraulic and some had fundamental design flaws. A mess and the more calamitous failures put their builders out of business, notably North British which had been building locomotives in Glasgow for over a century.
Eventually Britain turned to the country which had been making high powered diesel locos for decades and by the early 2000s there were around 1000 of the superb Class 66 locos which are still ubiquitous thundering up and down the network at high speed pulling prodigious loads.
Anyway 34 miles,2400 feet and the Wharfe is as beautiful as ever.