Today's Bike Ride

[molehill]

52k and 1000m on the road, a bit faster too which is probably due to skinny tyres I put on - by skinny I mean 35 wide with nobbly bits (they are cyclocross) but they are down from 43 wide. Anyway, a good ride and a bit quicker round the loop which I wasn't expecting after my run on Friday.

[Graham Breeze]

Having enjoyed my trip to Watersheddles reservoir I thought I would visit it again (although reservoirs don't really change much) and add a few more: so after Lower Laithe, Ponden,... then Coldwell (Upper and Lower),Widdup...I used to love the Widdup Fell Race from the Pack Horse pub, miles from anywhere on Widdop Moor and which claims to date from 1610. It stands on The Ridge leading to Hardcastle Crags on the way to Hebden Bridge and which is a joy to ride along (there is a 1 in 4 sign) and then from Hebden there is the long climb and descent to Oxenhope and Haworth - a nice loop of 30 miles and 3600 feet. Apart from the brief periods in the small towns virtually the whole route is alongside moors. Wonderful.

In fact so wonderful I must repeat it in the other direction.

Does 1 in 4 then become 4 in 1?

[anthonykay]

North-east to the Vale of Belvoir, so I had the wind behind me on the way home. With the recent dry weather, I have been using a few bridleways (on my 32mm tyres). One of today's bridleways took me along an avenue of poplars planted to commemorate the men of the 9th Battalion, the Sherwood Foresters, who were killed at the Battle of the Somme. But the buildings of the nearby Vimy Ridge Farm (established to train returning soldiers in agriculture) are looking as if they have been in the middle of the battlefield.

Going through both Colston Bassett and Long Clawson, I passed dairies which have the privilege of naming their product after a certain village on the Great North Road near Peterborough. I also stopped for a mooch around the church of St Remigius at Long Clawson; my bike rides are often interrupted with a bit of church-crawling.

Marco will consider it a dreadful shame that, having descended into the Vale of Belvoir, I didn't take the opportunity to climb back out of one of the several roads with a black arrow on the OS map. Instead, I took the rather gentle climb from Nether Broughton to Upper Broughton.

[Llani Boy]

Having enjoyed my trip to Watersheddles reservoir I thought I would visit it again (although reservoirs don't really change much) and add a few more: so after Lower Laithe, Ponden,... then Coldwell (Upper and Lower),Widdup...I used to love the Widdup Fell Race from the Pack Horse pub, miles from anywhere on Widdop Moor and which claims to date from 1610. It stands on The Ridge leading to Hardcastle Crags on the way to Hebden Bridge and which is a joy to ride along (there is a 1 in 4 sign) and then from Hebden there is the long climb and descent to Oxenhope and Haworth - a nice loop of 30 miles and 3600 feet. Apart from the brief periods in the small towns virtually the whole route is alongside moors. Wonderful.

In fact so wonderful I must repeat it in the other direction.

Does 1 in 4 then become 4 in 1?

I wonder if navigating by using the sun was banned during the 1610 fell race Graham?

[Graham Breeze]

I wonder if navigating by using the sun was banned during the 1610 fell race Graham?

I think even then runners just followed the person in front.

[Graham Breeze]

And so I tried the 3600 feet of climb (in 29 miles with some route tinkering) in the opposite direction to include Heptonstall Road (500 metres of cobbles) from Simon Warren's Cycling Climbs Of Yorkshire in addition to Widdop Moor and Oxenhope Moor which I already knew. And my reward was a down pour lasting 20 miles and the opportunity to study how rain forms shallow rivers when flooding down a fell side road.

I noticed on the 1:4 near Widdop that descending motorists paused until I had passed. There was plenty of room so I assume their interest and conversation was along the lines of "Just look at that idiot!"

Still I had thought the reservoirs I passed on Sunday looked a little dessicated; as would I if I had luxuriated in my heated seat for any longer after stripping off in my car.

[Fellbeast]

In an answer to Anthony Kay's question about posting pictures, there should be a photo below of My White Bicycle (singalong all you Nazareth fans), taken last week at Aqualate Mere.

I have had a struggle, but I seem to have worked out how to do it. If you're still interested Anthony let me know

Out of interest how did you manage to post this picture (beautiful bike by the way)? I can post pictures that are already on the internet (already posted on Twitter for instance) but I’m damned if I can manage it from photos on my phone or computer - there seems to be a limitation on image size/quality?

[Graham Breeze]

Out of interest how did you manage to post this picture (beautiful bike by the way)? I can post pictures that are already on the internet (already posted on Twitter for instance) but I’m damned if I can manage it from photos on my phone or computer - there seems to be a limitation on image size/quality?

Yep! How did you do it?

And I really think we should have the bike spec., such as what brand of plastic pump do I see?

[anthonykay]

An opportunity missed, although looking at the map you did take the obvious route home

Wilful hill-evasion, however, should be a criminal offence

Yes, as it was past 5:30pm when I finished my church-crawling in Long Clawson on Sunday, "obvious route home" was looking quite attractive.

But I made up for it today, with a little circuit of Charnwood Forest including the 120 metres of climbing up Beacon Road from Woodhouse, followed by the switchback of Priory Lane. On the second (and biggest) climb along this road, there was someone ahead of me (who must have come out of the lane that goes along the Ulverscroft valley). My momentum from the previous descent took me quite close to him, but I couldn't get past him. But then he just stopped and got off, less than halfway up the hill. Most disappointing!

[Llani Boy]

Loading photos directly into your post

Here are the notes I created from successfully posting photos on the forum. I have checked them a few times and I haven't had any problems. I am using a modest desktop computer with an up to date version of Windows 10 and the Chrome browser.

Instructions are in bold, and comments are in italics. Best of luck


1 - Open a Flickr account (it's free, you don't need the Pro version to do what you want)

You need to use a photo serving service and there may be better, and easier, ones but I found a way to make this one work which is quite straightforward

2 - Before uploading your photos you can use a free program like Paint, if you are using Windows, to crop off any less attractive parts.

At this stage you should consider any copyright issues with your images

3 - Upload the photos you want to display. There is an upload button (a cloud with an up arrow) at the top

4 - View your photo by selecting 'You' from the top menu and then 'Camera Roll' from the list. Double click on the image you want to view

5 - Right click on the image and select 'Open image in a new tab'

6 - This will open up the photo on a new tab, and at the top of the screen in the address bar it will say something like

live.staticflickr.com/65535/51132475844_ab28d1514c_k.jpg

Copy all of the line on your screen to your forum post

7 - You will need to add img, in square brackets, followed by https:// at the start of the line and /img, in square brackets, at the end to give you something like

[im]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51132475844_ab28d1514c_k.jpg[/img]

Note: I had to mis-spell [img] above so you could read the text rather than see the image!

8 - Submit your post

Thank you for your efforts Marco, but I lost the will to live by Step 6!

I shall look forward to other peoples photos though.