Today's Bike Ride

[anthonykay]

Anthony, are you planning on doing the Worcestershire Beacon race? I think that is next week. I have run quite a bit over the Malverns and done the race 3 times. It's definitely a trail race but certainly suits a fell runner with some significant climbs and technical descents. Definitely worth doing though sadly I'm still in recovery and not up to more than a couple of 6k runs per week.

Yes, I have entered the Worcestershire Beacon race. I suppose I am getting a bit desperate, travelling that far for a non-fell race like that, but I need to find a race that fits in between my busy concert schedule and railway workers' strikes . Anyway, my walk yesterday was enough for me to ascertain that the course is definitely not suitable for Walshes!

[molehill]

Managed just over 50 miles (83k) and 5150ft (1575m). Slowly, was suffering a bit today and legs didn't like it.

[Graham Breeze]

In my deluded road running days I never ran more than 2000 miles in one year. That delivered a 36 min 10K, sub 60 min 10 miles, a 1.20 half marathon and a 2.50 marathon - which for a V40 was good enough for me before I discovered fell running.

And although on my bike I have ridden 3800 miles in a year - it's all a bit unnecessary to retain my svelte figure and teenage physique. So now a total mileage approaching 3000 miles/year is enough and passing 2500 miles by mid October is worthy of a special ride.

I decided to ride to Darley which is a sprawly dormitory of Harrogate and which nestles under the radomes of RAF Menwith Hill. This is the early warning system allowing us to sleep easy in our beds safe from Russian nuclear warheads. It has worked so far.

So why Darley? It was where I ran my first road race in 1984 - a half marathon. No parkruns to scale up from in those days. I think I finished in 1.40+ but I knew, because it was very hilly, I could do much better.

The route from Ilkley to Darley is along the A59 Skipton-Harrogate road, beloved of HGVs and other never ending traffic. It is now closed at Blubberhouses for two months to start preliminary work on bypassing the several miles that Yorkshire Highways once constructed on the side of an unstable hill which has been collapsing into the valley since time began. The road has been closed many times before to allow piece meal remedial work to be carried out until finally the government agreed to pay for a proper new bypass. This will follow the line of the footpath/bridleway that has probably existed for a thousand years but since my civil engineering didn't advance much beyond designing concrete columns and beams who am I to raise an eyebrow?

Naturally cyclists don't recognise Road Closed signs so up the A59 from Bolton Bridge I pootled. Utter silence apart from the hissing of my smooth tread 25mm tyres on the tarmac.

Eventually I encountered a security guard with cones and signs who informed me that nobody was allowed beyond her barrier. I replied with a smile that I was heading for West End (a sunken village now beneath a reservoir) and sped away as she grasped her radio to alert her colleagues up the road to fire up the JCBs.

But my local knowledge of side roads to West End defeated the oncoming yellow wall of steel (the reference here is to the 1971 film Vanishing Point) in which Barry Newman drives a Dodge Challenger at full speed into a wall of yellow Chase diggers. Barry dies.).

So having encircled the JCBs heading west and on my way home north via Blubberhouses I encountered two young mountain bikers with rear cogs the size of dinner plates heaving themselves up a hill - signed as 14% but I suspect steeper. What could I do but apologise and dancing on my pedals surge past them leaving them muttering "Wow! Look at him. And he must be at least 40!". Now I admit this does not often happen but passing 2500 miles had just given me wings.

I just wish I could reach 2500 miles everyday.

[anthonykay]

So is all the A59 traffic being diverted through Otley and Ilkley for now? And how do the good folk of those towns feel about it? [I assume that some of the folk are good, even in those places.]

[Graham Breeze]

So is all the A59 traffic being diverted through Otley and Ilkley for now? And how do the good folk of those towns feel about it? [I assume that some of the folk are good, even in those places.]

Yes.

I cannot and would not wish to speak for the (good?) folk of Otley but the generous, open hearted denizens of Ilkley are stoic on the matter.

The tail back today from Bolton Bridge (start of the road closure) to the first traffic lights one encounters entering Ilkley from the west was over a mile in the early afternoon on a Sunday ie no lorries.

The A59 bypass is needed but what is intriguing is why it has taken so long for the powers that be to decide to stop closing the road to fudge a repair every few years and then repeat the process again and again - but actually address the problem. If millions of tons of hill want to move into the valley concrete and steel wires are not going to stop it happening.

[molehill]

27 miles and 3560ft (so says the oracle), mainly on gnarly gravel. Flippin windy and slow plod, but done it as going to be another slack week.

[mr brightside]

Yes.

I cannot and would not wish to speak for the (good?) folk of Otley but the generous, open hearted denizens of Ilkley are stoic on the matter.

The tail back today from Bolton Bridge (start of the road closure) to the first traffic lights one encounters entering Ilkley from the west was over a mile in the early afternoon on a Sunday ie no lorries.

The A59 bypass is needed but what is intriguing is why it has taken so long for the powers that be to decide to stop closing the road to fudge a repair every few years and then repeat the process again and again - but actually address the problem. If millions of tons of hill want to move into the valley concrete and steel wires are not going to stop it happening.

As I was heading out of Ilkley today, the traffic was queuing past addingham. The traffic on my side was also queuing behind a cement lorry, which was stuck behind me and unable to overtake.

[anthonykay]

I had to turn back due to flooded roads twice today. The first one was predictable; indeed, I have to admit that I chose Meadow Lane as my route out of Loughborough at least partly because I wanted to see just how bad it was. There was a car stuck, or maybe abandoned, in the water on the road, and a RAC van had arrived shortly before me.

However, the second flood took me by surprise: this was where the Kingston Brook was flowing over the road between East Leake and West Leake. I got the impression that it wasn't too deep, but there was a car stopped on the other side of the flood, and I decided to play safe. Just a few yards back, I had seen two cyclists, a small boy and (presumably) his dad, turning off the road onto a bridleway. Now, I had resolved at the start of the ride that there was to be no off-road today, given the recent deluge; but this looked preferable to back-tracking all the way to East Leake. And indeed it turned out fine; the surface was wet, but not soft or muddy; until the final gate, where there was no avoiding a puddle of indeterminate depth. I quite happily splash through water when running, but having to do that while cycling just seems wrong.

[PeteS]

Up and over the Clent Hills and out to Chaddesley Corbett revealed plenty of flooding this morning. One diversion had to be made but the remainder were passable with care. One lane was closed (which of course to cyclists means car free and you may have walk a bit) but the reality was that a section had been washed away - 10m of tarmac gone and now nothing but gravel and mud.
Mud was the theme of the day - that and whatever had been deposited on the road near the various farms I passed. Following a minor mechanical with my front derailleur (some fettling to do later!), it was back over the hills again and home for a quick bike wash before lunch. 50k/800m

[mr brightside]

Eventually I encountered a security guard with cones and signs who informed me that nobody was allowed beyond her barrier. I replied with a smile that I was heading for West End (a sunken village now beneath a reservoir) and sped away as she grasped her radio to alert her colleagues up the road to fire up the JCBs.

Someone has grassed you up, Graham. I tried to drive up to Thruscross on sunday, but they now have steel fencing across the entire carriageway from wall to wall. If you wanted to bypass it, you'd have to chuck the Bianchi over it and hope it landed on the wheels.

I have to wonder if a safety report has been submitted regarding a sixty-something gentleman on a bicycle disobeying orders? I'd like to think a safety meeting was hastily arranged on your account, that would be ace.