My lucky day today. Christmas arrived early.
After 2 months in the waiting list they just informed me I got a place at the Maratona dles Dolomites, 138km 4230m cycling in the most beautiful mountains in the world.
https://www.maratona.it/de/138km
Extremely happy.
Just how the hell do I train here in flat boring useless Hamburg?
After some huffing and puffing by Mrs LB I managed to get out of last minute Christmas shopping and headed out, on a cool but glorious day, on my Arkose. 40 miles but only a measly 2,024 feet in 2hrs 50min.
On most of my rides I tend to get around 1,000 feet in for every 10 miles but todays effort was mainly on the High Peak and Tissington trails, which apart from some tracks that I used to join them, are flattish. Only 12 miles of the ride was on tarmac, getting to and from the trails.
Plenty of folk about and I bumped into 5 people I knew, who were either out running or walking, which was nice!
The only occurrence of note was whilst I was waiting for my Latte at Parsley Hay I could hear the two girls in the kiosk chatting about New Year resolutions. One of them said " I have two resolutions this time. One is to complete a Tough Mudder and the other is to get pregnant"
It made me chuckle but looking at her I think she might struggle with both!
Last edited by Llani Boy; 22-12-2020 at 06:23 PM.
Visibility good except in Hill Fog
But the real problem is the missing one-twelfth.Originally Posted by Marco
two-thirds of it is in your head, and the other 25 percent is in your legs
You're showing your age (or perhaps your intelligence) that your go-to answer is in fractions.
My dilemma was that I was replying to a post which referred to "two-thirds" and "25 percent". And "one-twelfth" seemed neater than "8.33... percent".
Or maybe I suspected that something "warped" was going on, and decided that the best way to expose it would be to play a straight bat . . .
With the local minor roads having patches of ice, todays planned road ride was changed to off road. So 35 miles and only 1,650 feet in 2hrs 45min on the Arkose.
But what fun.
Crashing through frozen puddles on the HP and Tissington Trails and an assortment of farm tracks and bridleways adjoining them. Unfortunately my pal Phil had not been able to fit mudguards to his Specialized so I ended up covered in shite, which was the lesser of two evils, as there was no way I was taking the bitterly cold north wind at the front for all of the time. A few snow flurries made for a festive ride and lots of walkers about ensured that my bell had plenty of action.
Our stop at the Parsley Hay kiosk, for a latte and date slice, was greeted by the waft of cannabis smoke from a couple of youths on mountain bikes. Perhaps it was the effect of their joints that enabled them to be riding gloveless! Another group of three blokes, more my age, were getting stuck into cans of Speckled Hen. I like my beer but couldn't think of anything worse to drink outside on such a day.
Anyway a great few hours in the countryside making room for tomorrows festivities. Numbers confirmed at 5.
Happy Christmas to all, especially Stagger and Oracle.
Visibility good except in Hill Fog
Bonjour la classe, et vous attention s'il vous plait. Hier etait la 'Grand Premiere' de L'etape de la Ring Road Leeds.
It's my belief that the Leeds ring road has never been ridden as a loop and a time set because the inner ring road is a motorway, and cycling on it is a bit dodgy and will carry a 50 quid fixed penalty for dangerous cycling. So what, who cares; the north face of the Eiger carries the penalty of death, but that didn't stop the 1938 expedition doing what had already been done 80yrs previously. You do it because it's there, and that is what I was planning to tell any critics, arresting officers or will tell the magistrate.
I got to the inner ring road ahead of schedule. There was a lot more traffic than i'd thought, and you wouldn't believe how steep it is in the main tunnel under the LGI, also how noisy. It narrows to one lane at the other side through endless roadworks, again going uphill, and some guy in a Range Rover who was stuck behind me for about half a mile was getting pissed off and revving it. Don't really know what he wanted me to do about the situation.
Time: 1,35,46
Chapeau!
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Merci et très interesant!
I did wonder why you were taking a short cut up the inner ring road from a proper circuit of the Leeds outer ring road...but I accept this is not a complete ring (although there are plans!) so chapeau!
Thirty-four miles based on country roads - the sort where you only see tractors, cyclists and people with satnavs that are having a nervous breakdown - near the banks of England's most glorious river*.
Sublime.
* The River Wharfe in Ilkley is the first in the UK to gain bathing water status, the Government has announced.
The area of the river which runs between Ilkley Main Bridge and Beanlands Island will be added to the list of bathing waters in England from 2021.
It follows a public consultation by DEFRA which ran from August 7 to October 2. It was prompted by an application from the Ilkley Clean River Group, who want to ensure the river - which can attract over a thousand people on sunny days - is fit to paddle and swim in.
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