I don't normally mention my bike rides, as to be honest there are only so many permutations from my house and they all involve the flat valleys of the Tame, Trent and Mease, which do have some beauty but a lot of flatness (25 miles will give you 1000ft of ascent if you go hunting the 'hills').
This afternoon, however, something unusual happened. Having just come back from holiday, and having a sunny afternoon of 73 degrees Fahrenheit (according to Garmin), I thought I'd just spin my legs a bit. After a quiet ride to Alrewas, I was suddenly aware of hordes of motorcyclists coming from the National Memorial Arboretum, making lots of noise. I hoped heading down the A513 towards Tamworth most would go the other way, and whilst I was largely right in thinking this, there were so many of them (hundreds, possibly thousands) that there were still a lot heading my way.
Leaving the A513, and crossing the River Tame, at Elford I swerved around the 'Diversion' sign, and later the 'Road Closed' sign. In recent weeks we have had 'Road Closed' signs on this road when it has been open, so they are largely ignored (by cyclists and motorists). It is also usually possible to walk a 'Road Closed' stretch with a bike.
After a mile and a bit, I rode around the corner and there was a metal fence across the road - from the hedge to the wall. I did look at the possibility of crawling under at one end, but past the large hole in the road, that was half-filled with wet concrete, there was another hedge-to-wall metal fence with no obvious crawling potential.
At this point I was joined by a Polish cyclist, and I explained to him that the diversion was 9.8 miles the way I'd just ridden, or 10.4 miles via Tamworth. I also remembered that half a mile back there was a public footpath that I had run along, once, with my first running club almost exactly 30 years ago. I suggested that we try this, and amazingly he thought it was a good idea.
Now footpaths change over time, and I could remember that it wasn't a vehicular track, so it wasn't too much of a surprise that we ended up picking up our bikes and putting them onto our shoulders, cyclo-cross style, to walk just over a fifth of a mile across a field of cut sweetcorn. I should point out at this stage that fields in south-east Staffordshire are very stony, and walking in SPD-SL cleats (both of us) wasn't easy. After that we found a sandy path which was rideable, just, and after about half a mile we reached a tarmacked path that took us to the road.
Amazingly we ended up exactly where I predicted, and he was very grateful. I was just shocked and surprised that he'd agreed to walk his bike with someone he'd just met across an unmarked field.
And when I got home I spotted a flint in my new rear tyrebut it hadn't punctured it and I was able to remove it
16.44 mles, 400ft of ascent, and a PW (personal worst) average speed of 14.8mph. This did include walking 5mins 15secs to cover just over a fifth of a mile with my bike on my shoulder (at an average of 2.4mph for the pedants)
Reply With Quote