Wednesday 18 September 2013

update

September miscellaneous ride rundown, coz I haven't been arsed to post lately.
2nd nightride with some STWers and Mr Sparkle round jumbles/wayoh res, nice night for it, good turn out only lost a few people. Managed to strip my rear QR on the way there, fortunately sefton lived nearby and loaned me one. Butties and a few scoops after, nice!

3rd Rode up to chapeltown to drop off seftons QR, bloody awful, busy narrow roads and suffering from keeping up with mr sparkle going up hills the night before. Just me and Ryan on the nightride, 2lads, wildswood, school climb, nice sunset, pike, hole in wall, san marino Wilton pub for a pint and free sausage and chip butties smithills to finish.

10th 2lads, wildes showed Johnnie special K where he broke a spoke, gardens DH with ryan, decided to pull a short shift, school climb, georges drop into Akon, home via golf course.

13th day off but lousy weather and child duties. Johnnie wanted photo/video opportunities so 2 lads, wildes, ICR alt route, special K. No we did not look rad^sik in the pics/vids. Pike, up 2lads, san marino, smithills and home.

So that's that.

Summers gone, how was it for you? Several planned rides not done again, but I did get some very good ones in. Forecast said tuesday treats may be a thing of the past aswell, but due to children's birthday preparations I had an excuse to miss it this week anyway. Commuting trails are already turning to mush, my worn tyres are slipping and sliding a bit too much. Overshoes and winter supplies ordered, front lights on charge, rear leds retrieved from the back of the cupboard, fleecy longs and tops dug out of the bottom of the wardrobe. Take heed. The dark time is upon us.

Atleast I've got a trip to spain before it sets in proper.

Monday 9 September 2013

Parkamoor double

Been a while since a weekend ride, just Johnnie up for it, we headed to grizedale, had a navigational "moment" (cba checking the map) and ended up in nibthwaite, as good a place as any to start I guess. Geared up for what looked like a typical autumn day (autumn already?!) at which point Johnnie added a camelbak to his long and varied "things I forgot to bring on a ride" list. Bletherbarrow lane is a lovely way to start a ride - honest, straight up on tarmac, nicely warmed up we stopped for a map check, I'd been having issues with my fine so had emailed the route to Johnnie who had double checked he could see the maps even without network connection so he fired up his done - no route map, no email, uh oh, logged into his email no sign of my mail anywhere. Oh. So this'll be a ride from memory then, as prepared as ever we headed off road. Some work has been done on the boat to ickenthwaite so gone are the huge permanent puddles, yay, but so is the nicely technical descent, boooooo! Still, an ok, fast track and it was nice to be out. Didn't fancy my chances navigating thwaite moss and stricely so we took the road to Force, a nice bit of BW then more road to satterthwaite, up breasty haw and down the lovely singletrack descent (the haws back?) Next was a bugger of a climb I've not done in ages, up near grizedale tarn, managed to remember the route ok, saw a nice bit of cheek, properly rooty, tempting us we ride a but til it started getting too far from the main track so cut back and did the rubble descent to the visitors centre, so rubbly I barely had to brake, the rocks just pounded the speed out of you. May explore that cheek another time. Bit of food at the VC, some proper nice looking cakes at the cafe, too big a queue tho. Straight up the hill and across to parkamoor and down to moor lane, was a bit wet by now but not too slippy and lots of fun. Weren't sure of the route back up and pushed for time so we turned around and headed straight back up. Chat with a bronson rider at the top discussing 650b and x11 drive chain, nice if you're minted! An easy cut across to high parkamoor and onto the final straight, the descent to nibthwaite, brilliant! Was chucking it down by now tho, I slowed down, too much, not enough speed to hold a line over all the big rocks and off camber bedrock, ended up winding my way down the hill instead of speeding down. Bit of drama but no crashes. Still lotsa fun and a nice finish to a decent day's riding.