Today's Ride

Warm, sunny and warm today

Such a nice day i had to go out for a gentle ride. Rode down to some fishing lakes and sat by a lake watching fish feeding and other wildlife. Great relaxing day, a bit warm to be sat around in the sun for too long so only stayed a while before heading back.

Great ride again, glad i made the effort

Mark

Nice and warm when the sun was out.

A quick ride, which turned into a quicker one as my BB started to loosen. Still a nice little ride on a great bike, rides so nice

Mark

Very warm today.

Went for a nice ride today. Took about 3 hours so must have covered a few miles. Tried to follow a route from memory, didnt go perfect but i made it home Ended up at Warsop bmx track, havent been there for many years. Last time i rode there i bent a pair of Girvin Vectors when i overshot a jump, so would have been around '97, no jumping today though

Nice adventurous day.

Mark

Perfect riding weather today, never too warm and just the right amount of breeze.

Had plans today for a ride, that went out the window early as i was on autopilot and ended up rolling down towards trails in the totally opposite direction :roll: really couldnt be bothered to ride back up, which set the tone for the day., nice and relaxed. Ended up having a great ride, did a lot of tracks i usually ride but in the opposite direction, which meant a fair bit of up but just took my time and spun up them.

Mark

sunny and warm today, beautiful.

Went for a short ride but wanted to include a hill or two, which around here is hard as its flat. The only hills so to speak are old pit tips, so i headed over to and up Clipstone pit tip. It has changed a lot since i last went up but on a nice quiet sunny day like today, it was a beautiful place to be.

Some great views, the third picture is Sherwood Pines woods, the part where the freeride park/jump zone is, and the last is a map of all the old pits in the area.

From there i made a nice loop back round to where i had started the days offroading, found a really nice section of singletrack i cant remember riding before

Great day

Mark

Warm day with a nice breeze, assuming you were heading in the opposite direction

The plan was a ride as flat as possible and in the lowest gear possible and apart from the hill up to and through Hardwick Hall and one small one up through the village after (both of which i walked), it was!

It ended up being a great ride, no rush, just rolling around taking in the scenery Went around the back of Hardwick which involves some nice trails which are downhill, the payoff is the steeeep hill up to the main house. There are some great little trails around there but they all go down to come back up and i wasnt out today for that. The ride back after the village was practically all downhill and i ended up riding another long beautiful trail (last pic) that i cant really remember from years gone by, but bought me out back where the days trails started from

Mark

Hopefully not an issue if the only retro thing was the rider...as the bike is neither retro, nor a mountain bike.

End of holidays ride in the Lakes this morning. Weather has been awesome.

Warmer than it looked today, gettng warmer too

Just a short quick ride today, not feeling well so the ride seemed longer and harder than usual.

Mark

First-time poster on this thread! Normally up north I ride the '94 Dyna Tech Diablo that I keep with the in-laws in County Durham but I had the chance to take my (modern, sorry) road bike this time.

A few years ago someone bought me the official "100 Greatest [UK] Cycling Climbs" book and in the last year or so I've started to try and tick some of them off whenever I'm not too far away (I also joined the 100 Climbs Strava club!) There's also a second 100 climbs in the sequel that I've been starting to do, and today I planned to do three of those near Stanhope - Cuthbert’s Hill (#153), Peat Hill (#154) and Unthank Bank (#155).

There's a cluster of very testing hills in this part of the North Pennines, probably the toughest of them is Chapel Fell (highest paved road in England) which I'd done last winter, just a couple of miles away. So I knew what I was letting myself in for but nevertheless it was still tough going today in some proper wilderness - way up, totally deserted and very exposed, chilly hilltops, and I got battered by the wind many times (this weather is what passes for late May up here, apparently). I'd been hoping for decent weather but after a couple of wet days in the end I settled for just dry weather - and even then it rained.

Peat Hill was up first, before I’d really hit my stride. The super-steep start (must be 25+%?) came out of the blue and I’m not too proud to say I was in 34x34 pretty quickly. At some point the gradient must have eased off a bit, but I don’t really remember that.

Short downhill and then straight into Cuthbert’s Hill, which was a nice little climb (don't get me wrong, there was still some 20%), I remember thinking I'd have quite enjoyed this one if it hadn’t come so soon after the last one.

After that came some rainy, very windy, hilly stuff heading back up towards Parkhead station, a famous cafe stop on the coast to coast route. It was slow, into a howling headwind and not too pleasant to be honest. Good views at the top at least! Then down Crawleyside Bank (also in the top 100), and Unthank Bank was left. I knew it was going to be straight into the wind, so I had a flapjack, closed my eyes and hoped there would be enough left in the legs. It was steep and twisty with a beautiful tight, steep S bend leaving the town at the start (even received admiring glances from some pedestrians!) then just more grinding it out into the wind as the road opened out into the open countryside - more deserted wilderness.

All in all a good couple of hours some excellent cycling roads, despite the weather. Strava activity is here if you're interested, I've posted the veloviewer images of the climbs: https://www.strava.com/activities/2406609707/

Little reminder folks. Pat's family are celebrating his life over in sunny Fairfax this Saturday, 01 June. I reckon as many of us should get out on our bikes and raise a glass to the man, the dude, Pat, and post our write-up/pictures here. His daily rides, giving us all a little snapshot into the birthplace of the sport and hobby we love, were cherished by so many of us. I miss him a lot.