So in yesterday blog I complained at how bad I was going up those hills. So for my Sunday morning ride I decided to to go over to the local heath as it has a couple of hills and I felt I could do with the practice. I left home at 7:30am blue sky, sun was out but jeez it was cold, had to stop down just the road and pull the polar buff over my ears.
There was one good thing for riding when it is this cold, all the mud is frozen and some parts of this route are very muddy. As I had hoped the first sections was frozen mud, in other places the surrounding area has been trampled to death so I could get round most of nasty spots. I was not long before I was at gate 15 (or is it 16??) and the run up to the rubbish tip road. Now this is no big hill but being a fatty on two wheel it feels bigger than it is and I normally reach the top wheezing, puffing and gasping for air. But today……….I won’t say I flew up it but I rode up it with out much of a problem. There were a couple of other minor hills and I went up those without to much of a problem as well, now I’m puzzled.
I had fun negotiating a decent covered in ice and just for the added fun something had driven along the path recently and left deep ruts (to be honest this was not the only track I found this on, apparently they have been erecting fencing all across the heath so they can keep cattle on the heath to mange the vegetation, picture of cattle here) this decent leads down to a puddle of lake proportion.
The route across the heath (at least the one I ride) is normally quite short so I decided to lengthen the route, the plan was to leave the heath, ride through an wooded area close by and then rejoin the heath further round on what would be my normal route. As I headed back toward gate 15 (or 16), I turned right through the trees and came out on the track that runs up to the Pit Road. Just after the climb I turned left onto a track I have never ridden before, it was pretty much like most of the tracks on the heath, sand, gravel, clay and mud and sometimes all four types at the same time. The GPS was showing I was heading towards the main road which was roughly the direction I was going. It joined the bridle path that runs from the Crematorium, I had ridden the bottom of this in the past, a track with two lines of paving slabs (for vehicles to access a water station or something) that ends in a steep decent with a large iron gate (6″ x 6″ box section construction) across the track which leads on to the road.
A quick mile up the road and I was into Delve Woods, not an area I have been before but I followed the GPS route through the trees and then lost my directions. I eventually emerged about half way along the road I had just ridden up rather than at the starting point where I entered the woods, oh well. I headed back up Gravel Hill and then turned right into Magna Road. A mile and a bit down the road I turned off Magna Road and back along a track toward the heath again. This starts off as a nice wide track and then narrow down to fairly narrow track with a 6ft wire fence one side and a 4ft barb wire fence on the other side with trees spilling out into the path. A good 3/4 of the way down this path I came across a fallen tree blocking the path. Having made the effort to do this extra section I was not keen on turning around and going back so I climb over the fallen tree (which was propped up by the fence) complete with bike before continuing on down the path.
I now rejoined the normal route I take across the heath, the earlier decent down the iced covered track was now just water and mud as the hill faces the sun and with the sun high in the sky it was making short work of the ice.
Only done 26 miles riding this weekend, I really want to be pushing 40 miles but I just read a post from a couple of months ago where I had ridden less miles than I normally do and had had a good weight loss on the Monday weight in, well I won’t argue I could do with a good loss after the past few weeks so here hoping.
Before I leave you all, here is a very useful web site (sorry if you use it already). For those that want to plot a route for a GPS but don’t want to fork out the cost of commercial products like Memory Map, here is a free version with a very useful addition Where’s the path, click on the “OS and Google Mapping side by side”. What you actually have is an OS based 1:25000 map on the left and a corresponding Google map of the same area on the right. You can plot a route on the left screen and then export\download it for using on your GPS or you can import a route into the program from your GPS providing it supports .gpx file format (most do), have a play it is very good piece of software.
