Cycling

A couple from France;

When we rented our Gite in France, one of the things that a few people said to us was ‘You’re close to the Nantes-Brest Canal, and there’s a cycle path alongside it’. We tried to find it, but in all honesty, the cycle path on the canal is just the road with signs on it. With Charlotte being still only 5 and a little lacking in confidence on the road just yet, I figured it wasn’t a wise idea for her to ride on the road. Was a little frustrating as we’d dragged the bikes all the way there just to find out we couldn’t use them for what we thought. But when we visited the town of Ploermel, and Michelle went to the tourist information office (Syndicat D’Initiative), we realised there were loads of cycle paths – Voies Verte as they are called. (The official website for them is here). So going down to the Lac Au Duc car park, all of us went for a ride along the lake, which was brilliant.

The paths are totally segregated cycle paths with no road traffic on them – the junction above was when it goes over a road. Although the signs weren’t cemented in which I thought was a little strange and you could pull them out. In France, of course, they’re all still in place. I bet if it was Britain, the local chavs would have relocated them to the top of the trees, or else in their back gardens.

So we rode all the way along the path from the Lac Au Duc to the outskirts of Loyat and back, nearly 8 miles which was no mean feat with Charlotte on her little kiddie bike single speed!

I rode this circuit a few times, as it was a quick circuit I could do from the Gite. Even with a route this short the ascent/descent was quite high compared to my normal rides in Yorkshire at nearly 700ft. Out from the Gite you’re always riding into the wind for the first few miles as there is a constant prevailing wind blowing from the southwest to the northeast.
At this point I’m going to have a rant about road surfaces as it’s becoming a bit of a blight on the roads in the UK and seemingly now in France. Historically French road surfaces have always been amazingly smooth and fabulous to ride a bike on. However, someone in the French department of transport has obviously been to the UK and seen those really frustrating new road surfaces we’ve started using over here that every cyclist hates – the cheap resurfacing where they chuck on a layer of bitumen over the top of the normal road surface and then cover it with very sharp blue stone chippings which are great for cars (well, except they get stuck in the tyre treads) but awful to ride a bike on.
The road from the village up to the main road has this road surface. However, there is a welcome respite in the shape of the main road. I followed the D778 toward Les Forges and turned right into the forest (and back onto one of those new road surfaces). With the enormous pine trees in the forest, you get a really weird parallax effect where a hill seems to level itself out.

There were some beautiful things to see en-route with a surprising small lake covered in water lily flowers which was totally unexpected. I took some time out to sit and contemplate.

A quick 20 mile blast to try and remember what the racing bike felt like. It felt good

Up to date with the ride I had today.
The bike had been making some wierd clicking noises from the back which I was sure was something to do with the spokes. Upon checking the wheels the other day, I noticed that the rear wheel had gone out of true. Checking the spokes it seemed like one of the spokes was loose, making the wheel flex. So I tightened the spoke and it seemed OK but again coming to the bike this morning, moving the bike out of the garage, I noticed the rear wheel was catching on the brakes again, so I checked out the wheel and it had indeed again gone out of true and one of the spokes was loose. Even just pinging the spoke was enough to make it pop out of the hub, which is pretty bad.
It looks like the pan headend bit that is on the hub-end had just folded on itselt – potentially caused by the fact they had to slot the hub holes to allow the aero spokes to fit. I never liked the aero spokes anyway (they were more trouble than they’re worth) and didn’t like the Miche Wheels, so it’s an excuse to swap the wheels. I dropped the broken wheel into Cycle Sense in Tadcaster for repair, and ended up buying a nice new set of Halo AeroRage wheels. Thankfully the guys at Cycle Sense moved my cassette and QR skewer over from my existing wheel and fitted me some HP Latex rimtapes, so I was able to go home and fit the new wheels straight away. A quick tweak of the brake gaps and although the H/L limit settings on the rear cassette was OK, I spent most of the ride tweaking the rear indexing adjuster as it was slightly out and some gears wouldn’t select, which I was warned about. It’s nearly there, but I think I need to go through a full reset of the rear mech as per the Park Tool site. But the new wheels make the bike feel really solid and smooth. Plus they’re alot lighter than the old Miche wheels. Well recommended!

Day 3 – Alnmouth to Newcastle

The final day dawns and I awoke early doors today – around 7:00am – in fact before they opened the doors to the hotel! I thought I’d go and have a walk and take a few pictures as it was a beautiful morning and a cracking location.

After a hearty buffet cooked breakfast (the hotel we stopped in was this one), I went back to the bus, packed my panniers ready to grab them later on, filled up my bottles and got everything sorted ready for the ride.

It wasn’t long before most people were ready, and we were the second team to set off today – around 09:50am.

We didn’t hang around long and got off to a swift start.

The first chunk of today’s ride was on main roads until Warkworth and Amble, dropping east onto the coastal path at that point, although at least these ones were surfaced in the main, which made the riding easier. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t feeling it by this point, having covered nearly 130 miles so far, but I was an awful lot more chipper than I thought I’d be.

You could tell we were getting closer to Newcastle even before we got into Lynemouth. The coastline was getting much more industrial. Following the C-Roads towards Newbiggin, we turned past the Alcan power station (the aluminium plant has it’s own power station!), and went inland for a while passing between Ashington and Newbiggin, following the cycle path on the roadside. Following the A189 we then crossed the Wansbeck river and then turned east again into Cambois for lunch on the beach. Although we also invaded the recently refurbished pub in the village and wanted so many teas and coffee’s he didn’t have enough crockery to cope with us!

Once everyone was ready, we set off again this being the home stretch down to the mouth of the Tyne and then into Newcastle.

We followed the coast for only a few miles before turning back inland and skirting the edge of bedlington, before following the cycle path through Blythe and back to the coast again. From this point on we followed the coastal path (and pavements some times) all the way to Whitley Bay.

We eventually arrived at Tynemouth, but by this time the weather started to change sadly. It had been threatening rain most of the afternoon, but around now it started to rain a little. Not enough to dampen the spirits though

We had arrived at the River Tyne, so we turned west and started following the NCN route into the middle of Newcastle. It’s fair to say this bit was probably more undulating than the last few miles from Alnmouth due to the meandering of the path, and also because chunks of the path are re-routed due to construction work on the outskirts of Newcastle. It’s amazing how much regeneration is going on with some really posh apartments springing up and a nice area just east of the town.

(That’s me in the black with white flashes top on the left about to go through the arch).

Going through Wallsend we followed the riverside until we got to Horatio Street, when the hills I refer to in the title started. I thought my legs were going to give up as Cut Bank and Byker Bank was an utter killer! But turning up into Shields road and up the hill the mirage of the Edinburgh Bicycle Shop appeared at the top of the hill.

We’d made it! And we were the first to get there too – at 17:23pm after 3 days and 184 miles since leaving home on the Friday evening. And I must say, the Edinburgh guys made us feel very welcome and we had sarnies, nibbles and champers waiting for us.

It felt very gratifying to have achieved something like that – and to have shared it with everyone else on the team. I’m not going to name any names here because everyone was brilliant (although Nick does deserve a mention as he is a madman to ride the whole thing on a fixie) and I felt like everyone was awesome. But I have to thank Chris and Sian for being such great guides, even if Chris did go on some mini adventures! Also, I need to thank Rich Cryer for organising the whole thing with his team at Charity Adventure – the whole thing was impeccably organised and a joy to be a part of – and I felt great raising a few hundred quid for a charity that I felt deserved it – Sustrans.

I had to skip off early prior to the last group arriving as I needed to catch a train back to York, and as there were a few of us cycling to the station it made sense to go down as a group, with Michelle leading us down to the station. Apart from Mark getting bumped off his train by a particularly grumpy and jobsworth guard (he did eventually make it home) we all made it home safely, myself included.

I slept well that night!

My total stats for the ride are;
Count: 5 Activities (1 – Home –> Station –> Edinburgh, 2- Edinburgh –> Berwick, 3- Berwick –> Alnmouth, 4- Alnmouth –> Newcastle –> Station, 5- Station–>Home).
Distance: 188.27 mi
Max Speed: 41.5 mph
Time: 18:37:31 h:m:s
Elevation Gain: 9,030 ft
Avg Speed: 10.1 mph
Calories: 15,032 C

Day 2 – Berwick Upon Tweed to Alnmouth

When I booked the accomodation (which was, if you’re keeping up with the story so far, a rock star tour bus) I conveniently forgot I was 6ft2 and a bit, and seeing the bunks when I dumped my kit on the bus in the morning, I was fully expecting to have a crap night’s sleep. As it happens, I didn’t – in fact I slept like a log (once the claustrophobia wore off) although I think it was also helped by the alcohol from the ‘Most northerly pub in England’ along with the rather large amount of exercise. But I am happy to report that although it’s a bit awkward to get into the bunks (and one person admitted that they used the skylight’s metal bars as monkey bars to get out of bed!! ), they were supremely comfy. We also had the comfort of a lie in – partially to make sure we’d all recovered after the longest day yesterday, and partially to ensure we could get breakfast, what with this being a Sunday and Morrison’s didn’t open until 10:00am.

Breakfast was a Morrison’s special, a quick purchase of some more Haribo, and then after making sure that the tyres were pumped up hard and nothing had fallen off my bike, we were all off again around 11:00am.

The weather in the morning was changeable – it couldn’t make it’s mind up if it wanted to rain or not. But the first few miles through Berwick were brilliant, especially the ride over the Tweed bridge.

Once we’d gone through Tweedmouth, we dropped onto the coastal path, which was a track instead of a road.

A bit of a question at this point. I think we all know that some Sustrans routes are just tracks. But even some bits of the off road section would be questionable even as a footpath. There was alot of riding across fields for the morning’s part of the ride, and quite a few of the guys who were riding non-mountain bikes (including Nick on his Fixie) had to get off and carry their bikes as the ground  was way too soft to ride on. In actual fact, at one point (rounding the headland towards the causeway for Holy Island), if you veered more than a metre off course you would have been 3 foot deep in water and marsh! I’m glad I made the policy decision (and asked Richard which bike I should bring) and brought the mountain bike. Knobbly tyres definitely helped this morning.

Once we’d got past Lindisfarne, we turned west , crossed the A1, and headed inland a little. We went through some beautiful villages and saw some amazing sights, including a converted windmill.

From the top of the hill in the pictures above, we had a nice roll down into Bamburgh and had lunch (and a 99 with flake) in the shadow of the castle.

Once we’d chilled for a bit and the weather turned nice again, we set off from Bamburgh towards Seahouses. Having been up here a few times, I knew the area we were cycling through and it was nice to see some old memories and quash some demons too. We were making good progress and I was getting into the rides, becoming a little more aggressive on the hills and not necessarily huffing and puffing and spinning my way up the hills. But maybe my bike wasn’t so happy with my new found power, and just outside Howick, we started to climb a hill. I stood up on my pedals (I wear SPD’s), and put the hammer down, and ‘ping’. My chain snapped and I lost all power. Damn.

Thankfully not only did I manage to stop fairly quickly without it being carnage, but all those around me had the presence of mind to peel away so not only did I not get hurt, but noone else did either which was very lucky.

Thankfully Chris had a power link in his little box of wizardry, so he popped out the bent link (which was very very bent) and replaced it with an SRAM power link.

So with Chris the hero of the day, and with a POWER chain (woo!) I gingerly carried on, making sure I didn’t try and snap my chain for a second time. As it was, the ride down to Alnmouth was amazing, and it didn’t take long for me to forget the previous incident and enjoy the ride again. In fact, even though I’d slowed us up, Chris’s quick fix meant we lost no time and were the first at the Schooner Hotel by a fair margin – in fact we were on our second round by the time the second load arrived

A lot of alcohol was consumed that evening and I had a great time that night. Even if I did go to bed early cos I was shattered!

5 hours of riding, 52 Miles, 2667ft elevation gain and 3894 Calories burnt.

Now the final day is left. Newcastle here we come!

Day 1 – Edinburgh to Berwick Upon Tweed

Coming down in the morning at the youth hostel, whilst loading up my bike, I met Richard and Michelle who had also stayed in the hostel, and were also doing the coast and castles ride. Michelle told me that she worked for Sustrans, and we all had a bit of a natter whilst riding to the Edinburgh Bicycle store (which we overshot by about a quarter of a mile – in fact we went right past it and didn’t notice until a kindly cyclist noticed we were lost and gave us a hand to find where we wanted to go). The bus was sort-of hard to miss, being rather large and silver.

Meeting up with a few of the other riders and organisers, got my t-shirt and water bottle, and whilst having a bit of a chinwag and a final check, I noticed that due to the accident last night one of the bolts had popped out of my pannier rack. No worries – I quickly made my excuses and popped over to Edinburgh Bicycle (which by this time had opened) and they kindly provided me with a couple of long hex bolts for free! Nice one.

I loaded all my luggage onto my bunk on the bus, and made sure I had my supply of haribo stashed into the saddle bag . We formed into the group (we were Group 2, but due to a broken spoke, we were the first to leave) and Chris gave us a briefing and introduced us to Sian who was our tail-ender. The idea was that we never overtook Chris and Sian never let us drop behind her. I reset my GPS and we were off, with Chris leading the group.

First couple of miles were through East Meadow park and along the Edinburgh streets before we picked up the cycle path and went through the tunnel underneath Holyrood Park (which was brilliant – downhill all the way – wheeeee!) and onwards towards Duddingston, then through Musselburgh and out to our first bit of coastline. We followed the coast all the way through Cockenzie and then at Longniddry, 20 miles covered, we turned inland, started a long-ish climb and had our first meeting with the A1. Over the A1 and through Haddington and parallel to the A1 for a while, eventually arriving at the lunch stop at West Barns at the East Links country park.

Once the lunch was finished, our group moved on first. The morning, apart from the small ascent at the end, was mostly downhill. However, the afternoon was mostly hills. This is the hilliest and longest day of the whole ride, apparently.

For the first 10 miles after lunch we rode on the old part of the A1, which is now either local roads or cycle paths, eventually stopping just outside Cove for a quick break for drinks and to take some photos of the beautiful gorge and the A1 bridges prior to the big climbs ahead.

We crossed the A1 again (after a bit of a ‘mini-adventure’ – all detours and bits where Chris takes us on a bit of a wild goose chase are labelled ‘mini-adventures’ – sometimes the line on the map isn’t as detailed as he needed – not his fault!) and started the first chunk of the climbing for the afternoon. Ascending through Cockburnspath and then crossing the A1 again and up the loooooong ascent. At this point, most of us on mountain bikes are pedalling like mad in the granny ring to keep a slow 5 or 6 mph going. The hill is about 4 miles long and feels like it’s going on forever. At this point I’m wishing I’d brought along my superlight racing bike rather than the mountain bike, especially cos the girls from the footie team who are on our team are powering up the hill on their mountain bikes, making me feel like an old man, but we eventually make it to the top, huffing and puffing, and stop to admire the view over the sea from 771 ft, having climbed just short of 700ft in 8 miles, and having covered 54 miles so far. I need to be fitter – this will help a bit.

Bypassing Eyemouth, we do a long and welcome downhill towards the A1 again, now turning south and running uphill again for a while and along the Scotland/England border.

The welcome view of Berwick Upon Tweed was on the horizon, and we turned east and went downhill and then back up across the A1 and towards Berwick town centre, before turning back out and arriving at the Travelodge where our overnight accomodation was parked

After a great shower in one of the shower rooms at the travelodge, we went over to the most northerly pub in England to spend our meal vouchers, then back to the bus for some kip before day 2.

So the stats for the day;

72.58 miles covered in 7 hours, 4 minutes, although the total ride including stops took over 9 hours. 3504ft elevation gain, and 5741 calories burnt.

Onto day 2 – although I need to restock on haribo……

“Why do they leave the hardest climb until the end?”

The thought flashed through my mind climbing up the seemingly endless hill to the Edinburgh Bicycle store in Byker after having covered 170-odd miles in the saddle. But I should rewind a bit and start where all good things start.

Way back at the end of February 2010, around my birthday as I remember, in the post I got the mailshot magazine from Sustrans, and in it was an article about Charity Adventure and the bike rides they run. Interesting article and I noticed they were local too, mainly being based in Yorkshire. And then a couple of days later I had an email from a cycling buddy, Paul, with a link. We’d been talking whilst out on a CTC ride about longer, more challenging rides and I had this mad idea about doing some charity rides (or a long single charity ride). Eventually I want to try and to a Lands End to John O’Groats run, but I know it’ll need me to be much fitter than I am now. I had always wanted to do the 70-odd mile Great Yorkshire Bike Ride after having lived on it’s route through the Yorkshire Wolds for a couple of years, and watched the riders sail past. Well, as it happens, I’d registered for that only a week previously. But the link Paul sent me was for Charity Adventure’s ‘Coast and Castles 2010′ ride, raising money for Sustrans. 170 miles in three days riding along the Sustrans coastal path from Edinburgh to Newcastle – well I was sure I could do that fairly easily and it was for a worthwhile charity. But it was the weekend before we went to France. And only a few weeks after the 70 mile GYBR.

Sustrans has a bit of a special place in my heart. I think if it wasn’t thanks to the local sustrans NCN65 path here in York, I probably would never have got back into cycling like I did. In early 2009  I was plump. 18 stone plump. I’d seemingly settled on a diet of bread and butter, pizza, curry and god knows what else. With a 42 inch waist and clothes that didn’t fit me, I would get knackered climbing the stairs and just felt lethargic and depressed. What happened to the skinny 34 waist I used to have, and the 14 stone of weight? I was starting to feel awful and I just detested myself. I had to lose some weight.

Heck, I was going to the gym every other day and going on the treadmill, the bike and the step machine. But not only was it costly, I hated seeing the reflection of the fat me in the mirror. Vanity isn’t my thing, to be honest. But I knew I had to get fitter, and for some reason a conversation with a random person on the train got me thinking. I have the perfect gym all round me. Why can’t I use it. And then one day in the summer holidays Michelle suggested we should go and feed the ducks on the river with the kids. We drove to Bishopthorpe and whilst walking along the path, went over the bridge where the fisher of dreams sculpture is, and realised the path we’re on is Sustrans route 65, and we walked as far as the secret cafe at Naburn. (We never did feed the ducks). I started riding along the path on a regular basis – the odd 4 or 5 mile ride which I thought was great, then 10, then 15, then 20 miles. I’ll never forget the day I did nearly 30 miles all the way almost to Howden. But also the people you meet. Every time I stopped at the Secret Cafe whilst I was drinking my cup of tea, another cyclist would pull up and usually sit down near me and we’d chat. I remember one chap had cycled all the way from Hull and was doing a fair chunk of the Trans Pennine route. I think he’d done 30 miles to get to where we were sat. I thought ‘if he can do that, I sure can’. Then it snowballed – 30 miles and then I tried a 50 mile ride. Which ended up being 60 miles and just awesome. From there a second bike (a racer alongside my MTB which is a whole other story!!), some new cycle kit, I joined the CTC and the rest is history.

Aaaanyway – I umm’ed and aah’ed, and cogitated and deliberated about the Coast and Castles ride, and eventually put my name down to do the ride. No backing out now.

There were three options for accomodation – hotel, camping or tour bus. I opted for the ‘rock star tour bus’ option. Sounded good at the time and I’d never slept on a bus before.

I think it’s fair to say I  was nervous – partially because it was the longest ride I’d ever attempted, I was worried about meeting people as I’m a bit of a shy person at heart, but I also was hoping I’d raise a couple of hundred pounds in sponsorship as I didn’t want it to be a ride just for me – I had to be doing it for something worthwhile.

It’s worth noting at this point that the entry costs of the ride (so the organisation costs) and the accomodation and transport to/from the event is paid for by the riders themselves, and that means that all the sponsor money raised goes directly to the charity and not to fund the ride.

Things don’t always run smoothly, though. Shortly after I’d signed up for the ride, things took a turn for the worst in our lives for a wee while. We’d had a bit of bad news but it was something we’d been through before, and we just had to cope with it. But the end result was that I had to have an operation and the date came through as the weekend after the GYBR. That’s good – but it meant I only had about 5 or 6 weeks to recover until the long ride, and the operation was such that I was told not to ride a bike for at least a fortnight and at best four weeks. I hoped it would be enough time to recover before the ride.

As it happens, I was back out on the bike again for short rides not more than 4 days after my operation, and back doing long rides (50 miles plus) in around a week.

After discussing with the ride organisers about which bike to use, I plumped for using my 20 year old GT mountain bike vs the new road bike. It seemed to be the best bike all round for the ride, seeing as there would be bits going across fields and on unsurfaced paths. My only concern was the fact that riding on the road would be more difficult on the mountain bike due to it’s knobbly tyres. Oh well, so be it.

Day minus 1 – York to Edinburgh.

I think I must have spent an hour or so working out what I think I’d need, and packing and repacking stuff into the panniers. In the end I planned to travel as light as possible but with all the essentials. With everything packed onto the bike it felt heavy, but I suppose the consolation was that it was only for this bit of the journey that I had to ride it fully loaded – for all of the main ride distance, the panniers will be sat on my bunk on the bus.

So I set off to York station with the sun shining. Used the lifts to my advantage as I was leaving from the platform furthest away from the entrance.

It’s worth mentioning at this point that even fully loaded up, the bike didn’t feel too bad to ride. The only time you really noticed it was riding up a hill.

When the train arrived, I pulled off all the bags and loaded the bike into the guards van. If you’ve never taken a bike on the train before, on the east coast trains, they have 6 bike spaces – which are rails on the ground with U-hoops and a strapping belt with a friction lock on them, so you roll the bike into the rail, and then wrap the belt round the bike frame and the U-hoop and then feed the strap through the friction lock (which is a bit like an aggressive airline seatbelt clip).

To save time and so the train left on time, the guard let me nip into first class and walk through to my seat.

The weather that evening was gorgeous – and really showed how beautiful the northumberland coast is.

Eventually the train pulled into Edinburgh Waverly and I went down to the guards van to grab my bike. I managed to get the lift out from the platform to the footbridge and then carried my bike up the steps to Market St. I looked at my map to see where the youth hostel was, and realised that way to get to the road I wanted to be on was 50ft up on the bridge above me. Oh.

So I started along Market street towards Cockburn street and realised it was all one way and uphill. And no entry. So I dismounted and ended up pushing my bike up the hill towards the High street. I eventually found Cowgate and the temporary youth hostel on Robertson’s Close. However, riding up the cobbles towards the car park it was only at the last second I noticed the almost invisible but fine chain across the car park entrance. Swerving to avoid the chain, I tried to make it through the gap between the metal post and the wall, but unfortunately a combination of SPD’s, luggage and handlebars conspired to push me into the wall and bash my arm and hand against the brick wall and floor, causing me to badly graze my arm and damage my middle finger of my left hand. Thankfully the bike was unscathed, but I wasn’t.

I stood up and shook myself down, and I think a large amount of endorphines was released meaning I just sort of got on with it. But I realised I hadn’t been to a cashpoint, and I needed to get the deposit for the room key. So, dripping blood a little, I got back on the bike and cycled up to the high street again to go to the cashpoint, and then made it back to the Youth Hostel. After a bit of a queue (where a russian family couldn’t work out what they were doing and kept interrupting everyone trying to check in!) I eventually got my room key, and also the nice lady gave me some antiseptic wipes and told me where Tesco’s was so I could get some first aid stuff. I dumped my luggage in the room, put my bike in the bike shed, and went to the shop to get myself a first aid kit and some tea. On the way back I picked up a kebab and went back to my room to clean off my arm, put on some antiseptic, have some tea and eventually get some rest prior to the day ahead.

I’m doing (have done!!) the Coasts and Castles Bike Ride this weekend in aid of Sustrans. If you’d like to sponsor me for doing 170 miles from Edinburgh to Newcastle in 3 days on my pushbike (and a hardtail mountain bike with nobbly tyres no less – not even my super fast road bike), I’d be chuffed to bits.

The Justgiving page is here but remember to put that you’re sponsoring ‘Mark Wayt’ in the comments as there’s one page for everyone (which is why it says ‘Rich Cryer is raising money for Sustrans).

And to those of you who have already sponsored me – thank you – it means a lot to me.

Update – Completed the ride and total mileage for me was 188 miles. Will write it up in the next day or two.

Met up with a fellow cyclist called Arti for a just fabulous day.

The wind was from the SE, so any ride out to the north of York would have been a killer.

So we set off from Copmanthorpe, out through Askham Richard and Healaugh and past Thorp Arch to Wetherby.

At Wetherby, we followed the A168 down to Aberford, (nice new bike path) and then up past Lotherton Hall. ‘Fancy a cup of tea?’ ‘No – Let’s carry on’ ‘sounds good to me’ . So we went down past the crooked billet and then a new part of the route begins.

Turned left up through Saxton, Barkston Ash, Church Fenton (beautiful route) and cut up to Ryther. I wanted to stop at the Rythre Arms but it looked shut at 12:45 lunchtime on a Saturday (no cars / locked doors. how strange) so we carried on through Cawood and stopped at a lovely pub called the Castle Inn and had a fantastic lunch.

Left there and carried on through Selby and then up and across through North Duffield, Bubwith and Highfield. Very hot now – we’re drinking the water bottles quickly.

Left at Highfield and up towards Sutton on Derwent and our first snag. Damn. 53-odd miles in isn’t bad though. So we have to detour up to the A1079, and with the wind behind us get a decent pace up along the A1079 into York. Stopped to admire the bikes in the window of York Cycleworks (a rather nice Cervelo and a great full-sus mountain bike) and then into the centre of York for a pint at the Kings Arms.

Once that was consumed, we were off along the river down past Rowntree Park, up over the racecourse and then cycled the solar system up to the Fisher of Dreams. Had a bit of a chill out at the bridge, then rode back through Bishopthorpe, Acaster Malbis and then back home. Just over 72 miles and a joyous ride with great company!

On my way home this evening, I noticed that (the highways agency/north yorkshire council/york council – delete as appropriate) had been working hard on the A64 northbound cycle path between Tadcaster and York – they’ve been resurfacing the cycle path, cleaning, relining and generally tidying it up. So thank you – we did notice – my commute has been made just that little bit easier

After the op on the 10th June, I was worried I would be out of the saddle for a while. Well the surgeon did such a good job that I was able to ride gently in under a week (albeit with the achilles flaring up again). A bit of a tweak on sunday lowering the saddle and pushing it forward a little, and a 20 miler proved that the achilles issue was caused by me overstretching on the saddle.

This morning, Michelle said I should just come home and get out on the bike this evening, and she’ll cook tea. So I did – left work at 4:30pm, got home as fast as I could and got changed and went out. I reckoned 25-30 miles would be OK for tonight.

Weather was really bright and sunny, and very warm – must be 22C this evening. Enough for just some super-soft and lovely Shutt VR shorts and jersey.

Left home and got some speed up out of the village. Wind was blowing west to east, so I was riding with the wind for a short while down to Acaster Malbis. Headed out along the river up to Bishopthorpe and nipped onto the cycle path to go over the river.

Left the cycle path pretty much as quickly as I’d gone onto it and rode through Naburn (and past the rather nice pub) and got some speed up on the road to Stillingfleet. I kept up a good pace pretty much the whole way through to Cawood. Once I was at Cawood, over the swing bridge and the river again, and then I took it a little more steady.

Riding out of Cawood I passed 4 ladies on their lovely horses. One of them exclaimed ‘Aren’t you hot out riding your bike this evening?’. I don’t know if that was a question or a statement . The headwind was a killer as I was riding west and straight into the strong wind. It was a struggle to keep more than 15-18mph pace.

Kept up this slower pace through to Ulleskelf where I stopped for a sit down and a drink for 5 minutes.

Then back on the road again and over the railway line and I put the power on again for a bit until I get to Tadcaster. Urgh – they’ve resurfaced the road from Ulleskelf through to Tadcaster with those blue stone chips which are always sharp and are liable to cause me a flat tyre. Thankfully I don’t get one. Still a bit of a headwind and very little shelter from it.

Out through Taddy I remembered that they were digging up the cycle path on the A64 so I turn left almost immediately through Healaugh. It’s only here – about 20 miles into the ride – that I start getting a very very minor twinge of my achilles. I suppose considering the pain I was in the other day some Ibuprofen and rest will be the best thing.

Kept the power on through the villages until I got home in a decent time. Drank nearly two bottles worth of juice but had a great ride (including setting off the speed warning sign in the village again )

Pondering a conversation I recently had around bikes got me thinking about things from my childhood.

My formative years were during the late 1970′s and 1980′s. I grew up in a period of massive change, but I find it interesting to see how things have changed for my children growing up now vs my own childhood.

The thing that got me thinking about this was around the bikes we used to have as kids, and how important we used to rate them.

For example, my first bike was a Raleigh Budgie, which was essentially a baby chopper without the gears. Once I outgrew that I wanted a Grifter, but I got a Raleigh Commando Star, which was essentially the same bike without the bright orange paint job and big slotted rear hub cover but had the same sturmey archer gears and the same tyres (with the red sidewall lines). Does anyone remember how bloody tricky and fragile those little links were on the Sturmey Archer gear selectors?  They definitely weren’t kid proof as I must have got through stacks of the S/A links. I think I broke a few brake cables too but I hardly ever remember getting a puncture strangely.

In those days we used to lust after each other’s bikes. I remember one of my friends had a Raleigh Chopper which was bright red and looked the dogs (re-reading this, you can’t help but think Fnarr Fnarr but it’s not intended like that!). It rode really differently to my Raleigh Commando star. My mate’s Raleigh Grifter was also a great bike.  At that time,  Raleigh really had the kids bike industry sewn up. The bikes were built like tanks and many of them are still around today. Just search on Ebay for Grifter or Chopper and they’re selling for upwards of £100-200 each. Restored ones can sell for much more! The retro appeal is still there.