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Posts tagged with cycling
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Scotland - the last post
I’m heading home tomorrow after a week in Scotland. I really enjoyed my time, it can be summed up as follows. Friendly people. Incredibly beautiful scenery. Great roads. Wonderfully considerate drivers. A bit windy. Agressive midges. If you’ve been reading my posts this will come as no surprise. If you…
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Scotish beauty day 7 and 8
I’ve combined two days in this post. Thursday’s weather forecast promised rain in the afternoon. So I set out on a short loop to be back for lunch time. I’d have been finished earlier if I didn’t stop so often to take pictures. I vowed to just press on and…
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Scotish beauty day 6
Another ride location ticked off. Whitelee windfarm. Again I drove there. For similar reasons to yesterday. It would have taken me over two hours each way, the weather was horrible first thing so I wouldn’t have left early. If things were different I would have thought about it. As it…
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Scotish beauty day 5
Today was a departure from the norm; I drove to the start of my ride. I usually like to keep life simple by using my bike for the whole route. Not having a car is also a consideration. Even when I did have one it’s just too much of a…
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Scotish beauty day 4
Out on my road bike this time.
Ayr Seafront - bandstand The working week has now started. What difference did that make to the traffic and my impression of Scotish drivers? It’s was good so far. Well there were more drivers, but the consideration continues. The drivers here, with a…
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Scotish beauty day 2
It was supposed to be an easy day to recover from the long drive. I know I could have just not gone out. But that isn’t me. I planned a shorter route, just forty miles. To be precise I asked the Garmin app for a gravel route of around forty…
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Scotland - Day one
I’ll start by stating the obvious. It was a long drive. I did it in about ten hours, probably left my house too early. Although if had started this journey later I might not have stopped at the Devils Porridge Museum. I’ll let Sir Arthur Conan Doyle explain.
Some more…
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Van Life
As you’ll have read I had two holidays recently and traveled by hired van. Why a van? Previously I rode my bike or used a train, which are both great ways to travel. But they place restrictions on what I can carry and journey timing. As you’ll see above I…
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OCC Kent weekender. Home time
As I waited for my breakfast to arrive I gazed out of the window. I was on my own. My companion for the first morning, Janette, went home yesterday. An American couple came in. I asked what they thought of the city. We started chatting about England. Coincidence is incredible.…
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OCC Kent weekender. The Main event
We met Sunday morning by the gate at around ten then split into groups and headed off. Two loops were available depending as always on how far you wanted to ride. We all left along a route that started at the river again, before joining: the Crab and Winkle way,…
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OCC Pilgrimage
Oxted cycling club organise up to three rides a week. It’s a big club and caters for a wide range of abilities. You can usually join a group setting out to complete a distance, average speed or with a time commitment to suit. Occasionally we get together with the one…
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Wales 2025 Part 4
My last ride in Wales had me heading west. I had a plan to visit Castell Coety as they say in Welsh. I’m not sure how you pronounce it. I’m sure it’s not how it looks. There was a cafe attached to a gym not far away. Disappointing to learn…
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Wales 2025 Part 3
Day 4; ride number 3 in Wales. I’ll talk as positively as possible. I wouldn’t recommend the route I took, especially if you include some of the places I went through. I’m sure there are nice places out east, but they were in short supply this time. The highlisghts: Just…
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Wales 2025 Part 2
I thought the first day was brilliant. The second was even better. Of cource any day that starts with a tasty coffee and delicious bun is normally a good one.
Little did I know what lay in store when I leant my bike against the wall of Caffi Lab just…
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Wales 2025 Part 1
The first of my holidays finally arrived. It had been a very long, cold and wet winter. The one nighter to Rye a couple of weeks to test the tent went better than expected considering it was my first time. But didn’t really qualify as a vacation. This one was…
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Leith Hill Octopus
A very strange name for a ride. I was searching the internet for interesting routes, and amongst the results was this one. Leith Hill is a famous or infamous climb. It was a formidable part of the RideLondons that looped through Surrey between 2013 and 2021. I did this event…
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Camping- bikepacking
Regular readers will know about my adventures by bike. I once stayed in a Youth Hostel, mostly it’s B&B’s and hotel’s. They are still my preferred stopovers. But they come at a price, one that it’s not viable to continue paying. If I want to do more, I need to…
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Going electric
This isn’t, as you can see by the picture, about e-bikes or AV’s. I’m returning to the subject of keeping warm. Regular readers will know it’s a recurring theme for me. I’ve got body, head and feet fairly well sorted now. Although my toes still feel a chill when it…
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Rapha Festive 500
The Rapha Festive 500 is a challenge to ride 500 km over eight days from Christmas eve to New Years eve. I’d planned some routes; I wanted it to include some new places and to involve a tradition and family visit. Of course this wasn’t something I could have contemplated…
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Loops or point to point
I’ve had three years of bikepacking holidays, so I think it’s time to think about the future. What am I going to keep doing, and what will I stop. If you haven’t read about these trips before I’ll summerise them. In 2022 I rode to Cornwall and back over five…
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Cycle clothing
It’s that time of year again; what to wear on the bike. I’ve written a few posts about my thoughts. They have been mostly to vent my frustration with my purchases. My biggest bugbears are the cost, and not living up to promises. I haven’t been able to test many…
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Cycling food - baking success
Regular readers will know I’ve written about food for cycling and also my attempts to bake bread. The energy bars, gels and drinks I bought in the early days were mostly very nice; easy to carry and did their intended job. But they were too expensive to keep using. Better…
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Stonehenge and the IoW
I initially thought about just riding to Stonehenge, staying nearby for the night and then coming back. Then I realised I’d be a short ride from Portsmouth; gateway to the Isle of Wight. So I booked an extra day off work, the ferry and a place to stay for two…
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Family
Last weekend was a family reunion. Over the years I’ve kept in touch with family on my mothers side. Not so much my fathers. I’m not sure why, I think maybe it was that they lived further away and were older. My sister had been conversing with a cousin for…
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The flat lands
Diss was my base for a weeks holiday. I arrived on Sunday after completing the Dunwich Dynamo. On Monday Ivo arrived, and after lunch we went for a walk starting and ending in Bungay. It was a good introduction to the local area.
Tuesday it was back on the bikes.…