The 6000 mile year...

Once again I’m sat, with a beer, looking back on another year of cycling. My own cycling that is, not the amazing year of pro-cycling we’ve had the pleasure of seeing in 2012! Well done Team Sky, Team GB, Sir Bradley Wiggins, and everyone else that helped make it such a great year!

So, back to my own year. Since I started recording the mileage I ride, back in 2008, I’ve tried to set myself a goal for each year. Between the middle of June and the end of the year in 2008 I managed to cover 1089 miles. In 2009, I logged a total of 3573 miles. The following year and the mileage was up to 4211 miles by the end of December. Last year, 2011, I upped my game a little and took the mileage to 5364 miles. 

For 2012 I wanted to try and push myself further still. I set the target at 6000 miles. As most of my cycling mileage is made up of commuting to and from work it meant I’d have to put in plenty of extra miles on top of the basic route to and from work - I live less than 2 miles from work as the crow flies and only around 2.5 miles by bike! Time to get peddling!

This is how the year went...

January
46 rides
376.66 miles covered

February
47 rides
452.63 miles covered

March
53 rides
701.92 miles covered

April
33 rides
313.39 miles covered

May
51 rides
620.66 miles covered

June
44 rides
471.16 miles covered

July
39 rides
427.09 miles covered
*Longest single ride of the year 101.37 miles*

August
53 rides
549.08 miles covered

September
46 rides
609.44 miles covered

October
40 rides
441.23 miles covered

November
47 rides
480.80 miles covered

December
46 rides
570.51 miles covered

All that little lot adds up to a total of 6014.57 miles - 14.57 miles over my target for the year!

Using GPS, I was able to plan where I'd reach 6000 miles.

The cafe at Alvaston Park - for a bacon sandwich & a latte!

As for 2013... I think it may be time to have a year without any set targets and just enjoy cycling for the sake of it! Maybe....

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Climb every mountain...

Okay, so it wasn’t really a mountain, but at the time it felt like one! Today, I took a ride out to Alport Heights, the first hill over 1,000 feet you come to when you head out of Derby. And, when you take the route I did, it’s damn hard work! Were the views from the top worth it? The jury is still out on that one!

So, back to the start. I set off at just before 7:30am and heading through the outskirts of Derby the weather was dry, but cloudy, with little or no wind to speak of. The traffic was more or less nonexistent - as you’d expect for a Sunday morning - and I soon found myself in open countryside to the north of Allestree and heading for Cowers Lane. From there I carried on to Idridgehay before turning off the Wirksworth road and taking to single track lanes that headed up to Alport.

It was at this point that I started to think that it may have been a good idea to have checked the GPS data a little more closely for the route I’d plotted, the road in front of me was ramping up at a rather alarming rate! In the final mile to the car park at Alport I climbed over 450 feet, at an average gradient of 7.6%. At one point, my Garmin 800 registered the gradient at 22%! I don’t mind admitting it, I left my legs and my lungs on that climb today! When you add the rough surface of the road, the amount of grit, the grass/moss growing down the middle of the road and the water running down the hill it makes for a killer of a climb!

Garmin screen capture.

If anyone reading this fancies having a go at the route I chose to reach Alport, you need to travel towards Wirksworth on the B5023. Around 1.2 miles after passing through Idridgehay take the right turn into Barnsley Lane. Enjoy the short bit of downhill road before Storer Lane, Taylor’s Lane and then Malinscommon Lane remove first your legs and then, a short time later, your lungs. Enjoy!

On a more positive note, the view from the top was rather nice and having a number of Curlew displaying, and calling, overhead just added to the atmosphere.

The Cannondale Bad Boy takes a well earned break!

 The view from Alport Heights.

Radio masts at Alport Heights.

The Alport Stone.

From Alport it was a quick, and easy, run back down into Belper (top speed of 33.7mph) before following the A6 all the way back to the edge of Derby. A mix of cycle paths, parks and river paths got me around the city centre before picking up one of my routes from work back home. In all, I covered 40.48miles at an average speed of 16.3mph and climbed just over 1,830 feet in total. Not my quickest ride, but not all rides have such a killer hill on the route.

Stats from the Alport ride...

Total distance - 40.48 miles.

Total time - 2hrs 28mins 56secs.

Max speed - 33.7 mph.

Average speed - 16.3 mph.

Calories burnt - 1752.

Average heart rate - 156 bpm.

Max heart rate - 186 bpm.

Enjoying the start of spring...

Getting some extra miles in, by riding the bike during my breaks at work, didn’t quite work out as planned this week. I managed just one lunch time ride, of 5 miles, on Monday and then didn’t get chance again for the rest of the week! The best laid plans and all that. Still, it’s been another good week with a further 161 miles being covered. Of those miles, 122 were from commuting to and from work and the other 39 came from a rather nice ride in the sun this morning.

During the ride into work on Monday I heard my first Chiffchaff of the year with a single bird singing by the river near Alvaston Park. By the end of the week the number of singing birds was close to double figures. On Friday it was Sand Martins that put in their first appearance of the year (for me) when I spotted two flying around over their regular nesting site, again by the river.

On Monday and Tuesday I took a little time out to watch the sun start to go down over Derby whilst riding home from work. I didn’t have the camera with me so had to make do with the one on my phone - not great results but you can get a feel of how nice the weather was.

This morning I took the Cannondale Bad Boy out for a lazy few hours of riding. The 39 mile ride could have easily been much longer, if only I could have been bothered to put some thought into were to ride! I set off at just after 8am and just followed my front wheel. I had no idea where I was going to go, or how long I planned on being out. Not a great way of achieving a decent mileage.

In the end, my route took me out to Swarkestone, along the canal path to Weston and then Aston, through the grounds of Elvaston Castle before heading to Alvaston Park. Here, I took a little break, Hobbit style, and enjoyed “2nd breakfast”. A sausage and bacon sandwich from the cafe set me up perfectly for the next part of my ride!

The second part of the ride saw me head over to Allestree, Duffield and Little Eaton before climbing up into Holbrook. From there I passed through Kilburn, Horsley Woodhouse, Smalley and Morley before heading back towards home via Oakwood and the edge of Spondon. The ride served its purpose, in so much as I got some miles in, but it proved that, for me, the secret to longer distance rides is planning. With no pre-planned route I just fumbled my way around and headed for home too early. The body was strong but the mind was weak!

The Cannondale Bad Boy, in the

early morning mist.

Stats for todays ride were...
Total distance - 39 miles
Total time - 2hrs 30min
Max speed - 32mph
Average speed - 15.9mph
Calories burnt - approx 1705

Since I've been gone...

Right, here goes. After being away from blogging for almost two years this update could well be hard going - both the writing of it and for anyone who reads it! I will try and keep the past 20 months brief, but I’ve said that before on many an update!

Birding

Updating things on the birding front is going to be very easy... I’ve more or less given up on it since the middle of 2010. What used to take up most of my spare time for the past 20 odd years now fails to grab me in the way it once did. The interest hasn’t left me completely, I still make a mental note of the birds around me at all times, but the binoculars and ‘scope rarely get an outing now.

Maybe this break will see me return to the “sport” with renewed vigour at some point in the future. And that could be the reason for the move away from birding - it was becoming too much like a “sport”! Year-on-year it had become a case of trying to see more species; see more species than someone else; see more species in a set time. Blah, blah, blah. You get my point. Oh, and then there’s the politics of birding these days...

Now that the pressure of the “sport” has been lifted I can relax again - I heard a Little Owl whilst cycling home from work the other night, and was rather pleased by it!

Cycling

What can I say? Cycling is the new birding! Almost all the time that birding used to take up is now spent on one of my three bikes. I also ride to and from work each day. Wind, rain, snow, ice, even sunshine. I commute by bike. And, even though I only live just under 3 miles from work, I tend to ride a route of between 10 and 15 miles to get there! Committed? Or should be committed? I’m still trying to work that one out!

In much the same way as I used to list all my bird sightings, I have been logging the miles of each and every cycle ride and setting myself mileage targets for the year. In 2009, I wanted to ride a total of 3000 miles. I reached 3573. In 2010, my target was 4000 miles. I managed to ride 4211. Last year, I upped my game a little and wanted to ride 5000 miles. By the end of the year I’d covered 5364 miles.

Ready for another Sunday morning ride.

A brief stop for food and water.

May 31 2010. A lovely day with lots of warm sunshine and very little in the way of a breeze. I rode my best bike for just under 6hrs and covered 100 miles! My first, and so far, only 100 mile ride! There have been many rides since that have been up around the 80 mile mark but a second century ride is yet to happen. Maybe this summer I’ll have a crack at it again.

The Bad Boy, outside Derby Cathedral.

Motorsport

After years of racing in autograss, my mate Gary has moved away from the sport. He even cut up the old MG that he had won so many races in. Gary says it was because the car was so battered and twisted after all the hard racing. I think it was so no one else could get their hands on his “back yard technology”! There’s still not been another MG ZR that has done as well in the sport.

2011, and Gary was back behind the wheel of another MG. This time though, it was a little bit more advanced. The number 219 was now to be seen in the world of Rallycross. The old 1800cc engine, from the grasser, had been reworked and fitted to an ex rally car shell. Many people questioned his choice of car and engine - in a sport where an 1800 engine is a little small - but it’s a combination Gary knows and his budget isn’t huge compared to some in the sport.

All ready to go, at the first meeting of the season.

After the first meeting of the season things didn’t look too promising. The car was underpowered, didn’t handle too well and had developed an annoying fuel pressure problem that we couldn’t trace and had never experienced before. We left the track in 16th position in the championship, out of 23 cars that raced. Not what we were used to.

Ready to do battle.

Up and running.

We all know we have a problem, but who has the answer?

Round two of the championship and, after a number of changes to the car, Gary took 2nd place in the “A Final”. Things were starting to come together. At the 4th round of the championship Gary took his first outright “A Final” win. Not only was the car now running as it should but it was proving to be capable of running with the best. Or at least Gary had learnt how to make the car run with the best!

An “A Final” 2nd place in the next round, followed by a 3rd place in the “A Final” at the penultimate round of the season saw Gary with a one point lead in the championship! What should have been a season of learning the sport, and trying to develop a competitive car, had turned into a season that could, possibly, see Gary become the Super Modified Champion in his rookie year! No pressure then!

The final meeting of the year was at Knockhill in Scotland. Due to the distance, and also work, I couldn’t attend this meeting so had to rely on text updates and “live” internet timing to keep a track on how the day was going. Luckily, Gary handled the stress of the day better than I did.

The meeting was hit by heavy rain for much of the time and track conditions were poor to say the least. A combination of the rain and also a lack of track knowledge saw Gary struggle in qualifying. Heat one saw him down in 3rd place, heat two he finished 6th and in heat three could only manage 5th place. If there was any chance of taking the championship he had to win the “A Final”.

On the way to victory!

In the end, it all came down to a rain shortened, re-run, final race of the season. Gary came out on top, took the win when it mattered most, and was crowned “Super Modified Champion of 2011”! Well done, mate! You deserved that one!

New window decals for the 2012 season.

On show at Autosport International.

There you have it - a very quick re-cap of the past couple of years. Sort of!

I’ll be back again soon, unless enough of you post comments below promising me large amounts of cash if I stay away!

Ta ta!

Another target met!

At the beginning of the year I set myself a little challenge, I wanted to try and cycle at least 2,500 miles this year. At the time, I thought it should be attainable if I didn’t chicken out of riding to work when the weather was bad and also threw in a few longer “fun” rides at weekends. Well, today I passed the 2,500 mile barrier!

On the whole it’s been an enjoyable experience so far if you ignore the five punctures I’ve picked up, the numerous soakings when I’ve been caught in the rain and the occasional close call with cars/vans/buses that treat cyclists as target practice! February 3 is one day that stands out above most this year; it was the day I lost the use of all but one of the 21 gears on my bike due to the whole of the gear mechanism freezing up! Conditions that day were not good!

The purchase of the Cannondale Bad Boy in April had a positive effect on my riding and I soon started to up the mileage I was riding. In early May I completed the 40-mile Vale of Belvoir sponsored ride for the British Heart Foundation, the following morning I rode for another 25 miles just to spin my legs out. There have also been Sunday morning rides of 30 miles, 40 miles (twice), and a 50 miler. I also got a little carried away on a rather nice Sunday morning in June and returned home with 60 miles under my belt! The plan is to work up to a 100-mile ride at some point next year. Well, that’s the plan!

At the end of Sunday’s birding blog I posted a couple of photos taken with my phone, that’s because I’ve killed my poor old digital camera! After being with me for more years than I can remember, and taking over 7,000 photos, the Kodak gave up the ghost on September 5. I’d cycled over to Allestree Park to watch the cyclo-cross racing and after taking just two photos the camera died. The last ever pictures from the camera are below!

Cyclo-cross at Allestree Park.

As for the racing, I don’t think I’ll be taking it up any time soon. The standard of riding in the senior’s race, and the quality of the bikes, was way above my level! I hope to attend more rounds of the race series over the next few months, hopefully with a fully operational camera!

Just a little quiet...

Okay, time for an update! I know it’s not like me to go for so long without blogging but there really hasn’t been anything to blog about plus, I’ve been way too busy! Sounds kind of daft that doesn’t it... nothing to blog, way too busy! Make your mind up Rich!

The cycling is becoming more and more enjoyable since I purchased the new bike and I’ve been steadily clocking up the miles each week. I’ve also taken up a keen interest in the weather forecasts since the Cannondale arrived - if there is even the smallest chance of rain the old bike is fetched out of the garage for the day! So far I’ve managed a total of 415 rain-free miles on the new Bad Boy! My total distance for the year has now reached 1455 miles, so I’m well on target to reach my goal of 2500 miles by the end of the year. As well as cycling to work and back each day I’ve also been out for three longer rides since my last blog post. The first ride was a steady 20 miles, the second a more respectable 30 miles and then, last Sunday, I got a bit carried away and rode for 60 miles! As you can tell, I’m getting on rather well with the Cannondale!

A couple of weeks ago Lynda and I decided at the last minute to go and see The Bad Shepherds play in Derby. I’d never seen them before, only heard one track of theirs (via the internet) and didn’t really know what to expect. What a choice of gig for a Friday night! In fact, a great choice for ANY night! The Bad Shepherds are Andy Dinan (fiddle), Troy Donockley (Uillean pipes, cittern, whistles, vocals), Maartin Allcock (twelve string guitar, bass, vocals) and Adrian Edmondson (vocals and “trash mandolin”). The first three may not be too well known to many readers of this blog but Adrian Edmondson most certainly will be, as the violent punk rocker Vyvian in the 1980’s comedy series The Young Ones.

The Young Ones.

The band play a set that is made up of cover songs, almost entirely 70’s and 80’s punk songs. The twist - they play them all in a “folk music” style! Yes, it sounds strange, crazy even, BUT it works! The gig was brilliant and I’m already making plans to go and see The Bad Shepherds again soon!

The Bad Shepherds.

My birding has run out of fuel somewhat and I’ve “hit the wall”! Since we returned from the RSPB long weekend away I’ve only been out with my ’bins and ’scope twice within my 10-mile zone. The dreaded “been there, done that” syndrome I suffered with a few years ago has returned. I just can’t seem to get excited about chasing around after birds at the moment. I have added five more ticks to the year list though... Common Scoter at Foremark Reservoir on May 1st. Garden Warbler and Turtle Dove, again at Foremark but on May 24th and then later on the same day I added Garganey and Hobby at Willington. The “10-Mile List” now stands at 130 species. All I need to do over the next 6 months is find another 7 new species and I’ll have bettered last year's total. Sounds easy when you look at it like that but I reckon it’s going to be rather more challenging!

Bempton cliffs.

Flamborough Head.

Yesterday, Lynda and I went with the Derby RSPB Group to Bempton and also Flamborough. The number of birds seen wasn’t too impressive but I didn’t mind because I got to see Puffins! No matter what level you enjoy birds at Puffins can never fail to make your day better, they’re THE comics of the bird world I reckon. I just love ’em!

Puffins.

A combination of the excellent viewing facilities and also the use of my ’scope meant that photos of the sea birds were reasonably easy to obtain. The results could have been even better if the weather had been kinder to us. Cloud and occasional rain showers tried to dampen things down a little.

Razorbills.

Kittiwake.

Gannet.

Later in the week I’ll try and post a few photos from around the garden... just so Sarah can see what we’ve been up to out there so far this year! If I’m not too busy that is!

The new Bad Boy...

After all the stress of last week I was more than happy when the weekend arrived, even though I did have to work on Saturday morning. Normally, after a bad week at work, I look forward to getting away from phones, computers, cars and people and I head off birding, that wasn’t going to be enough last weekend. I needed something more. I needed retail therapy!

Now, me and shopping are not the best of friends. Never have been, never will be. The only time I feel as though I’m even close to enjoying shopping is if there are “boy’s toys” involved. A quick phone call on Saturday morning and I was all set for a shopping trip that I knew would be right up my street. I was going to treat myself to a new bike!

The idea of a new bike has been running around in my head for months now but I kept talking myself out of it for various reasons. I wasn’t sure if I wanted/needed a mountain bike, a pure road bike or a hybrid. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to pension off my trusty old Claud Butler either - we’ve been together a long time you know! A couple of problematic rides on the old bike, combined with a bad week at work, finally made up my mind. I WAS going to treat myself!

Ladies and gentlemen, please meet the new Bad Boy! A Cannondale Bad Boy to be precise, and its a none too shabby little cruiser.

Cannondale Bad Boy.

I wasn’t sure about the colour at first, it’s a semi matt black finish, but at the price I couldn’t let that put me off. As it’s a 2008 model the price had been dropped from £450 to £399. When it came to paying for the bike in the shop both myself and the sales staff got a bit of a shock as the computer price was set incorrectly. After much button pressing on the PC, a calculator and two other PC’s I finished up paying the grand total of £279! I came away feeling as though I’d just robbed them in broad daylight - not that I’m complaining!

So far I’ve covered almost 35 miles on the Cannondale and it feels pretty good. The higher gearing, narrower wheels and almost slick tyres mean that the bike is quicker on the road than the old one but I’ll now have to avoid some of the rougher routes that I used to ride occasionally. Like any form of transport you have to make compromises at times I guess.

One neat little trick I do like about the colour of the bike is the material used for the frame decals, it's light reflective. In normal light the decals appear to be a satin black colour. Add an extra light source, such as car headlights, and they light up a very bright silvery-white colour.

Natural light...

... with "flash light".