#30DaysofBiking The Last Words (This Year)

From the Bridge on the Wheelock Rail Trail

Like a silly monkey, I did my last update on 30 Days of Biking with a scant two days of riding to go, so this may be a short update.

The 29th was a public holiday here in the UK, because of the wedding of Prince William, and Kate Middleton. I understand that it was a small affair, but you may have heard about it.

Whilst I don't wish the happy couple ill, I was uninterested in the event, and had resolved to ride in the morning, as the other members of the Monkey household had determined to make the Royal Wedding their focus. (It was still on when I got back - and 20 minutes of Philip Schofield desperately filling while very little happened convinced me I'd made the right decision).

I decided to take the Surly Long Haul Trucker as far as I could go on NCN5, the Cheshire part of which runs from Kidsgrove to Chester (51 miles or so). The Surly was the choice because I didn't know what the terrain would be like, and short of quicksand / lakes of fire, it can handle anything.

Another Bridge, this time in Middlewich

From Crewe, the easiest way to join up with NCN5 is to head for the Wheelock Rail trail (or if you're going by road, Sandbach station - turn right from the station entrance, and then right again at the industrial estate). Signage for this route is lacking at points, and sadly that turn is one of them - I'd strongly suggest printing, and taking along the map.

With that bit of route finding sorted out, it's a very pleasant ride up to Middlewich, on rural roads that are mostly rolling or flat, and there's enough signage for this portion to keep you on the route (I did have the map on my bar bag to be sure though).

At Middlewich, a missing sign meant a mile or so of detour. Once I'd found my way again, there was an odd portion that appeared to direct me down a road, but actually points on to a restricted byway. From the byway, one should join the canal towpath. Unfortunately, that part of the route was blocked, due to some maintenance work being carried out.

I had a quick bimble 'round at the other end of the byway to see whether I could pick up the route again, but had no such luck. Rather than chance the A roads that seemed to link to the next part of the route, I decided to retrace my steps and pick up the eastern end of NCN5 instead.

Foden Business Park

Heading back, I noticed this place (Foden Business Park) which, having fallen on hard times, seems to have become a dumping ground. It was a rare intrusion into the predominantly rural atmosphere of this ride.

I only had 10 miles or so to go at this point though

Once through Sandbach and Hassall Green, it's canal towpath that forms the bulk of the Church Lawton - Kidsgrove section of NCN5. It's a nice enough ride, but has to be taken easily because of folk out and about taking the air. The morning was heating up nicely by now too, so it wasn't too much of a hardship to ride at an easy pace.

Another Cobbled Climb at the Locks

There's still the cobbles, of course - and some "interesting" interactions with bridges (very low headroom, narrow paths &c).

In all, I racked up 40 miles at a pottering sort of pace - lovely ride, and I'm already looking for a viable route past that blocked towpath.

Saturday was the last day of the challenge, and I rode errands that day, taking the Brompton to buy paint for our back gate. An ordinary 5 miles or so in lovely weather. The Brompton has been receiving a bit of TLC over the weekend, as this tough little bike has been shamefully neglected in the last couple of years. The winter rides have done it no favours at all, and a new chain and cassette will be needed before next winter. For the time being, touching up the scratches, and replacing the frame protectors (Bromptons have a surprising number of cable rub points) will have to do.

So that's it for another year - we were blessed with some lovely weather this time around, and I was able to tick off some of the routes and "wonder where that goes" roads I'd had in mind for a while. Over the course of the challenge, I missed 3 days of riding - two due to family commitments, and one due to laziness, naughty dogs and the Tour of Flanders. I was determined not to do the "pedal the Brompton around the block" cop out that I occasionally resorted to last year.

As ever, the bulk of my rides were commutes or quotidian trips to the shops, with only a few at the weekend being notable for distance or speed. Whilst it can occasionally require inspiration to ride every single day, commuting and running errands takes none at all - why not give it a try?

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More Words on #30Daysofbiking, The Best of Times, the Worst of Times.

A sunny commute, last week.

I'd intended to write this at the end of last week, the third full week of #30daysofbiking,

It turned out that we were rather busier than I'd anticipated over the weekend (in a good way), so it's being written now, part way through the fourth full week of the challenge.

Last week was a particularly pleasant time to be out and about by bicycle. The weather was glorious, and the 15°C threshold for knee friendly shorts wearing was reached on several days (although still not at the time I set off from home). Commutes were mostly uneventful, with light half term traffic contributing to a general feeling that things weren't so bad after all out here.

Bluebells

On Friday, I took a quick ride out on the rougher part of the Cheshire Cycleway near to home.

The Bridlepath forming part of NCN 70

The ride up is on road, and then there's a stretch of gravelly, holed bridleway. It's interesting to ride for someone used to tarmac, and I discovered fairly quickly that I don't ride it particularly well.

Just over the bridge you can see in the distance on the pic above. The LHT is a heavy bike, but it should be ok...

My speed topped out at around 13mph on the gravel, and I wandered a bit on it, torn between trying to make the bike hold a line, and trying to stay on the bike full stop! Riding the crown of the road doesn't work here because of the strips of grass down the centre.

Cherry Tree & NCN70 Signs

Once off the bridlepath, it's back onto tarmac again, and as the sun warmed my limbs, the blossom trees along the route created an odd, snowstorm like flurry to ride through. Rather than retrace my steps, I rode on through the blossom to the main road, and then home. It was a short ride, but really enjoyable.

On Sunday, after returning from my sister's 18th birthday party (Happy Birthday Sis!) I took the opportunity for another quick ride, this time on the SCR2.

Another Lovely Day to be Out

This time, I rode one of the back road routes up to Sandbach - another old route of mine that's a quick 16 mile or so loop.

Granted, it's no Kapelmuur, but this Church is on a Hill.

There's a couple of nice hills on this route, and a decent loop bit at the end that allows you to retrace your steps.

No ride on Monday, (Happy Birthday Son!) but Tuesday meant that commuting resumed.

Another Bridleway, this time part of the commute home.

The half term traffic is still (not) there, and the roads are still pretty quiet, but I've had a couple of nasty run ins with drivers over as many days.

The first was a Cravendale logo'ed truck, that stopped at the same lights on the roundabout I was waiting at, about 6 inches from the bike and I. Now if you know anything about trucks and bikes, you'd be pretty worried by that. The driver gesticulated, well, something, in his mirror, I guess at me, and then roared off at speed up the exit to Crewe station...where he had to stop at the pedestrian crossing anyway. A pointless move from a "professional" driver. (The lane next to the one he and I were "sharing" at the lights was empty, or, god forbid, he could have waited behind me and overtaken safely).

Anyway, can you guess whether I'll be buying any Cravendale product in future?

Oh Shit.

As if to prove that that was not my day, I managed to hit a load of debris in the bike lane just after the Handforth Roundabout, and ended up with this (see pic) in my tyre, and a rather less obvious thorn. Then my spare tube was punctured, so a roadside puncture repair was my only option (thankyou, Rema, for your nifty TT02 kit). That done, I rode on, only to find that the less obvious thorn had caused a slow puncture (impossible to find by eye). It soon became clear that I needed to stop every mile or so to top up the tyre, making the ride home somewhat tiresome.

My last morning commute of the week was enlivened by another truck driver (no company logo) who took exception to my moving out to stop him trying to squeeze past me (he'd have overtaken into the path of a coach that I'd seen, and he, evidently had not, no less). An angry hoot, and a stupidly close overtake followed (again, with a now completely empty lane alongside that he could have used to overtake safely). I'd estimate he waited an extra half second, if that, to pass, and for this, he was entirely willing to risk killing me. It's dispiriting when car drivers indulge in this sort of petulant attempted murder, but when people who drive for a living do it, it's hard not to lose hope entirely.

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A Weekly Report, #30Daysofbiking

We're at the end of the second full week of thirty days of biking now.

Again, a full week of commutes lies behind me.  It's been a tolerably easy week for those, with some ok weather, and the worst of it being an annoying drizzle on a couple of mornings, rather than anything worse.

Towards the weekend, I've picked up a niggle in my left knee, that left me limping around on Friday evening, and hobbling at the weekend.

I'd already decided to do a short ride on Saturday, after feeling quite fatigued last week.  In the end, this was a slightly forced affair - we headed out en famille to Crewe, in the car, and I loaded the Brompton in the boot, and rode back.  An easy two and a half miles or so, spinning as much as I could to avoid stressing my knee. 

On Sunday, my knee was no better, but I was still determined to ride.  I ummed and ahhed about the route, deciding on NCN70 (the Cheshire Cycleway) in the direction of Audlem and Wrenbury, as I remembered it as being reasonably flat.  The plan was not to go too hard, spin the pedals in a lowish gear, and I set myself a goal of 30 miles. 

It was a grim ride, in some ways.  Firstly, my recollection of the route was pretty far out, rolling, with occasional steep parts, that made it hard to settle to any sort of rhythm in my pedalling.  My knee grumbled at every attempt to put serious power through it, and I ended up pulling that leg through with my right leg on the steeper parts.  My continuous feeling on the ride was that I lacked gears to suit my new pedalling - either too low, with me "catching" the pedals on every rotation, or too high, with my knee shrieking at the effort.  The bike I've ridden since 2007 was suddenly unfamiliar, alien, and at times only sheer bloody mindedness kept me rolling towards my mileage target.

With all that, even this ride had its wonderful moments - pedalling up through Englesea Brook, I saw young squirrels playing on a tree stump, and the spring flowers were in bloom all along the route.  The weather was wonderful, the roads quiet, and the views breathtaking.

With a functioning knee, this sort of thing is my idea of fun.

Riding back, I discovered a new part of the Cheshire Cycleway that allows me to cut out a dull, high speed single carriageway that I've never particularly liked riding.  Funny how a route you know can still throw up surprises.

Although it didn't feel like it at the time, I think "spinning" my knee has been good for it - it feels better today than it did on Friday, and I was able to put more power through my left leg on today's commute than I was on Sundays ride - hopefully it will continue to improve.

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30 Days of Biking

One of my finds from last year's 30 Days of Biking challenge. I'd have ridden this trail at some point, I suppose, but thanks to the challenge, I got around to it more quickly.

Last year, I participated in a fun little event called "30 Days of Biking". The essentials of this are that you pledge to ride every day of the month (in a month with 30 days in, naturally), record your rides (at the time, this happened on Daily Mile, and was one of the reasons I have an account there), and tweet/blog/flickr/whatever about them as the mood took you.

I confess, it's a fairly easy challenge to do if you ride in to work every day - as I already had a habit of riding on Sundays, I just had to figure out how to justify/fit in a ride on Saturday.

From the year I did the "Photo a Day" Challenge on film - it's like riding fixed, for photographers.

This year, 30 Days of Biking takes place in April - it's bigger, with a fair amount of social media buzz going on around it. Predictably, the naysayers have popped up too, to ask what the point is, to deride the idea that anyone *wouldn't* ride every day anyway, why it's not held in a "harder" month, and so on.

So what is the point of 30 Days of Biking?

Yellow - a shot I'd taken lots of times, in lots of formats - all you need is the weather.

Let me offer an analogy. Back when I had more time for it, I was a keen photographer, and one of the things I used to participate in was a "Photo a Day" challenge in July. Now I was purely a hobbyist, and no one was stood over me demanding my day's output - any pressure was solely self imposed. I have to confess that some days were easy - I was already at an interesting location, or I had my shot for the day planned - this building (above) for example, was a picture I'd rehearsed, and simply went back to take.

"World of My Garden" became a recurring theme on days when inspiration failed.

But the interesting days were the ones where my plans fell apart, or were non-existent to start with. And it was here that I felt the pressure of the challenge, and from that produced some of my better pictures (in my opinion, that is).

My daughter in "Why Princesses Wear Crowns" still one of my favourite pictures, and one I'd never have taken if not for the photo a day challenge.

I think that's what 30 days of biking has to offer to you - it'll be easy to ride on the days that you planned to, or do ride on already. Some of those rides may turn out better than you thought, like the planned pictures I had did (sometimes) in my photo challenge. But what will you do on the days you'd not normally ride? That recovery ride you know is a good idea, but somehow never get around to? Trying to do more errands with the bike, instead of using the car? Trying a commute, if you don't already? One day, you could point your bike in a direction, and simply see where it takes you.

In my case, I rode errands on the Brompton and released the Surly Long Haul Trucker from commuting duty to explore the local trails too rough for the SCR2.0 to handle. Generally, my experience of 30 Days of Biking was that it quickly turned a sense of having to ride (to satisfy the challenge's requirements) into having fun, exploring new places, and generally getting more out of my cycling.

If you already ride every day, your rides could inspire others, or give them some idea of what kind of things to do if they're running out of ideas. If you don't, you could find that the challenge is the inspiration you needed to try different sorts of riding, head for that trail, or that route you always wanted to, but somehow never get around to.

If you want to know more, Road.cc has an article here, and the UK 30 Days of biking facebook page is here.

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