Late afternoon and there was a fog bank during my warmup:
Started my threshold intervals and into the fog:
Friday fog ride!
Last pic, last ride for me for a long time to come. Long story short, a week ago today about 400m from home, at about walking speed had the most random fall that resulted in a broken femur (intratrochantar fracture) came home from hospital yesterday. Already looking forward to riding the trainer in a few months.
In the meantime, keep your pics coming for me
Ouch. Heal quickly!
Ouch, heal fast!
That’s terrible. Sorry to hear. Heal swiftly and completely. (“fast” and “quickly” were already taken, so…) We need your pics.
It’s been foggy here the last couple of days and yesterday’s fog did not diminish during the day. Though it did thin out a bit this morning where I live, near where I was going it did not. The weather forecast showed “fog bank” instead of cloudy or whatever. It did thin out at times after my 8a departure in a damp 3ºC.
In a canyon about an hour’s ride (across hilly trail’s, a bit shorter and quicker by road) is Höllgrotten and the Höllgrotten caves, 3k-6k year old limestone cavern(s) with tiny lakes and of course both stalagmites and stalactites. Well, beyond that and just past the first of two smallish hydropower stations (as you ascend this bit) at the large stream that runs through the canyon is this old wooden bridge and to the right a pair of bridges crossing the canyon.
The only traffic, apart from a walker or two, on this trail was a logging truck pick up already cut timber. No bikes were to be seen for another 2 hours.
During an easy bit near the end of the main climb, there’s a good view (it’s better in person and under clear skies). To the right is a lake (Aegeri) and straight beyond is a hill that’s part of my 10-mile segment that’s constant ascent (and no one seems to have done, besides my neighbor that I dragged up there). Directly to the left of the pair of trees in the middle-left is Gubel, “the largest Capuchin monastery” in Switzerland, which my “constant ascent” rides up on a road on this side of the hill and then turns right cruising along the ridgeline into the forest to the right of the middle-left tree pair and then exiting the forest on the other side of the peak.
Instead of doubling back the way I came, I went right after the major climb to take me on the Zug side of Zugerberg. The problem with this route is it is on pavement for a while, which is wet in these conditions. Normally, the view is great, but the fog bank is clearly visible below. There’s a town and a lake to the left (the orange poll is street edge marker for the snow plows if and when the snow comes). Straight and to the right, the flatish-topped hill rising from the mist is my target now. I’ll eventually get to it and climb some more, of course, to get to the other side of it.
Not quite yet at the “flatish-topped hill” (just on the other side of which is the middle school my kids used to attend), but I’m rolling to rejoin my outbound path as the only option to avoid doing so is a lot of street riding that I don’t want to do anyway and really don’t want to do with wet roads and lowered visibility (even if I’m wearing a high-viz orange jacket and have my taillight on, which I think probably died by this point, and my headlight on, which is going strong).
Baa, baa…
Here’s where I rode. The little “tail” at the bottom was an ultimately fruitless climb to a dead-end for bikes. The trail continues but it’s a reserve and bikes and horses aren’t allowed. Oh, and today was apparently gun qualification day as a few gun ranges I passed were hot.
Overall, it was a fun 4hrs, 40 miles, and 4900’ of climbing (or 4740’ according to Strava). A day of fours…
@bbarrera showed a heatmap… that got me thinking… here’s mine (cropped a bit).
This heatmap feature is fun… the canyon looks like lava.
I don’t live in a flat place and the 3D rendering suggests some of not-flat places are flat, which I figure is both a factor of limitations of the rendering and their comparative differences.
One of our usual routes today with a bit of a twist. It was a bit relaxed so I did a couple of SS stints you can probably see where the HR map goes dark as to where they were.
The twist was yet to come though as I was towing folk home (or at least what should have been the pub) at about 75% a deer jumped straight across the road in front of me, seemed like half a foot at most. Phew I thought as it jumped by without contact. Then bang What I hadn’t appreciated it was a whole pack and one of them took my mates wheel out! His collarbone looked in a bad way but thankfully after a trip to A&E it’s not broken.
The big twist however, there was no pub stop
Kind of reminds me of Ventura County, but CA is a big state …
Tule valley fog, this time of year it gets thicker when you enter the outer reaches of the SF Bay delta.
Good pic of a really thick blanket covering the entire Central Valley on Wikipedia;
Heading out for a ride right now and greeted to this:
The Autoumn colours finally arrived. Epping Forest, UK.
I just need some mulled wine and I’m set for my favourite season.
Foggy ride on the same route as last Saturday, which means briefly leaving flatland and hitting some rollers at the base of the Sierra foothills:
Lots of turkeys throughout the ride, here are a few coming back into town:
Easy spin this morning on the trails. I was going to take it off even though TR had McGregor-3 (Sweet Spot) on the plan, but I was bored so I went out. I saw a pair of horseriders at the start, a few people walking dogs, and the only other bikers were a pair of mountain bikers that appeared too clean so they must’ve been on their outbound when I was near the end of my short ride. That is was a light rain, about 6ºC, and at times foggy has Autumn trying to stay but winter winning out. There were a few days to wear autumnal kit and now I’m solidly in the winter kit. It was a peaceful day in the saddle that I marked “easy” in AT’s questionnaire.
I’m not sure what’s up with the no-power nearing the peak of one climb. I’m hoping it’s not the brand new warranty replacement power meter acting up.
I forgot to organise anything for today but I rode out on the off chance to the usual meet at Elton. I knew nearly everyone was sick/injured/away so I didn’t really expect anyone, so I only hung around for 5mins and then headed back into town to meet another group at Lynchwood, Peterborough. We headed mainly off road to Castor, Ailsworth, Sutton, Yarwell Mill, Yarwell, through the Old Soulehay Forrest, Bedford Purlieus woods. Then back on road to Nassington for a cafe. It was shut, probably for Remembrance Sunday, so we headed back into town to a Starbucks. Lol, we timed it wrong and there was a massive queue. When we finally got served it was bigger though
South of Canberra, Naas valley. The area was decimated two years ago by fires started by the landing lights of a defence helicopter, over half of the National Park was destroyed, and plenty of the old huts.
A new one for me but an old one in a way
After a year plus in my new job and taking the train x2 all the way and then walking I decided to cycle the last leg. I wanted to do it before the clock change but I came down with that heavy cold, it is what it is
I took the Peterborough to Stevenage train and then cycled to Hertford by narrow and undulating lanes. Which probably seemed more undulating when I was on a Triban 500 (which is permanently stuck in the big ring), carrying a laptop, dlock and other stuff too. It was a bit of a misty start and a fair few crests of hills I had to track stand as I was totally blinded by the light. The Garmin says it felt like an average of 1deg C and 0deg C at points
It couldn’t be more different tonight it was an average of 7deg and there was no light. A p’ture on one of the unlit lanes was a bit of a bummer. I eventually found a lit gate to a big house and fixed it there. I hate going a straight out and back route and it looks like I didn’t and added nearly a mile on to the evening commute
2 hour endurance ride, haven’t been out to the river in a long time so rolled out there and took some pics to share:
even better reflection of sun on water at the palm tree house:
only passed by a few cars while on the river road, pretty peaceful after dealing with school pickup traffic in the city:
Nice afternoon with temps around 16C / 61F, perfect weather to push the pedals in the upper half of zone2:
Name change