around home, bikes, GPS, MTB, UK

Isle of Wight day ride

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It’s been one of those uncommon weekends at home – & more surprisingly, it coincided with some very nice early June weather. With no plans & wanting to see, before next weekend, if I could manage six hours of riding off-road in a day, it was the perfect time to finally head back to the Isle of Wight. This was my fourth visit to the island – strangely, the first in the eighteen months that I’ve been living just a few miles away across the Solent. On Garmin Connect,I found a rather optimistic looking, for me, almost-ninety kilometre course from an enduro MTB event that ran the week before; of course I could hardly drive to the ferry in Lymington – so that added another thirty-odd kilometres return.

I woke perhaps a little later than I normally do on a Saturday, but was quickly out the door by nine o’clock – I must have just missed a ferry so had to wait about thirty minutes for the next one. By about eleven I was in Yarmouth & it was heaving with some sort of carnival – that should have been predictable considering how packed the ferry was. But all the tasty food stalls couldn’t tempt me as I was reckoning on being back to catch a return ferry at about six o’clock. The first bit of the course followed a very flat causeway up alongside the delightfully named Yar – the number of Rs you add is in direct proportion to how piratyrannical you are feeling.

Soon I was climbing through a golf course onto the chalk downs – very nice it was too with great views in all directions (only spoiled by the Calshot power station stack & the Fawley refinery – both pretty close to home). The ride to begin with was mostly bridleways linked by small pieces of road – not the most exciting mountain-biking, but that wasn’t what I was really after. It was a very pleasant day out in the sun, with a brisk wind, and unlike the mainland there were very few people about. About two-thirds into the course I started to get a little tired, so the food stops got a little more frequent.

One of the nice things about riding on the island is that you don’t have to go very far for the views to change significantly. Also, unlike the Forest, there are hills – which are much more interesting than no hills. On the return from the furtherest point and closing the second & third loops (the course was vaguely a stick to start with, then three loops stacked on top of it) it started to become sealed lanes connected with bridleways – which I was OK with. Luckily I brought about half my normal lunch, as it’s more sparsely populated over there and pubs for mid-ride meals were a bit harder to find.

I ate much less on such a ride than I expected I would, so was pleased to stumble over a donkey sanctuary (whoever had heard of such a thing?) down a bridleway that had a small cafe with rather nice cakes in it (the carrot cake was saved for later & won out over the yoghurt & lemon flapjack). Of course, just after that I found a very quaint village with pubs – but I was still on track for six o’clock, so pushed on. All the singlespeeding recently has given more feasible options for getting up hills when one is tired – so that was helpful as there were still a couple of climbs to get up before the long descent back to Yarmouth to roll straight on to a ferry.

Back home by eight o’clock – that was a great outing where I could pace myself as I wanted and after which I was not nearly as sore as I should have been. Looking back through the riding diary, that’s the most distance on a single day I’ve ever put in on a mountain-bike (it was mostly off-road) & the second highest total climbing since I got my GPS two years ago (not even close to Alex’s climbfest of summer 2011) . I hope such large rides continue for the next few months every so often, otherwise the RVO will destroy me.

Monument & follies appear in the strangest places in the UK – this wasn’t even at the top of a hill.

The problem with such a long route on bridleways is the scores/hundreds of gates one must open & close – this set appearing suddenly out of nowhere were a little more over the top than most.

engineering, history, UK

Ironbridge

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With a fair chunk (more than half) of my working life spent making iron & my love of history, particularly industrial & engineering history, I was pretty pleased when I found that there is a World Heritage Site just west of Birmingham dedicated to one, if not the major, of the cradles of the Industrial Revolution.  Last weekend I finally managed to tie a visit to Ironbridge with some local riding.

It was here, in what was called Coalbrookdale, that iron was first made in blast furnaces using coke, not charcoal, as the reducing agent to strip the oxygen from the ore and leave pig iron.  Iron had been smelted in this part of Shropshire for centuries previously due to the ready availability of iron ore and limestone (necessary as a flux to remove impurities to the slag).  Charcoal had to be made rather intensively from carefully managed forests, so this always kept iron production low as trees take a while to grow.  It was a maker of brass pots, Abraham Darby, from Bristol who came to town, took over an old furnace & began experimenting with reducing the iron ore using coke – this was the early 1700s.

As well as cast iron pots, pig iron was also used to make boilers for steam engines, the first steam locomotive (Trevithick), rails for trains and iron for construction – it was interesting to see how such developments leading to our modern world were so intricately linked.  For instance, the blast for the first furnaces were provided by bellows driven by waterwheels – the water coming from dams behind the furnace.  This constrained the iron production in the summer months as the dams ran low – but as an improved supply of iron, from using coke, enabled more steam engines to be built, these engines were eventually put to use providing the blast for the furnaces.

There are the remains of quite a few old blast furnaces remains around the area & I enjoyed wandering around them & the Museum of Iron.  It was nice to read such words as blast, launder, flux, charge, tapped, cast, hearth, & rolling mill in the context I’m used to reading them.  I was also pleased to finally find out why pig iron is called so – something I’d occasionally wondered, but never enough to do anything to actually find out.  When iron from the early furnaces was tapped (released from the furnace to run out as the liquid it was), it ran along a narrow channel that branched out perpendicularly in multiple places to slightly larger openings where the iron was cast into ingots.   All these ingots were only on one side of the channel & they looked like piglets feeding from a sow – there you go, there’s something you didn’t need to know.

The hearth of the Old Furnace – that first used with coke.

An engine house on the left & charging floor up on the right.

Incline plane (two sets of rails on a steep hill)

A working replica of Trevithick’s locomotive

An old iron foundry relocated from Woolwich – you can just see the primitive rolling mill in front of the puddling furnace.

Kiln at the China Museum

The Tar Tunnel – while trying to open up a transport route between the Shropshire Canal & the Severn, bitumen was discovered.

While mostly exploited in the 18th century, some bitumen continues to ooze out of the walls.

I spent more time at some of the other museums in the area – Blists Hill Victorian Village is an interesting mostly-industrial themed historical park. Some of the features are original (blast furnace remains for example), but a lot of the buildings have been relocated from elsewhere. The clever inclined plane between the canal & river was quite revolutionary for its time. The problem was to connect the end of the Shropshire Canal, some sixty metres above, to the Severn. The tunnel, originally designed to link the two, struck tar – which made the tunnel more valuable as a source of bitumen, than a conduit for the tub boats used on the canal. The solution was two parallel railways on the very steep hill – where the heavier laden tub at the top pulled the empty tub up from the bottom as it was lowered.

I returned Monday morning to Ironbridge to avoid the sunny-Sunday-on-a-long-weekend-crowds to see the bridge around which the village sprung up & was named for. Abraham Darby III, the third in the ironmaking dynasty (there’s a term I never thought I’d pen), cast the iron for what was the first iron bridge in the world. Being the first bridge using the technology, they could hardly let it fall over & sink in to the swamp (river) – so it was vastly over-engineered keeping Darby in debt for the rest of his life. Nonetheless, it was a marvel of its time and drew visitors from all around the world to the see the new technology set amidst the heavily industrialised valley.

A most enjoyable part of the weekend wandering around in the sun looking at industrial relics – if you are so inclined, I recommend it; if you’ve managed to read this far, perhaps you are.

bikes, combe raiders, GPS, MTB, UK

Long Mynd & Shropshire riding

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Last time the Combe Raiders went to Shropshire to ride Long Mynd I was nearing the end of my time off the bike recovering from shoulder surgery & also, quite possibly, in New Zealand. Either way I didn’t make it to what was apparently a good riding weekend away. So when John sent out an invite for riding Long Mynd & perhaps more over the last May long weekend, I was tempted. After having worked out that Long Mynd is close to another place, Ironbridge, that I’ve been meaning to visit for some years it was easily to justify a solo drive in holiday weekend traffic & three nights away (thankfully airbnb kept the costs down yet again).

Somewhat unusually for a long weekend, the weather was beautiful on Saturday as we met at a local bike shop & campground – Rich had driven over from Oxfordshire that morning to join in the riding fun. Long Mynd basically means long mountain; while not much of a mountain really, more of a hill topping out at just over five hundred metres – it is comparatively long. We basically found different ways to ride to the top of the Mynd and took different routes down. I’d been advised to bring a bike with gears for a change – with some good climbs I was glad I had, even if the squealing brakes were somewhat annoying & I didn’t have complete faith in them.

We got some good miles in & with only three of the Combe Raiders (& some of the faster ones at that), there was a lot less stopping than with a larger group.  It was nice to be around hills & the scenery was superb – quite pastoral and green of course.  While not technically challenging, the downhills were long, fast & good fun.  Considering the long weekend & the surprising weather – we were lucky enough not to come across too many walkers as we blasted down the edge of the hill.  An impromptu lunch stop up on top turned into lazy basking in the sun sprawled over the heather.

All weekend I saw many vivid yellow fields.

John – also opted for ‘spensions & gears.

Before we headed up to the ridge for the last time we met John’s family and in-laws at Carding Mill Valley.  While the twins generally ran around in the sun, it was time for cake.  Unusually, there was not a single pub stop on either of the weekend’s rides – but I did manage to eat an inordinate amount of cake.  The last climb up was easily the worst – long & with little traction on the steep parts, there were multiple sections to be walked briefly.  An ace day topped off with entertaining the twins and a barbecue on the lawn of the big country house (of which the others were staying in an apartment of – not an empty country house that we’d found to have a barbecue at).

Just as I was about to leave after convincingly winning at cards (who says lunch times are wasted?), a plan to ride the next evening was hatched. So after a full Sunday, I was driving back to Hopesay where the plan was to ride around bridleways that John had picked off the map.

The only problem with picking random bridleways off OS maps is that you can’t really be sure if they are worth riding. The first few miles off road were a little difficult – route-finding was tricky & there were some overgrown paths. But we managed OK & the ride improved as the light disappeared – we didn’t set off until well after six o’clock.  It was still very pretty countryside (more yellow fields) and we got enough climbing and miles in to make it worthwhile.

After riding around Wenlock Edge (one of the the things about this place is the wonderful names: Much Wenlock, Homer, Mogg Forest, Monkhopton, Diddlebury, Ticklerton to name too many), we dipped down into the valley & up the other side.  We were supposed to bypass the summit, but for some time we’d been roughly circling an unidentified (to us) tower.  I couldn’t resist, so after a rather brutal climb we were at Flounders’ Folly.  Unfortunately we’d missed one of the few days it is open by five or so hours, so couldn’t get a slightly higher view of the surrounding countryside.  With one last downhill we headed for the road, donned lights & headed back to pie for dessert.

Flounders’ Folly – very difficult to fit in the frame if one is not inclined to fall off the edge of the hill.

Looking back to Wenlock Edge

around home, bikes, combe raiders, friends, GPS, MTB, UK

Combe Raiders Swanage Weekend

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For the second weekend in a row, I was off to Swanage for a riding trip.  To make a pleasant change, I had the short drive to get to a Combe Raiders ride – fifty-five miles instead of the normal hundred to Taunton.  Arriving early due to the afternoon off work, I quite happily passed time in the local bike discussing bike-packing & my next bike.

The ten others turned up in dribs & drabs; once settled into the dormitory/bunkhouse & John had dinner prepared we headed out for a quick ride before it got dark (after being told not to bring lights, I forgot to pack the small ones from my commuter).  Most of the trails in the area I was familiar with from the SSUK 2013 events of the previous weekend, although we did find a nice little descent off the other side of the golf course.  Up onto that ridge again, I had to walk about twenty metres as the headwind was gusty & it was just too much on a singlespeed.   The downhill off the ridge & back into town was just as good & is even better when someone has opened the gate on the blind corner halfway down.

I think this weekend away had been booked well before this was decided, but somewhere along the way it turned into a bit of a celebration of D’s fiftieth birthday – but perhaps that’s just what the guys with wives had to use as a reason to get away for a weekend of biking. Either way, there was special Combe Raider cider, whisky that I actually found palatable & a very enjoyable Friday night. Somehow I managed to avoid the rooms with the chronic snorers – snoring stories are much funnier the next morning when it’s not you that has been kept awake all night.

It would have been too much to expect two glorious weekends in a row – but Saturday was reasonably nice as we headed out to the lap that John, Rich & I had done last week (except they’d wizened up & brought bikes with gears – I was the only nutter left on a singlespeed).

Near the start of the ride – a pub we didn’t go in (well, I had the week before).

“If you’ve got time to hold gates open – get to the back & ride up with the stragglers.” Up the first climb – Isle of Wight just visible in background.

Rich standing in front of Swanage.

As this was the same ride as I’ve already detailed last week – just without the two-hundred odd singlespeeders – I’ll spare you the details, except I rode everything again. Normally, when riding around those with multitudes-more-gears-than-me I don’t mind getting off & walking if I have to; but this time I knew I could ride all of the big hills, so made myself do so – my knees weren’t so happy about that. We stopped in Corfe Castle because someone said there was a good bakery there – I had a great pasty & danish again. The climb up to Kingston was a bit easier this time around  & soon enough we were back at the Square & Compass – nice ale & I convinced myself I deserved another pasty. Back into town via Priest’s Way & time for ice cream by the seaside.

Come Sunday, we’d done most of the trails of note (or so we’d been told) & were looking for a slightly easier & shorter ride before the respective drives home. Somehow, it fell to me to cobble together a route using two photocopied OS maps; I’m not sure that was the best idea for those looking for a cruisy Sunday ride – after all I was riding a tank of a singlespeed (I still can’t believe how heavy it is – that had conveniently escaped my memory before I brought it back from NZ last year) & could not be thought of as taking it easy. Pleasingly for a group of eleven, we only had one mechanical for the weekend – & that was only a puncture on Sunday morning when we weren’t pressed for time. Coming off the Priest’s Way (this time riding up it) we found ourselves in the middle of a Wiggle sportive for roadies. For the next fifteen minutes we had a great time chasing down those ever-cheerful breed of cyclists that wouldn’t even smile or return a greeting as they whizzed past us. I don’t think one of them was overly impressed by being tailed by mountain-bikers – although the icing on the cake was when I managed to pass one up a hill.

I think this photo was taken to show the niceness of the countryside – very pleasant to ride through, if not as spectacular as some recent photos.

After we got over the hilarity at being sworn at by irate roadies that couldn’t handle knobbly tyres passing them, we found a descent we hadn’t done yet. Down the side of a ploughed field, where I was filled with my usual trepidation of riding parallel to barbed wire fencing, we were in between hedgerows and all of a sudden the trail got really rocky & absolute great fun. This was the part of the weekend I most wished I was riding the bike I had in Moab. We joined the main road back into Corfe Castle, joining up with the road contingent before stopping at the bakery again.

More new route took us north of Corfe Castle where we discovered a nicely wooded section filled with bluebells, other flowers & mostly-smooth fun trail. Up & over another ridge & we could see the village of the lunch-pub in the distance.

I had one more nasty surprise on the map – what turned out to be the steepest climb of the weekend.  Unfortunately, we could all see it coming – I was pretty sure that I would be walking up that as it looked like loose boulders at the bottom of a continually high gradient.  To get to it, we had a reasonable climb on the road where we passed more of our road friends again.  I was pleased to clear the whole climb – somehow I negotiated all the rocks before settling down to slowly push the pedals around & get to the top.  From the top of the ridge, we could see the weather closing in – there wasn’t much to see from the lookout, so what else to do but head to lunch in Kingston.

We finally got rained on, for the first time of the weekend (not bad going), sitting in the beer garden waiting for a delicious lunch.  The bonus of the beer garden was we (well, D – he who got sworn at) could boo every roadie that went past.  Then the road got slick & they started crashing on the corner in the village & it would have been funny if they had not needed medical attention.  With the rain set in, we took the easy fast route back to our cars in town.

So a great weekend, where the company was the highlight, the riding was good, the food & drink plentiful and I didn’t blow my knees apart – well organised John.

Biking to go places, going places to bike.