Sunday 25 January 2015

Sunday 25th January - Brampton Valley Way, Merry Tom Lane, half of Pitsford Res and some tand...


It's two for the price of one day on the blog today. Two strava routes, because the Garmin went haywire in Oxendon tunnel and I needed to restart it (so much more reliable on my smart phone ;) ) Then I've done two videos because I wanted to record Brampton Valley Way as one video. There's bigger news than that though. My tyres were inflated when I got Franz out of the shed and they are still that way now.



This was the ride I planned to do last week and aborted due to those divorce risking tyre issues. It started with a spin to Market Harborough and took in a few icy patches but nothing too twitchy. The BVWwas heavy going today due to the muddy conditions. Pretty good training though as momentum was hard to come by, it was a bit like a 14 mile turbo trainer ride except this wasn't the road to nowhere it was the former train track to Northampton. It's a good ride but you have to be careful of dog walkers, other cyclists of varying difficulty and a variety of oblivious other users who seem shocked that someone else is going the same way! For completeness I decided to go all way to the start in Boughton crossing and then double back round the A5199 to take Merry Tom Lane through to Pitsford Reservoir, 


If the BVW was busy the Ressie was even worse. As well as joggers with their range of bewildering running styles (floppy arms, t-rex impressions and a lady who looked like her arms wished she was on a bike,) there was a plethora of loved up hand holding couples and family groups making sure they occupied the full width of the path. It wasn't annoying, I was having a great laugh. I was hoping one of the many anglers would get a fish as I went round but none of them decided to co-operate. 

By the time I made it back to the road I was knackered. My flagging legs were lifted by the tangle of tandems that kept me company through Scaldwell, Old and up Mill Lane. I've never seen four tandems in a group before so that was quite a treat. Apparently they meet once a month

By the time I got home I was a bit filthy. Franz got a hose down and all my kit including shoes went straight in the machine. I was so relieved to do 40+ miles without any tyre issues and I'm going to celebrate that fact by converting the back wheel to tubeless. Well I have my own compressor now, so it would be rude not mess about with things that are currently working completely fine.



Happy pedaling




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