Rides 2021 +++ Add yours here +++

[leftpoole]

The River Severn here in Gloucestershire has a very benign appearance at the moment owing to settled weather - high pressure, light winds - and high tide is at the bottom of the curve at about 5 metres AOD. But spring tides can go to 9+ metres and the river though comparatively smal is perfectly formed to have the second highest tide range in the world next to the Bay of Fundy, or maybe third if one counts Ungava Bay 🙁
So although there’s a lot going on under the surface even now in the present mild conditions, it does get much livelier.

Photos:

Navigation beacons.
The wooden piers at the entrance to the small harbour of Sharpness.
St Mary’s Church, Shepperdine - a rare ‘tin tabernacle’ (a misnomer as it’s galvanised iron) dating from about 1914 thought to have brought over from Wales. A prefabricated church intended to be temporary but still functioning with monthly services.
CAKE yippee 😀

I believe this is the yellow Thorn I see around Thornbury. I have chatted with the owner (that is if it is the same one).

[UKTony]

Hello, John (or should I say leftpoole). I did wonder if this was you. So, Hi! Yes, outside Boots in the HighSt, was it just before or early on in the first lockdown round about  this time last year.  Still got your number I think so maybe we can carry on carrying on where we left off sometime.
Cheers.
Tony

[leftpoole]

Hello, John (or should I say leftpoole). I did wonder if this was you. So, Hi! Yes, outside Boots in the HighSt, was it just before or early on in the first lockdown round about  this time last year.  Still got your number I think so maybe we can carry on carrying on where we left off sometime.
Cheers.
Tony

Excellent!
I am as you and others may be aware, suffer with health problems. I have not actually ridden since September last year. I am walking most days. I saw you going up Castle Street a few days ago and I waved but you did not notice.
Anyhow by all means once things get a little more 'normal' I will be happy to meet/chat or whatever.
I know I shall struggle once on a bike again.
I just sold another (The Sherpa) and I have a Moulton TSR 30 and a Brompton T5 (old but beautiful condition). Plus a couple of Thorn, and a Thorn frame (new) to build one day.
Best regards,
John

[JohnR]

Here's my Mercury having a rest before tackling the most challenging hill on one of my regular circuits (minimum 24 miles but can be longer) plus the profile for part of the circuit. It gives the ardio-vascular system a fairly good workout. That hill is the first on the chunk of profile and, altogether, there was about 530m of up and down on the whole circuit.

[leftpoole]

That looks a lovely road surrounded by lovely Countryside.

[tyreon]

https://photos.app.goo.gl/Tvh9MraRkJFs17gR6

I had hoped to cycle Toledo,Avila,Segovia 2021. I dont hurry,the more modest the speed the more I seem to see and experience. Theseadays,I travel by folder(s)getting on trains and buses and wotnot as and when roads,weather,accommodation suits. I would hurry but it adds stress: oftentimes I like to 'daydream'. In the meantime,lockdown ending?,I plan to return to Wiltshire,home of forgotten Britain and strange happenings! A coffee or tea,some snack,some sunshine,and to be able to travel open road is enough...to ask for more is greedy

[UKTony]

A river genuinely that big only looks placid. Underneath it surely has rippling muscles. I also see in several of the photos a nasty little wind chopping up the surface: not a day for dinghy sailing.

Compare "the Mighty Torrens" in Adelaide in South Australia: it has a whopping great weir across it upriver, just out of sight from the Festival Centre's expansive plaza, so that a rather insignificant stream is suddenly a fairly impressive river (by Australian standards, not Canadian). Mind you, the Lee, which most international cycle tourers will tell you is a largish river in which Cork City zentral makes up two long islands and which at Cobh Harbour is a big estuary, to serious local cyclists is more notable for its origins among pretty and easy-cycling back roads within striking distance of a far (by Irish standards!) shore, where it is a fingerling you can step over without noticing the origin of a famous river unless someone tells you or you're paying close attention to topographical lines on the map.

A beautiful Spring day. A quick spin, 23 mile round trip, this morning along the flatlands of the Severn Vale north to Sharpness Dock to witness one of the highest tides of the year here at 10.36m at 10:03 am and grab a photo to compare with one at low tide (about 0.5m).
About 45 minutes earlier at Avonmouth Docks roughly 16 miles SW downstream, high tide was at 14.17 metres from a low of 5m.
Pleasantly surprised to find an Irish cargo ship coming upstream to enter the dock between the two wooden piers and then through the lock into the dock basin.
No coffee or cake today🙁

Photo 1 low water at Sharpness Dock 0.51m
Photo 2 Arklow Faith arrival 10 minutes before high tide
Photo 3 High Tide (Slack water( at 10.36m.

[UKTony]

A river genuinely that big only looks placid. Underneath it surely has rippling muscles. I also see in several of the photos a nasty little wind chopping up the surface: not a day for dinghy sailing.

Compare "the Mighty Torrens" in Adelaide in South Australia: it has a whopping great weir across it upriver, just out of sight from the Festival Centre's expansive plaza, so that a rather insignificant stream is suddenly a fairly impressive river (by Australian standards, not Canadian). Mind you, the Lee, which most international cycle tourers will tell you is a largish river in which Cork City zentral makes up two long islands and which at Cobh Harbour is a big estuary, to serious local cyclists is more notable for its origins among pretty and easy-cycling back roads within striking distance of a far (by Irish standards!) shore, where it is a fingerling you can step over without noticing the origin of a famous river unless someone tells you or you're paying close attention to topographical lines on the map.

A beautiful Spring day. A quick spin, 23 mile round trip, this morning along the flatlands of the Severn Vale north to Sharpness Dock to witness one of the highest tides of the year here at 10.36m at 10:03 am and grab a photo to compare with one at low tide (about 0.5m).
About 45 minutes earlier at Avonmouth Docks roughly 16 miles SW downstream, high tide was at 14.17 metres from a low of 5m.
Pleasantly surprised to find an Irish cargo ship coming upstream to enter the dock between the two wooden piers and then through the lock into the dock basin.
No coffee or cake today🙁

Photo 1 low water at Sharpness Dock 0.51m
Photo 2 Arklow Faith arrival 10 minutes before high tide
Photo 3 High Tide (Slack water( at 10.36m.

  14.17 metres from a low of 5m.  should read “from a low of 0.5m”

[Andre Jute]

Fascinating, the local knowledge that an observant cyclist can build up.

14.17 metres from a low of 5m.  should read “from a low of 0.5m”

To a sailor the fine distinction will matter, but to a cyclist a 9.17m tide will swamp his Rohloff no less regrettably than a 13.67m tide!

[leftpoole]

I used to live in Poole, Dorset. The high to low tide rise and fall is second in the World behind Sydney, Australia apparently.

[JohnR]

Last Tuesday morning, when there was a taste of summer weather, I visited my 43 mile circuit. It's a longer version of the circuit included in the ustrans Severn & Thames cycle map. I went round anti-clockwise as the section north of Lambourn is very open (but a very low traffic road) and vulnerable to the wind so, as the wind was in the south then I wanted to be going northwards on that section of road. The photo I posted previously is of the hill east of Ogbourne St George. The photos herewith are (i) the road north of Lambourn and (ii) the view of the Vale of the White Horse taken just before going down Blowingstone Hill.

[Matt2matt2002]

Out today for a wee run around Aberdeen city on the Raven Tour.
Given the inclement weather I chose to bus in an out. A free journey for me of 40 mins / 18 miles each way. Bike goes underneath.
I’ve recently moved on from Geocaching to Turfgame. Check it out to see if your own area/city has enough zones to make it interesting.
An interesting history to the game, albeit short.
In a nut-shell: each round lasts a month and the idea is to rack up points by taking/ visiting a zone. Nothing to find or collect as with ‘caching. More points – and you move up the ranks, worldwide, by country or local area.
Other folks can chase you and take zones you have earned. Watch other zoners live as the game flows. Not for everyone – and some questionable aspects to the game.
But I’m hooked at the moment.

Pictures show a stop I made at one of the bridges over the river Don.
The Wellington Suspension bridge: opened in 1830, at a cost of £10,000 and closed to vehicles in 1984. Restoration work in 2007 estimated at £760,000 came in at £1,000,000. Some figures to think about there.

The national Cycle path crosses the bridge putting me 112 miles from Edinburgh and 150 miles from Inverness. Spoilt for choice!

Weather has had a set back over the previous week. Spring sprang and then disappeared. Our daffodils are here and buds on the trees, so we must be making some progress.

Always something to see of interest. Not sure if bumping into the Scottish Green Party leader doing a radio piece at the harbour counts? Our elections are on May 6th so subdued activity from the candidates due to Covid. A positive in these troubled times?

Raven running fine – as usual. Such a good run-around for town – and it always ready for the next tour.

[Andre Jute]

Pictures show a stop I made at one of the bridges over the river Don.
The Wellington Suspension bridge: opened in 1830, at a cost of £10,000 and closed to vehicles in 1984. Restoration work in 2007 estimated at £760,000 came in at £100,000. Some figures to think about there.

Without involving myself in more than mental 'rithmetic, those numbers have a distinctly Scottish tinge to them: proper engineering and not a penny for show! A bridge that cost £10,000 in 1830, and only £100,000 or even £1,000,000 to repair 177 years later, was indeed solidly built. Must say your Raven looks like a proper gentleman's bike: touching the forelock!

[Matt2matt2002]

Thanks Andre. That £100,000 should have been £1,000,000. A typo I have just corrected.

Ah yes, a gentleman's bike! I'll take that as a compliment. Thank you.

Salud amor y dinero, y el tiempo para gastarlos.

[Andre Jute]

Salud amor y dinero, y el tiempo para gastarlos.

Is your first tour after the pandemic the Iberian Peninsula, then, or Spanish America?