Geoff Jones

Inveterate dabbler in business, travel, gadgets & life

Category: Biking

Lifeday 25,633 and a new mini adventure starts

Cycling with Topeak MTX bag

It’s that time of the year again when Sally is about to finish another trip around the sun so time for another joint trip. Previous years have seen as go to China, Turkey, Morocco, France, Majorca and Hungary. This year Sally wanted to do a multi-day bike ride, she didn’t fancy taking her bike on a plane so a UK trip was called for.

So this morning we waited for the rain to abate and with our smart new individual Topeak MTX luggage system with the MTX beam rack all encased in the custom rain cover we headed of in a northward direction towards the Lincolnshire Wolds with a lovely strong wind from the South pushing as along merrily.

My new gizmo the “Guardian Angel Radio Frequency Tracker” – which I’m using to try and keep us together when cycling worked great! The mini siren sounding when Sally was out of range ~15 yards or so. Enabling me to slow down safely. How long its puny batteries will last remains to be seen. The device packaging needs a revamp as well for cyclists but I see its made in Taiwan so maybe when I visit I can get it sorted. Thanks to @embedded_iot @amcewen and @lyndsaygirton for the help in locating the location device 🙂

We made the 62 miles to the Admiral Rodney Hotel in Horncastle in a great time with only a couple of tea breaks. A bit of consternation on checking in as I had stupidly made the booking for next Sunday 🙁 The hotel itself has just been refurbished and is very pleasant with a great dinner. The town itself seems to have survived the sixties and is really a very pleasant market town.

The Strava is:

 

and some pics are here:

 

Poached Blue Eggs on Lifeday 25,577

Todays little ride was to visit the Blue Egg Cafe which is South of Great Bardfield in Essex. Someone at my party recommended it to us last weekend.

cycle.travel created a lovely 60 mile return route. For Sally and I It was a late start – after 11am delayed by a visit to the new Decathlon store followed by a rain shower. Unfortunately by the time we were climbing up to Balsham the heavens opened up with torrential rain making the road into a river 🙁 we sheltered under the eaves of a barn until the worse was over. We arrived in Balsham as the proverbial drowned rats and pretty cold 🙁 fortunately two of our CRC walking buddies were at home and took us in for a cuppa 🙂 sheltering in their conservatory, well away from any soft furnishings,  as the next cloudburst passed over. After this the rain stopped and we decided to continue on the planned route 🙂 through lovely villages and quiet roads except for 3 builder nutters in a pickup truck trying to give us a shave 🙁

The Blue Egg Cafe is superb with fresh home made bread and cakes in very large portions 🙂 A decent cafe stop and a reasonable 30 miles from Cambridge.

The way back was sunny but with a coldish headwind 🙁 The worst bits were crossing and recrossing the A1307 to get into Linton plus a footbridge and rough tracks either side over the A11 butthis was followed by a lovely surprise, a real cycle track towards Sawston!

Todays Strava worked from the Apple Watch perfectly and my new cordless charger for it works too 🙂

A few photos are on Flickr
Blue Egg Ride With Sally

Ride-Swim-Ride to Letchworth Outdoor Pool

Today I decided to go and try the Letchworth Outdoor Pool for swimming. It’s only 27 miles from Cambridge so I thought it would make an excellent ride as well as a swim. The cycle.travel website created a circular route of 63 miles (100km) with quite a few hills.

The ride out was OK apart from the busy road near Foxton where they expect you to cross it then return once over crossing! A total nightmare with the huge queue passing after the gates go up 🙂  The SPAR in Bassingbourn is quite unbelievable behind its armour plating and anti-ram railings! So reminded me of Creswell in bygone times, not a respectable Cambridge village.

Otherwise, a lovely ride and the pool was quickly reached in just over two hours. What an excellent pool it is too! 50 metres long 8 lanes wide, heated and with real lifeguards sitting on their high chairs on diametrically opposed corners of the pool. The entrance fee was only £2.80 with a very friendly cashier. The place seems very well run and very professional. The showers are great! clean, really powerful, hot and a decent drainage system all about as far removed from Jesus Green as you can imagine. The surrounding grounds are well kept with a lovely cafe area overlooking the pool with no huge trees to block the sun or deposit leaves in the pool. I will certainly return. The only slight downside is the shallow end is quite shallow but eh it will teach me to keep my legs high 🙂

The way back was quite a bit further and much hillier so I think I will give it a miss in future and just return the way I went!

A great day, tiring on my old Schwinn bike, with a 100km ride and nearly 1000 metres swam the Apple Watch even managed to record all the day’s activities correctly.

Biting the bullet in Japan

Thursday 27th April 2017 Tokyo to Onomichi

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Both Sally and my sister kept getting on at me for not trying out the bullet trains in Japan. Since I had a week left before my flight home I decided to bite the bullet (gettit). So yesterday I went to the main Tokyo station and bought a 7-day Tourist Pass, the kind lady said it was much cheaper to buy it at home. 🙁 so with that comment I then upgraded to the  Green Coach! like first class in the UK.

With the pass, the next challenge was to get a bag for the bike, since like the TGV, bikes are only allowed on Shinkansen in bags. My plan was to return to Onomichi and do the 7 Island tour to Imarari which everyone raves about, it’s only 70km so a lovely day ride with a railway station at the end 🙂

I rode around 3 bike shops (thank goodness for the wonders of OSM and maps.me) at the final shop, Bicycle SEO, I found the perfect bag! Designed for hefty MTB’s the Ostrich 5 bag neatly rolls into a 4″ Diameter 10″ long cylinder. Totally perfect for touring. Bit pricey at £56 but its really good quality (Wiggle needs to sell them).

Today was the first test. I walked the bike to the barriers to be given a firm NO, so I found an empty area, removed the front wheel (it has its own bag in the kit), took the pedals off and rotated the handlebars around (I nearly let the tyres down. 🙁 but no altitude change today) and wallah in it went perfectly. I was allowed through this time with no problem.

It was impressive to see a team of cleaners, 4 for each carriage all looking very smart & cheerful when the train pulled in. The bike fitted behind the seats in row17 perfectly, standing it on its haunches, then we shot off. Maximum speed my GPS said was 293km/hr (183mph) this was the first track built so not up to the latest speeds. Staggering the smoothness even more amazing is when two opposing trains meet in a tunnel there is no buffeting. The train arrived in Okayama, on time of course, where I had 3 minutes to change trains. Unbelievably, for someone brought up in the UK, the next train was 10 feet away with its door to the correct carriage exactly (i mean to within 1″)  opposite my exit door – total transfer time 3 seconds!! it then seemed I was waiting for ages for the train to leave.

At Onomichi it took me 14 minutes (will be a lot quicker next time)  to reassemble the bike and be on my way to town and the Green Hill Hotel right next to the ferry to the first island tomorrow 🙂 The town itself feels so much better than 15 days ago in the pouring rain. Although the guide, I met outside, from the Grasshopper Adventures cycling group said it was foul here yesterday!

The Ostrich bag has me thinking whether to use it for the plane, with judicial packing around sharp points I think it would work 🙂