Rothbury Mtb Trip

Well where do I start? cracking trip up to Northumbria with the boys at the power station, 11 of us in total a transit van for the bikes and a 17 seat minibus for the lads. Long old trip up North after a day shift a total of 6 hours so a good nights sleep was in order staying at Tomlinsons bunkhouse in Rothbury.

Day 1 Ride 1 

Ron had planned a couple of routes local around Rothbury taking in Simonside crags an impressive looking buttress overlooking Rothbury. Steady riding as we were all a bit knackered from the drive up but beautiful scenery if not a tad windy. some great downhill sections in the 3rd quarter with a stonking 47 mph top speed and a leisurely ride back to town following the river and a quick pint in the Cross Keys.

Shortened Google Maps URL: http://j.mp/kiICQH
Ride Time: 1:49:16
Stopped Time: 0:00
Distance: 16.57 miles
Average: 9.10 miles/h
Fastest Speed: 47.00 miles/h
Ascent: 1445 feet
Descent: 1413 feet
Calories: 1936

Day 1 Ride 2

The second ride was a shorter loop around the North of Rothbury less windy but with the odd burst of rain gave a great ride on some great trails, finishing of with a staggering decent down the side of the mountain, trials riding style that brought a few of the guys off.

Shortened Google Maps URL: http://j.mp/kAvtOt
Ride Time: 58:59
Stopped Time: 30:51
Distance: 7.97 miles
Average: 8.11 miles/h
Fastest Speed: 27.27 miles/h
Ascent: 720 feet
Descent: 605 feet
Calories: 962

Day2 Pennine way Scottish boarder

Day 2 and full of a huge English breakfast we headed over to Alwinton for the start of what was a monster route up to the boarder of Scotland and part way along the Pennine way. Wind conditions had fallen for the best part of the route but picked up as expected on the Pennine way ridge. All huddled into a sheep pen on the cairn we had a brief rest and some grub followed by some fantastic downhill action all the way back down to the valley floor.

Shortened Google Maps URL: http://j.mp/jTkdgD
Ride Time: 3:15:58
Stopped Time: 3:20:45
Distance: 22.77 miles
Average: 6.97 miles/h
Fastest Speed: 35.79 miles/h
Ascent: 3017 feet
Descent: 2849 feet
Calories: 2779

Day 3 Kielder Forest

Day 3 turned out to be the gem of the trip for me 2 great routes around the mountains surrounding Kielder lake, route 1 was a trip around the lake and following the lonesome pine trail a red route with some superb scenery climbing from the lake to a boardwalk and a fast flowing decent along the awesome skydive back to Castle car park. The second route was a trip up the deadwood trail a fantastic red route out the back of the car park and the staggering deadwood black trail decent that I came a cropper on foolishly washing out the front end on a pitiful little drop off. Followed the red trail back to castle car park which was also a gem of a route with plenty of drops and turns.

Route 1 : Lonesome pine

Shortened Google Maps URL: http://j.mp/megHpa
Ride Time: 1:36:29
Stopped Time: 1:27:34
Distance: 12.06 miles
Average: 7.50 miles/h
Fastest Speed: 23.88 miles/h
Ascent: 1185 feet
Descent: 1068 feet
Calories: 1523

Route 2 : Deadwood trail

Shortened Google Maps URL: http://j.mp/lOQpGU
Ride Time: 52:45
Stopped Time: 42:21
Distance: 5.40 miles
Average: 6.15 miles/h
Fastest Speed: 19.44 miles/h
Ascent: 785 feet
Descent: 860 feet
Calories: 311

Summary

A thoroughly enjoyable week of Mtb with a great bunch of blokes in fantastic unspoilt scenery, the chances of me going back to Northumbria are through the roof now, it’s a great place to bike with little in the way of the overcrowding you find in other areas 10/10

Witney Mtb club night ride 17miles (mtb)

Out with Witney mtb club on a night ride for the first time, great little route south of Witney for a change along some nice wide single track roads and bridleways, nice change from the normal mental speeds of witney wheelers, although if I’m honest I would of preferred a bit more of a pace, I have gotten quite used to flogging my guts out and have seen a huge difference in my PB on my training loop, I recon all that effort is paying off.

Training route 10 miles (MTB)

Blinding ride on my training route, knocked 10 minutes of my personal best so I’m very pleased with myself.

Ground is still rideable with only slight wet surface  mud with the odd boggy rut.

Polar stats:

Average heart: 168 bpm

Calories: 948

Distance: 9.8 miles

Average speed: 11 mph

Ride time: 51:20

Training route 11 miles (MTB)

Quick blast around a new training route to the North of Witney, It’s been quite hard finding continuous off road riding in a loop and I think this route may have cracked it as it has minimum road sections,  I feel like I can now train for off road racing over a realistic distance and terrain.

Nice little route but as It’s used by horses I’m expecting it to get messy over the next couple of months, I’m not expecting any improvements in my times until the ground firms up, maybe spring but winter frosts might help me.

 

Click on this link for route

Polar stats (From Home):

Average heart:160 bpm

Calories: 1064

Distance: 11.5 miles

Average speed: 11.3 mph

Ride time: 01:00:50

 

 

38 Mile Cotswold Loop (MTB)

Having been slightly lazy over the weekend and filling my face with all sorts of crap at work and at the cycle show in London I decided it may be a good thing to go hell for leather and try and beat my PB for distance on the MTB my previous being about 27 miles.

The weather was great all day so most of my winter gear was redundant for the day thankfully, I was nice and warm all the way which is pretty rare for me as I can freeze in the middle of summer.

Off out toward Burford and into the unknown onto tracks not used before, good old motionx app for iphone is invaluable in circumstances like this it’s a proper off road GPS that works really well given it’s only £1.79, just a quick check now and again keeps me on track and takes a lot of the stress out of the usual navigation problems around these parts, very limited signage in places so it becomes difficult to stay on legal routes.

Headed North toward Bourton on the Water then bearing right picked up the Wychwood way at Milton under wychwood and headed East toward Charlbury and Stonesfield picking up the Salt Way North of Charlbury.

Started to feel the need for some carbs so tucked in to my energy bars that I sourced from the cycle show, bought a bag of bars, gels and energy sweets for a £10 from the Zipvit stand.

Have to admit being the first time I had tried this stuff out it did give me an energy boost, at that point I was struggling a bit, even though my pace was slow I was not used to the distance so I would recommend carrying something like this all the time on longer rides.

From Stonesfield it was a short blast back to Witney and a PB of 38 miles in the bag, very tired and a few aches and pains but on the whole felt pretty good.

Polar stats:

Average heart: 146 bpm

Calories: 4142

Distance 37.8 miles

Average speed: 10 mph

Ride time: 04:17:42

18 Miles Night Ride (MTB)

Off out on a night ride for the first time with some hardcore riders and Damo another nutter from the fire station, met up on an estate in Witney then headed off into the night.

Not had such a blast since I started riding off road, cracking bunch of guys and mostly way better than me so I was pushed almost all the way, only one guy a bit slower than myself so it was a welcome break every now and again while we waited for him.

Headed off over North Witney God only knows where as I did not recognise half of the tracks. The new lights worked a treat although my main light gave up after about 17 miles, but we where on road sections so it didn’t matter that much, don’t think I charged it to the full so I will have to reserve judgement on it until next weeks session.

Hope to be going out again next week if my legs can cope with the pain of it, again I will say, have not been pushed that hard for a long time so it may be a great benefit for me over the winter to push up my stamina.

Great Great Great ride and can’t wait for it to come around again.

Click Link For Route   17.9 Mile Night Ride

Polar Stats:

Average heart: 150 bpm

Calories: 1748

Distance: 17.4 miles

Average speed: 10.3 mph

Ride Time: 01:41:05

 

Training Loop 10Miles (MTB)

Out for a short training route , felt really crap for some reason, maybe the fact I didn’t have much brekie? very slow going in the pouring rain, it was nice to try out all my new wet weather gear and on the plus side it worked great, I had a thermal base layer on which ended up being soaked in sweat which is not ideal, I ordered an Oxford ChillOut top last week but it’s a tad big on me so once I get the scaled down version it will be interesting to see if it regulates my body temp a bit better?

Polar Stats:

Average heart: 162pm

Calories:1021

Distance: 10 miles

Average speed:10 mph

Ride time: 59:01

Cubs and bacon butties 16 miles (MTB)

Out today with my boy and his cub pack for a sponsored bike ride in aid of the scouts for Witney.

Set off from Witney in a massive long line of 36 riders all in single file and probably annoying the hell out of all the car drivers having to wait at junctions while we filtered across. It was fun to see all those little legs spinning around  like mad, most of them in the wrong gears for most of the journey. The route was part off road and took in a few of my little tracks that I frequent this gave rise to the odd one or two struggling and breaking down emotionally  every now and again, as we were a group the pace was nice and slow so no long term damage done I hope?

In all it was great weather if not a tad cold nice crisp clear skies and a tailwind behind us all the way which was a huge bonus.

The official route was put out at 10 miles but in the end door to door it was 14 miles plus an extra 2 to get back home. Me and Robbie had a  great day out and it was a PB for my boy and all for a good cause.

Finnished off in style with a good old scout style  bacon butty, nom nom.

Polar stats:

Distance: 16 miles

Salt way/Wychwood way 25 miles (MTB)

Took a ride out on the MTB for a change today as the weather was really nice but slightly chilly. Went along the Salt way (Ancient road) just to the North of Charlbury from Stonesfield and connected with the Wychwood way

(  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wychwood_Way ) to the West of Charlbury. Cracking scenery as usual, typical Cotswolds very crisp and clean with hardly any bugger about.

Trying all sorts of things to keep my tootsies warm and even relented to putting some foil loft insulation in the base of my shoes, surprisingly it worked quite well and  I did feel a bit warmer down there.

Weather held off all day and it was a most enjoyable ride out.

Polar stats:

Average heart: 136 bpm

Calories: 2088

Distance 25.2 miles

average speed: 10 mph

Ride time: 02:30:27

North of Leafield

Just off the Salt way

Wychwood way looking toward Wychwood forest

20 miles of cold toes (Roadie)

Set off today in foul weather and was actually  looking forward to it for a change, over the last few months iv’e gone a bit mental on the net buying all sorts of winter goodies.

Kitted out in my new luminite  jacket, overshoes, sealskinz and polaris leggins I set off over toward Hailey and Ramsden, all going smoothly with the new gear working well, not too hot and not too cold, past Ramsden and on  to Leafield and Burford climbing some severe little hills, there are some right little shockers around here.

By the time I got back to Witney I felt ok apart from the bloody toes, no matter what I try or buy my tootsies always get cold, it wasn’t even cold really, it’s still in double figures for crying out loud, so I’m not sure what to do now over the real winter, maybe light a small fire under my pedals?

Polar stats:

Average heart: 143 bpm

Calories: 1219

Distance: 20.7 miles

Average speed: 14 mph

Ride time: 01:28:40