Monday 25 September 2017

All Behind Again.

As someone once said (I think it may have been the comedian Steven Wright) "The sooner you fall behind, the more time you'll have to catch up." Makes sense to me!

"When the spirits are low, when the day appears dark, when work becomes monotonous, when hope hardly seems worth having, just mount a bicycle and go out for a spin down the road, without a thought on anything but the ride you are taking." Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

The bikes, the lanes, the countryside, the fresh air, and the exercise have all been working their magic at keeping me going recently, as my mood has slipped a little and I've had more periods of feeling a bit crap. Things aren't that bad though as when they do get really rough, there's no way I could summon up the will and energy to pedal a bike - just getting upright in the morning takes everything I've got at such times. 

These periods where I start feeling things slowing down and an all encompassing fog threatening to descend, fill me with worry as I fear if the slide can't be arrested quickly then I'll sink lower and lower and back into places I've been before and not enjoyed much, shall we say.

Thankfully I have still got out on the bikes and felt the benefits of spending some time getting away from it all, and immersing myself in my surroundings. A lot of my rides are purely for pleasure as it were, sometimes though, times such as I've been getting lately, they take on more of an importance - I need to get out and feel those benefits, and really fear the consequences of not doing so.

But enough of the gloomery now, let's get on to the actual rides and some piccies, starting all the way back last Tuesday, the 19th of this month of September.


Warm sunshine and strikingly clear air - a great day to be out and in the countryside, although I started off taking this shot of Fatso in rather less than salubrious surroundings.

Uh oh, fuzz time.
It hadn't rained since the previous Sunday, but there was still a lot of water running down the lanes. Trickling water is a sound that often characterises the lanes around here for a large part of the year - you're never far from a river or stream, or just these little rivulets making their way down the many hills as the water drains off the surrounding fields.

The ford at Boswiddle was my destination, always a good place to head to when I need some rural invigoration. The water is back to running across the road again, ramping up the decibels in the process as it makes a wonderful background roar to my pokings about. 

I've taken a ton of photos of the ford itself in the past, so didn't take any on this ride, but I did see these intriguing footprints in the mud behind the ford. It's a pity the main print isn't a clean one, as it makes an identification a little harder, but possibilities include a Badger or an Otter. Sheer numbers would suggest the former is most likely, and the ford is in the bottom of a steeply sided dip with woodland either side, so Badgers could have Setts nearby without fear of getting flooded.

A sad sight was these two young rabbits lying dead in the undergrowth on the road between Ladock and St Erme. Quite what happened here, I've no idea, they bore no obvious signs of injury although I didn't poke them about to see. Possibly they were shot and dumped there, I don't really know.

One of those spots where you just know there's a good photo lurking, waiting to be taken, but I always come away frustrated at not having got it! It's a spot full of gates, and stiles, trees and branches, mud and tarmac, all good subjects for rural atmosphere, but this is one of only two shots/angles I've taken here. The other is on the outside of the bend there looking back where I've come from. I always have a good old mooch and a poke around but have never found another angle for a photo, which is more lack of imagination/eye for a photo than the location's fault.

Tuesday's ride was an extremely relaxing and rejuvenating one though. The Fatbike with its low gearing and steady as a rock stability make really low speed pedaling a real pleasure, and the lack of wind made for a very peaceful and calming ride.

Thursday last saw me once more poking Fatso down the road in need of more rural immersion, and when I say immersion, I mean immersion!

Sssshhhh... I won't tell if you don't.

Up near Lanner Barton is a remote footpath that I have ridden a few times when I want to really get amongst the greenery. This path bears all the hallmarks of once being a well used thoroughfare from the direction of St Allen and the church, it makes its way down to Idless Woods, where it meets 'the chute', the straight as a gun barrel ditch that drops right down the hill to the river. Most likely a Drover's path, this footpath is certainly pretty wide in places where tree shelter limits bramble growth, and ancient Cornish Hedges (earth mounds faced with stone) can still be seen on either side. 
Just to one side of the top of the path, where the photo above was taken, is also the site of an Iron Age roundhouse, although all traces of that have now long since disappeared. Who knows how old this path really is then.

It was drizzly grizzly when I set off, and also knowing that I'd be doing a bit of bush busting, I had donned my over trousers before setting off. Baggy trousers is not just a Madness single, but a fashion statement round my way.
This footpath is nowadays not well used, as evidenced by the thickness of the undergrowth. Although, saying that, it's not looking too bad above is it...

Wherrrr... fwarrrrpppp...
I had to get off and push at one point as the vegetation was simply too thick to ride through. In the photo above I'd just had my arm dragged off the bars by a gert big bramble and a crash was only very narrowly avoided.
You can always tell when you've been out in the countryside because you get home either smelly, muddy, wet, or with skin and clothes ripped to shreds. I ticked the boxes marked wet and ripped on this ride, even my right ear started leaking blood freely thanks to the attentions of a bramble, and how my jacket and over trollies remain in one piece I don't know. The post ride shower was definitely a stingy affair, despite my legs being covered by two pairs of trousers.

Busting out the thick stuff the width of the path becomes a little more apparent, the trees on either side marking the boundaries. Most of those trees are growing out of the top of the Cornish Hedges, and this is often no accident, as plants and trees were planted along the tops of the earth bank to add height to the wind breaking properties of the hedge. They're called hedges rather than walls because of this living part of their make up, as said, done by design rather than accident, and because over time, the facing stones become hidden behind various types of vegetation growing out of the sides, often displacing stones as it does so. Visitors to the County have often found out the hard way that an apparently soft looking hedge is actually an unforgiving granite car reshaper wearing a clever disguise.

In some places, the facing stones are quite visible, and the 'hedge' is also more of a traditional wall, the central earth bank being a chunk thinner.

Once again, the true width of the path can be clearly seen between the banks, and also another footpath, with ancient Cornish granite stile, joins just off to the left in this photo. Not much chance of me following that path though, not with a bike at any rate.
Poking around this path you can't help but wonder just how old it is, and who has been along it in the past.

After about a mile and a half, I have to turn back, having reached this gate and stile. One day I'll take a bravery pill, get the bike through that gate and follow the path some more as it runs along the edge of farmland before running into Idless Woods.

So, back the way I'd come I go...
I love paths like this though, they are seldom used by walkers it would appear, and yet were once busy with human and animal traffic in the past. The A30 of their day perhaps.
I love the remoteness of a couple of these footpaths that I ride as well. They're miles from anywhere really, and that's where they meet the road. Take the paths and you end up going where you can easily believe you're the only person for miles around, in places most people (other than a few farmers perhaps) will never see.

Now we're up to yesterday, (Sunday), the 24th and once more I headed out in the same direction as the previous ride, but this time would nip through the woods to knock a corner off and save a mile or two.

Lanner Mill and the entrance I use to Idless Woods. Bike du Jour this time was the Voodoo.

 Taking a breather at the top of the first hill that you need to climb to access the middle and upper paths through the woods. The initial slope is steep (for me...), rutty and stony, and I've never got all the way up it on the Voodoo as I always end up getting derailed by some large stone or the front wheel getting pushed about by the ruts. Fatso meanwhile just bimbles straight up, ambling over all the lumps and bumps with considerable aplomb. But, I'd taken the Voodoo so had to reacquaint myself with the joys of pushing a blubber lugger of a bike.
From this spot, the left bend that marks the end of the steep and rutty section, the gradient is easier and the track smoother, so after a brief stop to allow legs and lungs to recover for a photo, I was able to jump step back on and enjoy the erm, joys, of narrow tyres off road again. Hmmmm... Definitely a slippy slidey affair compared to my usual off roader of choice these days, Fatso.

Overnight drizzle had given way to half hearted, hazy, sunshine, and all around was the sound of water dripping off the trees. Not just the sound either as I copped a drip the size of a small bucketful, right on the back of my neck while setting this shot up. Or maybe I'd just been bombed by a mischievous Gull or Pigeon... hard to tell when you can't see just what splatted you so comprehensively on the nape of the neck.

Not Idless Woods this one, but the Watts Nature Reserve at Shortlanesend.
I always have a trip around the reserve when I'm passing, as it is a nice enough way to spend a few minutes. I finally encountered some wildlife too - a grey, thick tailed beast with alarmingly sharp looking front teeth. Yep, a Squirrel. I guess all the exotic stuff the info boards promise have Sundays off...

An almost suspiciously neat looking arrangement of Autumnal deadness lying on the boardwalk of the nature reserve. Maybe someone just before me had arranged these leaves into this little group, or maybe it was just a little 'eddy' of light wind. Who knows, but this neat little cluster amongst the random leafy scatter caught the eye.

The lanes on the North Westerly side of Truro are riddled with fords, so always a pleasure for a splash loving big kid like me. This lane, narrow and on a Sunday, reasonably quiet, is a busy rat run on a weekday as people use this route to access Treliske Hospital without having to drag through the town.

Well, that's that really. The photos I took on these latest rides were a bit disjointed, as photography wasn't really the priority, but the rides have done me a power of good, as they do most of the time. It really is amazing how a simple ride on a bicycle can do so much more than tablets and 'pulling your socks up' can ever achieve.

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Wednesday 13 September 2017

Action From The Woods, The Lanes, And The Back Garden.

Any fuzzy looking photos at your end (and I can see plenty my end), right click and open in a new tab will see 'em nice and big and without all the fuzziness.

A couple of rides and some fiddling to catch up on.

We'll start at the beginning (when I worked in an Auction room, one of the daft questions people sometimes asked was 'Do you start at lot one or at the beginning?' None of us could figure out how you'd come to ask that question, but ask it a surprising number of folk did). 

I spent Saturday night wondering where the sun had gone, then it dawned on me... 

Ahem, moving on swiftly, Sunday morning wasn't looking as bad as weather girl Holly the Brolly had warned it might be. The forecast told of imminent gales and rain that'd strip paint from outhouse walls and the girders of bridges such would be the ferocity of the showers that were coming our way. But on gaining the vertical and peering out of the window, it looked alright out, good enough for a chunter about, but having been caught in the mother and father of rain showers recently, I wasn't going to take any chances, so donned waterproofs this time, and set sail for Ladock Woods. 

 Velo du Jour was Fatso once again.

A little dash of colour on an otherwise rather dull looking Sunday.

 Risk of skid eh? Worr yeah! Bring it on! The lane twixt Boswiddle and the Ladock Road has finally been resurfaced. It didn't need it, but resurfaced it has been.

Even going at maximum chooch, I couldn't get the bike to ping gravel like the sign shows. Must try harder next time.
The only noise to be heard was the delightful crackle of the tyres on the chippings and the 'swoosh - swoosh, swoosh - swoosh' of my over trousers as I made my way along dry roads, feeling just a little over dressed, but the forecast had predicted much turbulence and wetness, so we'd see, I might have the last laugh yet.


Negotiating the steep downhill to Boswiddle Ford on the loose chippings was a buttock clenching affair, my saddle had a newly formed ridge up the middle when I reached the bottom, but a big grin broke out across my face as I turned the last bend and saw the water was running across the road again for the first time since very early spring. This was due to some hefty showers during the day before no doubt, and I daresay the level will have receded again now.

 Hmmmm... looks fuzzy to me...

Ladock Woods are owned by the Duchy of Cornwall, and I'm not entirely sure what they feel about bike riding in there. There's nothing to say you can ride a bike in the woods, but nothing to say you can't. So I tend to go in on a Sunday for my potters about, 'cos if the forestry boys aren't working, nobody can tell me to beggar off out of it.

 The woods are home to all sorts of Fungi, this tiddler being a Puffball I think. Once I'd spotted this one, I started seeing more and more of them. Only small and easily missed, but they were everywhere in this part of the wood.

More of these weird shapes have appeared since my last visit. Lots of these 'sculptures' for want of a better word, are dotted about and when you catch a glimpse of one out of the corner of your eye they can make you jump in a "What the chuff is that?" kind of way. There's a lot of forestry work going on at the moment, plenty of felling and clearing going on, so I suspect the forestry workers are the ones decorating the area with these striking bits of old tree. I hope they're left there too, but no doubt some clipboard carrying Health and Safety type will worry about them falling over and injuring someone or something, seeing as the public are allowed in the woods.


Most of the wood was surprisingly navigable and free of claggy gloop, but I did find the occasional bog blocking my way. Blocking is the right word too, as I bottled out on this occasion and took another, less sloppy looking, path.

That was it photo wise, I made my home again with bike and body refreshingly free of mud, but also wetter through sweat than through the light drizzle that I encountered on leaving the woods. So much for the forecast then, I needn't have bothered with waterproofs after all. So I made it home without meteorological molestation, to have a hot shower followed by Chicken Noodle soup in front of a Columbo repeat on the telly. Lovely.

Right, we're almost up to date now, just yesterday's doings and we're there.

I was feeling unusually, but pleasingly, fit yesterday, both mentally and physically. Every now and then I wake up and instantly feel my back is moving more freely and without pain and yesterday was such an occasion. I don't know why or what happens during the night to randomly free it all up, but it is a fantastic feeling when it happens, even if the range of movement is still limited (such as how far I can look up or side to side and so on).
So a good day was in prospect and wanting to make the most of it, I planned to make it a productive one.
First item on the agenda was a quick ride of course, but on this occasion I was going to throw caution to the wind, and ride my usual Tregassow Loop, the other way around. Oh yes, instead of my usual anti clockwise course, yesterday I left the way I normally arrive and set about a clockwise circumnavigation. I know how to live life on the edge alright, proper dare devil me.

 Heading out of the village the way I normally come in. This used to be a main road I'm about to join - the A39. Back in the day you could've leaned out the upstairs window of one of those cottages, stuck your tongue out, and licked a stripe up the side of a passing truck. Thankfully the main road has been realigned so it by-passes the village now.

That's the entrance to a new build estate on the left. As is often the case with these affairs, the entrance doesn't look too bad. The houses well presented and have space around them. Go into the estate though and you find they're all crammed in a lot tighter. At least some of them, including this one on the corner, are reasonably  in keeping with the location and not just universal red brick anonohouses. 
Nice day for a bimble.

 Random shot in the lanes.

T'was nothing to do with me, that gate was on the ground when I got there, honest. 

Oh no... I've been and gone and joined the ranks of the Selfie Stick Dicks, and taken a photo of my manly mush as I was chooching along. I hate having my photo taken, especially up so close, but something weird came over me, and before I knew it, I was using the selfie stick as it was intended rather than my usual practice of dangling it down by the wheels or something. 
Obviously I need to repent this considerable sin, so shall repeatedly beat myself on the bum with a rolled up copy of Cycling Weekly to atone myself.

 A fuzzy looking Five Turnings junction. The fifth direction a just landed parachutist (or Alien visitor) could take, is just out of shot on the left.

A mucky Marin in Tregassow Lane.

Back at Bimble Towers and time for a bit of TLC.

 Fuzziness not just water on the lens, but from Google's upload/transfer process somewhere. Well, it's fuzzy on my screen anyway.
I know a lot of folk say never to use a pressure washer because bad things will happen, and your bike will be killed to death, many times over, but they are fine when used with just a little amount of thought and care, and make light work of bike cleaning.

Hoi mate! You missed a bit! Not hard to spot who forgot to wash under the front mudguard...
Both the Marin and Fatso got washed, but the Fatty was lined up for a bit more attention. Firstly, I bunged on the new chain I bought last week, a job made so easy by the quick link, and by using a cable tie looped through a couple of links near the join, to pull the two halves together against the spring of the rear derailleur and put some slack into the ends to be joined.
The wheels were off because I wanted to swap the tyres over front to back. The rear one was starting to look a bit worn, while the front was still looking peachy (it's the immense wattage I put through the pedals and into the rear wheel clearly...). Getting the tyres on and off is an absolute doddle, no levers required at all. The hardest part though is getting the buggas seated properly on the rims - a well known issue with the On One Floaters. 
Why is Fatso there upside down when I clearly have a maintenance stand? The front wheel is fine, but for the life of me, I just cannot get the back wheel in place when the bike is in the stand. I get in a right kerschmuckle. Upside down though, a little lift of the jockey wheel, a deft flick of the rear hoop and boom! Straight in she goes.

I also fitted 26 x 4.0 Schwalbe inner tubes, replacing the 26 x 3.0 tubes that On One fit, as I reckoned they'd fill out the tyre more, and seat that bead around the rim better. I was partly right, as seating was a lot easier than in the past, which involved lots of deflating to try again, and messing about with all sorts of slippery fluids on the rims. This time it went a lot better, but on each tyre there is still one area where the bead line disappears behind the rim. These tyres are great for riding with, but they are an almighty pain in the posterior to get seated. I will drop some air out of them (currently over inflated at 30 psi each to seat them) and see how it rides. If they feel ok  and I'm not bobbing up and down like a clown with egg shaped wheels, I'll leave 'em as is, life is too short for beggaring about trying to seat the darned tyres!

But still, I'd had a ride, washed two of the steeds, and done a couple of jobs on Fatso that needed doing, so it was a satisfying day bike wise.

Now both those two are all clean again and sitting very prettily in my living room, I won't want to take them out and get them all gribbly again... Oh well, the Voodoo needs a ride anyway, and the Jamis hasn't seen combat in weeks...

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Monday 11 September 2017

Fatbiking Fun.

I've got a couple of rides to catch up on, the first over a week ago now, so long I had to look up the date that I undertook this particular little adventure - Saturday the second of September. 



Now riding on public footpaths in this country is considered a bit of a no-no. I'm not talking about the pavement here (or the sidewalk for those in the US) but those paths that strike out across fields and through woods going to places normal be-wheeled folk just cannot reach. Most of the footpaths around here are off limits to cyclists, not through legal obedience, but because they're too tricky to negotiate with a bike being riddled with awkward stiles and other obstacles, such as pedestrians.

There is one path locally however I will happily ride along, and that is a path that crosses my beloved Tregassow Lane. To one side of the lane, the path just disappears. It's supposed to run along the edge of a field, but there's no sign of it, and to be honest, it only cuts a corner off the road anyway, popping up on the adjoining lane.

On the other side of Tregassow Lane however, the path is very much navigable, all the way down to Tresillian in fact some two or three miles away. It changes status to Bridleway and Byway along its course too, but the section I rode is still classified as just footpath. Well knickers to that. The path is clearly an ancient thoroughfare, leading up from Tresillian and heading across country in the general direction of Ladock. The Tregassow Lane end has been used by farm vehicles too accessing fields but also the site of a shoot. 

The appeal for me of this path is it's close to where I live, the landscape it passes through, and of great importance this, the feeling of remote wildness it conveys. 

That Saturday morning I had a right old cob on, or as the Cornish say, I was a bit teasy, or even a bit 'snakey'. I was stressed out and grumpy as.... well you get the idea. I'd barely been upright in the day an hour but had already had the darned phone ring twice, and neither call was one I found particularly valuable, in fact, both calls just annoyed the hell out of me . How I haven't ripped that particular device out of the wall and hurled it through the window I don't know, and yes, I still have an old fashioned phone that plugs into a wall socket, no cordless jobs here. 

There's only one way to escape such stress and general nutbaggery of course, and that is to beggar off on a bike somewhere, dick about a bit, take photos and generally get away from people!

Whoa! Vanity overload!
Manly man pose courtesy of trying out a new angle for the GoPro. Other than this 'steely eye on the horizon' catalogue pose shot, this set up didn't really work.

Not able to ride far, the Tregassow footpath beckoned as no better way of escaping it all so close to home.

The footpath at this time of year is very overgrown, but that is all part of the fun - busting through the waist high in places vegetation, brambles clutching at the bar ends, or dragging up my arms (post ride showers can often be stingy, ouchy, affairs...) and generally enjoying the thrill of having to maintain forward motion or suffer a scratchy, stabby, spill into the undergrowth. Some of those brambles are like razor wire - best avoided when throwing unplanned shapes and launching into the scenery.

 The first part of the footpath is under trees, so making for easy wheeling.



 Bare arms not always a good idea, blood was spilled...


It doesn't look bad in these photos, but in places the clawing vegetation almost dragged me to a halt.

The path emerges from under trees to run along the bottom edge of a hill. It was on that hillside that platforms stood for shooting types to blast away at Pheasants that had been kept in pens off to the other side of the path. I've never really understood the appeal of shooting Pheasants I must admit. Take a large, dull witted and slow moving bird and blast it with a gun that could hit all four corners of a barn door with one shot. Where's the skill in that eh? Let's see you hit a Swift with a sniper rifle or something, then I'll be impressed.

Paths like this can quickly remove all signs of the outside world as they envelope the adventurous cyclist walker (who may have to use a bike to reach the path... ahem...) in dense trees and undergrowth. Even traffic noise can be muffled and you can soon get the feeling of being miles from civilisation and the next human being, even if in fact you're not.

After a goodly belt through the greenery on the flat, the path then climbs through a load of thick fernery before levelling out very briefly under trees once more, then dropping down to a small clearing and a spring that joins the nearby Trevella Stream. This was as far as I was going to go on this occasion, but deep in the ancient wood, I spent a happy half hour or so in the clearing, just poking about and just sitting and listening, looking and taking in my surroundings.

 Climbing the small hill through all the dense fernerage (I think I might've just made that word up. Bleddy good word though isn't it eh?)

Looking back down the path from the top of the hill. I've 'done' this footpath many, many times, and have never seen another soul on it. 

 Fatso bothering the youngish tree growing in the middle of the path. Banks either side are actually Cornish Hedges - earth banks faced with granite, and a sure sign of an ancient, and probably busy, thoroughfare.


 Quite a large looking Burr or Burl on a long dead tree.

 The small clearing and a sign pointing the way, but this was far as I was going on this occasion. Just out of shot to the left a small spring trickles and gurgles down over some rocks and roots before running into the nearby Trevella Stream.

Even in the height of what passes for our Summer the going under foot/tyre here is boot suckingly squelchy and claggy. 

I won't be popular with the ramblers and walkers, but I do believe footpaths should be reclassified to allow cyclists to use them. There's a whole network of paths waiting to be explored by bike and not just by keen mountain bikery types, but families could enjoy outings along them as well in preference to sticking to the roads. Cyclists might also keep these paths open and navigable as well.  Currently I believe, landowners can have paths closed off if they can prove a lack of use, and it'd be a shame if ancient trackways were lost to farming or just selfish greed. 

Unfortunately, I can't see it happening, so we bikers will have to furtively pull our collars up and keep our heads down while enjoying them.

I was going to include yesterday's ride here, but I've already blathered on far too much, so will save that for another post all of its own.

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