Bridleway Bimbling.

As ever, any blurry looking photos, just right click and open in a new tab.

Muddy trousers, muddy boots, muddy tyres - I've been having some fun.

Before all that though, some news both good and bad.

Issue 20 of Boneshaker Magazine is out, and it's always a good day when the latest issue plops through my letterbox. Pricey, yes, but these sort of magazines are keepers, not read once and chuck in the recycling jobbies, these have more substance about them. Quality is the word here, the paper used, the design, the writing and reading, and the illustrations are all of the good stuff.

I'm a bit of a latecomer to Boneshaker, having only got the last four issues before this one, and a compilation book, but I've thoroughly enjoyed reading them all, and then reading them all over again.

Sadly though, we get to the bad news, this issue, issue 20, is the last one, and now Boneshaker will join The Ride Journal in my list of much missed publications. 

Both Boneshaker and The Ride were sort of 'hobby' magazines, put together by people with a 'proper' job to go to and for whom producing the magazines was where their spare time disappeared. Labours of love rather than a paying nine to five. So a shame to see them both cease publication, but better to go out on top though, when the quality of output is still high, than carry on in a half hearted manner, or sell out to some big publishing company or other.

Tyres are a funny thing. Not so long ago I swapped the tyres front and back on Fatso, to even out the wear a little bit and I've been having trouble ever since. I've read a lot of reports of Fatbike tyres self steering, and was glad that on Fatso this wasn't an issue on or off road. Bike and I just rumbled over anything as you'd expect really - no dramas. But since swapping the tyres round, the front end has been squirming and wriggling about on tarmac a fair old bit. This has baffled me, as the tyres aren't front or rear specific, you can bung 'em on either end, and both are fitted the correct way round for forward motion. I've dicked about with the pressures a bit to no avail, so it must just be having a slightly more worn tyre on the front, but not worn by much more it has to be said. 

Most odd, and setting off on a cold Saturday morning I wasn't best pleased to find the front end still writhing about after another change of tyre pressure. Oh well, this is the way things are going to be from now on I suppose, should've just left well alone.

Feeling a bit fitter physically than of late, I had decided on a bit of off road adventure was in order for my Saturday, and was bound for a favourite Bridleway that I've only previously ridden in the middle of Summer.

Dropping down the hill to Lanner Mill, which rhymes.

My cheeks and nose were as rosy as the red of my jacket given the rather bracing temperature on Saturday. T'was cold as a Penguin's Plums out, and before setting off I had not only donned Long Johns, but also silk inner gloves beneath my winter gloves - a relic from my motorcycling days. A little feel is lost in return for a bit of extra warmth, but I can put up with that. As it was, my Pasty Grabbers got flipping cold messing about with the tripod and camera setting this shot up, so I was glad to get the gloves back on, even if I couldn't feel the remote shutter release button with my thumb. 

Despite the chilly air, it was actually very pleasant out, not sunny but I don't mind that in Winter, and with very little wind - thankfully. 

The countryside was alive with the distant sounds of gunfire though, as various shoots were busy blowing slow moving birds to smithereens, and also a couple of smells. It may be winter but there was still an Autumnal pong in the air, a very pleasant whiff it must be said, but it was frequently joined a rather flatulent smelling odour emanating from the fields as crops of Cabbages are being harvested all around. 

Winter trees near Lanner Barton.

A random fly past shot out 'in the countryside' (a euphemism for I don't know exactly where this is as it's in the middle of nowhere).

I set up the DSLR on the tripod and made my way up the hill on the left of the shot and round the bend, ready to ride past the camera. I was just climbing on when three roadies came round the corner towards me wondering loudly what that camera was doing stood in the field. If I'd have known they were coming I'd have snapped them, as they'd have made a better photo here than the one I took of myself.

It is quite amazing just what can grow on the top of a granite bridge parapet.

After the bridge shot above, I mooched along the anonymous lane, heading towards Allet, and was rewarded at one point beneath some trees by the sight of a Fox crossing the road just in front of me. I love encounters like that, little moments of magic, whether the beast in question is a Mouse, a Fox, a Deer or Hare, or some airborne Raptor or another, these brief glimpses of wild life are always a bit special to experience.

Allet reached, I then turned onto the main road from Truro to the A30 and/or Perranporth, and despite having little more than a mile to ride, I still had a couple of high speed close passes, despite the road being of a decent width. Some drivers seem to be in their own little steel bubble with no fear or appreciation of consequences or repercussions. When I'm Prime Minister my first job will be to ban all in car safety aids, make all cars noisy, cold and draughty, and have wobbly steering and tyres fitted by law. Fill the insides with metal rather than soft touch plastics, and drivers might then drive a little more carefully.

In making cars ever safer, the manufacturers are actually making them more dangerous for everyone else using the roads. This though is nothing new, it goes back at least to the early days of Volvo promoting their ground breaking safety features and tank like builds, and the term 'Volvo Driver' becoming a byword for any conversation about bad drivers. The more vulnerable someone feels, the safer they will behave both towards themselves, and others.

Another step might be to make close passing vehicles fair game for any hammer wielding cyclist - make large hammers standard fit on every bicycle sold - panel bashing for the use of, and the riders not just immune from prosecution, but positively encouraged, rewarded perhaps, for giving any reckless driver's car a good bashing. That'd sort 'em.

Ah... I drifted off into the realms of fantasy there for a moment... back to the ride...

Now beat me on the backside with a rolled up copy of The Rough-stuff Journal, but knocking along the lane I took from the main road I caught a glimpse of my favourite colour of post mounted arrow guarding a path I'd somehow overlooked when scouring maps, both paper and online. Here was a very tempting looking Bridleway that I didn't even know existed! I must've ridden past it twice before too, so how I've managed to miss it thus far I don't know. 

Looking on the mappage once home, this Bridleway looks a stonkingly good one to ride - right up my street as it were, so rest assured I'll be back pretty soon to check it out. 

Down the hill from Tregavethan Manor, the road passes over the River Kenwyn, which pops up out of the ground not far from here, and runs right down through Truro and into the river there.

The (flipping fuzzy) view looking upstream. I had gone paddling again to get these photos, stood with water almost up to my ankles and with the camera on the tripod to allow slower shutter speeds. Waterproof boots are so liberating - no way would I venture into the water in the boots I wore in the past.

Another shot from in the River Kenwyn, this time from the downstream side.

The local BMW car dealer must have done very well from the people round here as every darned car that went over this bridge was a BMW of one flavour or another. I noticed this as nearly all of them slowed to a stop to gawp first at the bike, then at the scruffy twerp stood in the middle of the river. 

Just over the bridge, once I'd finished dicking about in the river, was my target, the Bridleway to Treworder.

The early part of the Bridleway actually carries motor traffic as access to a house and also farm traffic. Riding in these tyre tracks proved the easiest option here - the mud up the middle being very thick and clawing.

Fatso, even at this point in the proceedings and well into the track, was still looking surprisingly clean. It wouldn't last though, and bike and rider soon got mucky.

The find of the day - this rather old horse shoe, which is now in my back garden performing decorative duties. 

The track has got just a little muddier.

The going might've been wet, sloppy and gloopy, but there was still some colour to be found, even in the puddles.

A cringeworthy self portrait in Treworder Wood.

The Bridleway finishes up the side of a farm house at Treworder, where it joins the lane between New Mills and Threemilestone.

Remains of a downed tree in the lane twixt Treworder and New Mills.

The River Kenwyn again, and the bigger of the two fords at New Mills. Despite recent bad weather, the water wasn't running too deeply or fast, otherwise I'd have taken the path to the side. I rode Fatso through here once when it was running high and fast, and discovered, much to my buttock clenching surprise, just how much those big tyres get pushed around by the fast moving water.

Every one's a fuzzy one...

After the lung busting climb up from New Mills I had a quick chooch along the shared bike/pedestrian path into Shortlanesend. By now though, time was getting on and the Brain of Britain here had set off without bothering to take any lights, so it was time to get a shake on.

One of the hazards of hooning in the countryside - Country Dumplings on the racing line.

So with time being against me, I had me a bit of a thrash for home, to round off what had been a very enjoyable ride indeed. It's not often I ride hard like I did on Saturday as I pressed for home, well, riding hard by my standards anyway, but I got home feeling pretty darned good as it happens, very invigorated. 

Fatso meanwhile, wonky steering apart, handled it all with his usual aplomb, but is now rather muddy again, but there we go, you can't make an Omelette without getting your bike dirty.

Quick map of the route. The Bridleway is where the trace goes straight as an arrow through point number 7.

The full map can be found HERE although the map doesn't show the entire route, as I couldn't get it to track the return home from point B, which was the the same way I'd ridden out, so it shows the mileage as being short by about 4 miles.

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