Random Rambling and a Chooch Around the Lamorran loop.

I was having a surf around the web recently, as you do, when I stumbled across the fact that Facebook now offers over 50 different gender identity options for members to peruse, and choose, just what they feel best describes them. When I was growing up there were only three genders - male, female and Vespa riders, so this is all very strange and confusing to me, and you have to be careful when addressing folk too these days, as it's so easy to offend someone and incur the wrath of Facebook,the all powerful Twitterati, or heaven forbid, the Mumsnet Stormtroopers.

So imagine how pleased I was when shopping for some brake cleaner recently to find that the good folk at Amazon have started to make all this a bit easier for the prospective shopper:

 Now admittedly, Unisex is a broad brush and what the average Non Binary, Gender Fluid, Gender Non Conforming or Gender Variant person among others is expected to use remains to be seen, but it's a step in the right direction. It's not just brake cleaner either, the Gender Questioning, Gender Queer or just plain Gender Notquitedecidedyetwhatwerethechoicesagain cyclist can also relax and not be judged when wishing to do a spot of chain degreasing either:

So well done to Amazon/Fenwicks for keeping up with modern times.
I didn't buy the brake cleaner from Amazon though, I got a can from Evans instead as they are a Ginger Positive retailer (I am a member of the Ginger Nation, or at least was, my bonce is a bit Shredded Wheat in colour these days). Oh and they were knocking the cans out at £2.49 in their clearance sale and to hell with whether a product is Unisex, for left handers (as I also am) or for Gender Blenders, if it's cheap, I'm all over it like a tramp on an unattended pasty.

But, despite my confusion, I am a man of the noughties, and not afraid to display my feminine side, as can be seen by the old rattlemonger Carrera:

Yup, the old warrior bears the mark of the female. Bought as as a donor bike on which to hang some better parts from another bike that had suffered a terminal frame fracture, I didn't even notice it was a woman's velocipede I was wrangling. To be honest, I don't know the difference, as the Subway models all have a crossbar and so on. Maybe the women's bikes have smaller frame sizes though, as despite being a 'large', the old wreck was always a bit on the small side for me. 

I don't just ride a girl's bike though, being single again, I also identify as Buysexual. 

If I want sex I have to buy it.

Meanwhile, if anyone is wondering what gender they should ride like, have a gander at this video: Ride Like A Girl.
It's only a few minutes long, but Lee Craigie speaks very wise words indeed. Well worth a watch and listen. (I'm flipping jealous of the way she effortlessly picks up her bike and swings it about a bit though... wish mine were that light).

Right, enough of all that, let's have some photos from Sunday's Bimble.

It's daft to think that at the turn of the year I'd never ridden the roads around Lamorran, but yesterday I set off on my fourth sortie round those parts, and all this despite my first ride around there ending in pain wracked disaster as I ricked my back a good'un. 

I had in mind to make good time early on, and keep pedaling rather than stopping at every gate and fence post for a photo, but that ambition came to a swift end less than a mile out from home as I found some fly tipping worthy of a photograph. Unfortunately crap like this is becoming as much a part of the countryside these days as funny smells and gert big hairy arsed animals.

Crap in the lanes and a crappy upload to match. Both make me angry, but the fly tippers far more so.

As usual, a right click and open in new tab on any fuzzy photos will see them sorted.

 The forecast was for a bright day, but what I got was overcast and drizzly at times, but hey ho.

More fuzziness... Grrrr...

This is Ladock and the bridge over the Tresillian River. Those weeds growing against the parapets might not look much at first glance, but...

... there is plenty of colour to be found in them.

 The bridge carrying the mainline over the Ladock to Probus road. This section of the lane is always dark and damp, being heavily wooded and with a stream nearby to add a bit of humidity to the air. 

The bridge identification sign for the engineering folk. MLN is the Paddington to Penzance mainline via Bristol, and the bridge is 294 miles and 32.5 chains from Paddington.

The weather forecast promised a bright day, but with an excitable wind to ruffle my riding, gusts of around 30-35 mph apparently, but I'm a Bimbler, and whilst I hate plugging into a stiff wind as much as the next rider, there are no Strava KOMs or Wattage Bazookas at stake, so cogging it down and chooching a bit slower is the order of the day. In fact, heading right into the wind, as I did at times, was quite pleasurable and invigorating as I drifted along feeling the wind rushing up and down the contours and swashing the tree tops noisily above me. It's pretty cool watching the wind too, as it speeds across fields, rippling the crops as it goes, a bit like watching the waves rolling up to a beach, but without the surfers, or the sewage.

I give up... flipping fuzzy photos are doing my nut in...

Copydex and Bostik getting some exercise in downtown Probus.

 No such luck for this chap, and the first of two dead things that caught my eye on this ride.

 A lot of this ride involves fairly ordinary lanes like this, but no matter, I would ride them all day if I could.

Oh hayup, the sun has come out, must be summer today then!

Looking back towards Probus which, apart from the pointy bit of the church, is lost in the hazey bokeh back there.

 The lane leading from Lamorran to St Michael Penkevil hugs the Lamorran River briefly, but it's difficult to photograph given the steep sided and heavily wooded banks, but you do get the odd glimpse of something through the trees here and there.

 Random flower growing in the hedge.

The countryside seems to have really exploded recently and some fresh growth is still going on.

Obviously I was taking a few photos here and there, but on this occasion, the focus was more on the ride and my surroundings. Compared to my last ride round these roads, it was very quiet and peaceful. On that occasion I found myself swimming against the flow of traffic heading to the Tregothnan Estate open day, after inadvertently (that's my story and I'm sticking to it...) finding myself going the wrong way along the temporary one way system. Yesterday though it was just me on the roads and a few coffin dodgers in their Sunday best pointing their Toyotas home from church.

Hitting the top of the hill and turning the right hand bend near St Michael Penkivel (kevil and kivel - one is the parish, the other the village. Or maybe someone just couldn't remember how it's meant to be spelt) saw that wind up my chuff and the Jamis and I were positively flyin' along the lane and down the long drop into Tresillian. Any bicyclist will tell you how quiet everything goes when you turn the wind behind you, and I was treated to one of the great pleasures of riding - the hiss of tyres on tarmac and the rhythmic whirring of a well oiled chain as the road disappears beneath the wheels with effortless ease. Since fitting the rack and panniers I am also treated to a bit of constant but not irritating squeaking as the panniers move against the rack, which reminds me of the squeaking seats in the ancient coach that took me and my short trousered colleagues to primary school back in the 1960s.

Top of the hill between Merther Lane and St Michael Penkivel sees this rather splendid view open up. That's the Tresillian River and just visible on the left is the mouth of the Truro River which joins it.

 The rather splendid looking old school building at Merther Lane, now used as a village hall.

 Merther Lane folk have to get up early to catch the post, especially on Saturdays.

Moderately decorative railings adorn the walls, but the gate in must've been replaced at some point as it's very plain and boring, not matching the railings at all. A very poor show that.

Tresillian means arriving back in civilisation (erm... well it's close) and that means traffic. I can remember (here we go...) when Sunday was a quiet day on the road, with just a few drivers out for a gentle potter after their lunchtime roast. Trying to nip across the road to reach the Trispen Lane yesterday required much patience and then a burst of explosive acceleration that Sir Chris Hoy would be proud of. No beggar was prepared to slow down and wave me across either, the miserable gits!

If the traffic doesn't get me, the hill up out of Tresillian might one day. No wonder the village cemetery is at the bottom of it, and they probably keep a hole or two dug spare to cater for the unwary cyclist or walker that ventures up that road. Like most of the hills in the lanes round here, it's only a short slope, but by crikey it's beastly steep and on all but one occasion has sucked all the power out of my meagre legs and seen me pushing to the summit. Even pushing is a pain for me though, as I have to keep the bike, and therefore my arms, in close to me to avoid straining my upper back. No holding the bars and pushing hard for me, I have to hold the steerer tube with my right hand which is not very efficient, and means I keep finding the left pedal with my right heel. So that hill and I aren't the best of friends, but still, it has to be done, and once my lungs had recovered and my eyes stopped bulging it was a short bimble home, although I do take a longer way round my home village than is strictly necessary, but that is just to avoid another long slog up a hill.

On the lane between Tresillian and Trispen/St Erme. I had a quick stop here, not to take this photo, but instead to plunder some bounty...

 So there I was, mooching along and pondering the day's ride when I saw something in the road ahead... ah ha! I thought, more stuff to blag, a discarded bungee cord. Then as I got close and prepared to stop, I saw it wasn't a bungee but a snake... Snake? Yikes... SNAKE!!! Wibble, gibber, squeal... (I don't like snakes...) but having stopped panicking long enough to let me tentatively take a bit of a closer look, I discovered that A - it was dead, and B - it was a harmless Grass Snake, so C - I hadn't needed the second bike clip I'd put on my left trouser leg after all.

By now I was feeling quite the brave adventurer and got in close with the camera but if this thing had twitched its tail I'd have been off faster than a bride's nightie. Snakes and Spiders - just no.

Having stopped for the hooperchooped snake, I then noticed lots of these rather attractive flowers in the banks on both sides of the lane. Thanks to a friendly chap on Flickr from 'up country' (well south Devon) I now know these are Pencilled Geraniums and have jumped the hedge from the garden of the large guest house nearby. 

To get in close I had to fish out my trusty old Canon G7, which is an antique these days, being 9 years old now, but it does something my G1-X won't do, and that is get in close. The Macro on the G1-X is a load of tripe, with a minimum focusing distance measured in many Great British feet, hence why I carry the old, and inferior in every other way, G7 about with me. It took some patience to get a photo at all though as the wind was blowing right up this lane and these flowers (this is a nicely isolated example, there were loads more around but not as large or neatly formed as this particular one) were getting a right flapping about.

This is the bounty I alluded to above - an Ash log that was just lying beside the road. Despite appearances, it went in the right pannier with space to spare, but by crikey it didn't half add some weight. The uphill bits made my face fold up with effort, but the plummets down the other side were superb! So why bring an old log home? Well it'll make a sort of crappy feature beneath a bush in my garden. I'd like to have a 'wild' garden to attract wildlife and so on, but being in a renter, I have to keep things looking neat and tidyish. But I can bring in a few bits of the countryside to rot down and also lend a slightly rural, woodland look to the back garden. I've brought home various bits of bark and wedge shaped bits cut to start a tree felling, Pine Cones and random rocks and pebbles, all to add a little something to the garden. Quite what that something is I don't know, but still...

The usual crappy map of the route, but the better version can be found Here

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Two Ride Catch Up.

Not a lot to report from down here in sunny Cornwall really, at least, not from me. It's been a mixed week or more health wise, the usual ups and downs, but I did manage to get two rides in, although I didn't take many photos on either occasion.

The calendar has turned another page though and we're now in June, which seems crazy to me. It feels like only yesterday it was winter still. Must be getting old, they say the years fly by as you get older, it'll be Christmas in a few days time then...

Nothing much to report means nothing much to say as inspiration has deserted me, so I'll just lob a few photos up from the rides, waffle a bit in the captions, and leave it there I think.

Tuesday, 30th May.

Straight in with a blurry upload. Great.

The trees are now all in full leaf and everywhere is looking very green and lush, with the verges and hedges also having exploded with growth recently. Colour is lacking though, compared to previous rides, as a lot of the wild flowers have thinned out. The main impression on this short ride was the humid feel to the day, something that's not easy to show in photos of course, well, for me it isn't anyway. I did try with this shot though, by fishing out the telephoto and the DSLR and going for an enclosing feel by not including much sky, and then adding a slight vignette in post processing.

I had a mooch up Bodrean Lane, off Tregassow Lane, and came across a sheep with its head stuck through the fence, and making an awful noise. Trying to push its bonce back through the fence saw the dimwitted beast trying to charge and butt me, but one hand on it's chin, other hand on its forehead and a quick twist and push saw it free again. It may have been stuck there for some while as it was clearly very poorly, and just lay down where it was rather than running off, but hopefully it was ok.

Nice tight beading on a clean bike.

The forecast on the Met Office web site said there was a less than 5% chance of precipitation, but I found some, of course. In fairness though, it was just drizzle, so didn't spoil the ride or anything drastic.

Thursday, 1st June.

Mum and offspring giving me the hard stare.

Friesians I've always found to be curious and friendly beasts, coming over to check me out and have their foreheads rubbed whenever I've encountered them.

This lot though just stop whatever they're doing, chewing mostly, and stare. Most rude. After a short while though, one adult started bellowing at me, then another joined in, then another, and pretty quickly there was a heck of a din as the adults all had a good shout at me, so I beggared off quick before the farmer came to see what the matter was or something. Flipping cows making me feel awkward and unwelcome like that, what is the world coming to?

Fatso was also clean and shiny after a good scrub up recently.

Thursday morning saw me head off into Idless Woods again for the first coffee of the day.

I hadn't seen these Nescafe Toffee Nut Latte sachets before, so had to give them a go.

As expected, they provide quite a sweet drink, but a very tasty one all the same. At home I pretty much drink only filter coffee done with my Aeropress, but can't be doing with all that faff when out on a ride, so I use the various three in one sachets that are available and quite enjoy them when out and about to be honest.

I didn't take many photos at all on this ride either, but did enjoy a peaceful half hour or so beside the river in the woods, listening to the water trickling past. A great way to start the day.

There's a bit of wall rebuilding going on in the lane that skirts around the Easterly edge of Idless Woods. Always good to see the old methods and skills of hedge laying and wall building used rather than the much easier erecting of some ghastly wire fence.

So that's that really. Hopefully I'll be getting out and poking about somewhere again soon.

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Making Peace with an Old Foe.

The usual cycle continues – a few days off the bikes thanks to the usual ailments and then once mind and body have recovered and some sort of equilibrium is restored, off I go a bimbling again.

Waking up rudely early and being unable to get back to sleep saw me mounting the Jamis, and chooching off into the embryonic Thursday sunshine this week, intent on a big old ride, but also a rather mundane one, it has to be said.

This Cornish Stile is in my home port of St Erme. The footpath this gives access to runs along the edge of a field that has just been sold for development. I hope then, that both the footpath and this stile remain unmolested and don't disappear in the course of building whatever will go in there.

Random woody shot.

I was headed for a place that even today, the merest mention of which, still sends shivers down the spines of any local driver, and many an up country one too. A notorious single carriageway bottleneck on the then A30 that would suck the joy, schedule and life out of even the most cheerful and optimistic soul, and catastrophically peel open more than few high sided vehicles as well. I was heading for Goss Moor, the area between Indian Queens and Bodmin where many a radiator, and temper too, boiled terminally over, and a bit of road I hated with a passion.

The worst feature of the A30 across the moor – the low railway bridge and the bewildering inaction on behalf of the authorities to sort it, could be the subject of a long and vituperative post all on its own, but we'll save that for another day. Happy thoughts, must think happy thoughts...

 Power lines near Carland Cross. I'd be seeing more of these two tracks later on.

A brief pause in the pedaling at St Enoder church.

But of course, I wouldn't be heading for this horror of a road on a bicycle unless something big had changed, and that change happened in 2007 when the new section of the A30 running to the North of the Moor was opened, and the bottleneck was gone. What was left of most of the old road was quickly turned into part of the Goss Moor Trail, which opened a year later, and jolly good it all should be too.

 Target for the day, not the Owl Sanctuary, although I'm sure that is a hoot, but the Goss Moor Trail.

This is the new section of the usually hectic A30 that took out the old bottleneck across Goss Moor  - a long over due improvement to the road.

The trail is a seven mile loop around the boggy, marshy, gloopy, Nature Reserve, and it, and much of my ride to reach it, is flat and easy wheeling. It is a good old ride around, but the trail itself, well, it's probably just me, but... well, I find it a little boring. It's pleasant enough I suppose, especially that early on a sunny morning, but it's also a bit featureless, unless you have a Pylon and power line fetish that is, in which case you'll be in fizzing heaven on this trail. I've ridden it a few times before, and no doubt will do again, it is somewhere to go after all, but it just doesn't put fruit in my pudding in the way other rides do.

This time though I did add a little interest by seeking out a feature in Indian Queens that I hadn't known was there until relatively recently – the old Preaching Pit. And if that wasn't enough, there was also the possibility of procuring some culinary splendour on the way home, some self inflicted bribery perhaps, to make up for the effort involved in riding all that way just to be a bit bored.

 The trail is well publicised around the county in various information centres, as well as on the trail itself.

And here we are on part of the old main road, where once traffic roared shuffled along whisking shunting people and freight East and West. 

Not all of the old route of the A30 is closed to traffic, indeed the most notorious section, where many a truck twatted that bridge and created even more chaos, is still open to all comers. Thankfully though, you don't need to ride up this road to follow the trail, as you can turn right over a level crossing before getting this far.

 Ah now, this is interesting, sort of. This here is the River Fal no less. The river pops up out of the ground on Goss Moor and wends its way down to Falmouth, becoming rather wider, and one hell of a lot deeper in the course of its comparatively short journey.

Remember those power lines earlier? Well here's one of 'em. Its neighbour is just out of shot. These lines fizz all the time, in any weather, and caught me out the first time I rode up here, as I thought I'd copped a leaf or an old crisp packet in the back wheel or something, so stopped to check the bike over. Doh...

I spy with my little eye something beginning with P...

Once off the old main road, this is what you get - miles of this. All very nice to ride on, don't get me wrong, but... just a little lacking in features and excitement. 

The day though, despite a very energetic omni directional wind, was turning out to be a belter - the hottest of the year so far, and having divested myself of my jacket, I could feel my neck quickly ripening in the sun. Soon be time for the factor 50.

Fuzzy upload of the fizzing power lines.

Whoa... uh.... oh ....clangggg!!! Choochus interuptus. 

Width restrictors are to keep motorbikes off the trail, but don't play well with wide barred pushies either. Thankfully getting through is just a matter of lifting and turning the front wheel of course.

The trail isn't all bland looking scrub, towards the end it does flirt briefly with some rag bag woodland.

What the hell is going on here? Well that's a proper mess and I'm not sure how to fix it to be honest as I can only see the proper, normal sized photo in the editing bit.

Oh well, carry on and pretend it never happened...

 Back off the trail and heading back the way I'd come, it was high time I checked out the old Preaching Pit at Indian Queens. I've visited a similar feature at Newlyn East, and there are a couple of others dotted about too, but they are by no means common.

The pit is an old open mine working converted by the Methodists into a Preaching Pit in 1850.

Slightly wonky, and also fuzzy, pano of the Indian Queens Preaching Pit. 

The pit was in use for various functions until 1970 when it became overgrown. In 1976 local volunteers decided to restore the pit - an effort that took two years, but secured its future and the pit is back in use for community events once again.

Indian Queens is a village next to Fraddon (you can hardly see the join...) and both are strung out along what was the A30. How Indian Queens came to be so named is open to debate. The name was originally found on an inn that stood locally, and one story has it that a Princess arrived by boat in Falmouth, and made her way by road to London, stopping the night at the inn, and her appearance was that of an Indian woman, so the inn (and later the whole village) was renamed to reflect this. 

Some folk say that the Princess in question was in fact the American Indian, Pocahontas, but that seems a tad far fetched. However, that still hasn't stopped the road leading up to the Preaching Pit being named Pocahontas Crescent.

So the Preaching Pit is one feature of Indian Queens. Another is the road to St Columb, because just up that road is found a small shack that draws folk in from miles around, for AJ's is a pasty monger, par excellence, as they'd say in France. Or a proper 'ansum pasty shop as they say in Cornwall. AJ's pasties are top scoffery and no mistake. 

So as I was in the area, it would've been rude not to go and procure a juicy pasty for when I made it home, and I duly hung a right in Indian Queens by the mini roundabout, and made my way towards the little shack of pasty rapture. The only issue was, it was still early, just before ten o'clock in fact, too early for them to have any pasties in yet? After all, they are a bit of a lunchtime thing for the majority of folk. These were nervous moments as I pulled up and parked the Jamis outside, as I'd built myself up to this treat by now, and to go without would be hugely disappointing. There are pasties available in the shop here in my village, but they just don't butter my toast, being rather small and a tad pricey.

Don't be fooled by the unassuming facade, this little shack is home to some very fine Pasties.

Nervously I entered the shop and looked warily at the hot cabinets for signs of pasties waiting to be snapped up... would there be any there, or would the shelves be gut wrenchingly bare? Success! 

They had plenty as it happened, and the mere smell of them got my juices flowing. I paid up and made off quickly with my precious cargo, tired legs were mercilessly flogged as I mashed the pedals towards home, and I was giving my back some serious grief as well with all the effort I was putting in, but once smelled and once held, a pasty has got you good and proper and eating it is all that you can think of. I could've scoffed it at the roadside of course, or back in the Methodist's pit perhaps, but nothing beats having a pasty in the comfort of one's home, so I was on a mission to get back as quickly as I could before it got cold. A pasty can be resuscitated in the oven, but there is always a risk of drying it out when doing that, always best to consume it at its natural temperature I find.

I made it home in just under an hour from AJ's, and thanks to careful wrapping and insulating in old carrier bags, my bounty was still feeling nicely hot, and boy did it taste good!

Makes me feel hungry just to look at this photo...

So as I said earlier, a good reward for all the effort put in and on the whole, an enjoyable ride out, despite my rather negative view of the trail's excitement value. You can always rely on a good pasty to save the day!

Now this map really is crap. But if you click Here you should be able to zoom in and read graphs of elevation n' stuff.

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