Saturday, December 30, 2017

A half and half ride

So I was awake until 3:30 am on 29th December because I did nothing useful and had no fatigue.  Still, got up on time and dressed to ride my bike but mentally I was meh.

I didn't enjoy the tip into Hathersage.  Motorists being dickish in the flooded roads.  Normal polite people who can't consider that showering someone with water is acceptable so we rode up the middle of the A road controlling speed and people still didn't get it.

Fuckthem.

My Garmin was sending me all kinds of places and then I was so so hungry.

We left the cafe in Hathersage in clear skis and finally Grindleforded over to Hassop and then Ashford in the Water.  Which it was.

We climbed up Sheldon hill then down the other side where we had to pedal really hard into the wind just to maintain downward hill speed.  We made it to Hartington where TSK had enough as he'd done more miles already then we turned for home and I continued on over to Parsley Haigh, crossing the main road behind a muck spreader and draughting him, eyeballs out, as close as I dared, hands on the brakes and thighs burning to save myself the headwind.

Eventually he turned the opposite way to my direction and I gave him thumbs up before resuming my battle except now I was in the nestling bosom of the manifold valley and the headwind dropped away.  I crossed into the valley proper through a strip of tarmac which passed as a road running through the middle of a field.  I entered the field via a hedgerow archway and as I emerged, startled a buzzard which took off from the fence post right next to me.  He was so close I could see his talons.

Today's new county - Staffordshire.

The Manifold Valley cycle path was a dream.  3pm fading light, but lights off so no cars, just a few hardy walkers finishing the last few kms to their cars then no-one for miles.  Just as I was getting desperate for the look the Taddington carpark came into view and I wheeled my bike right into the toilets, peeing with the door open to save locking up.  Outside, I dug through my bags for food and had a cuddle with the carpark moggy.

Manifold Valley start of the bike path, "there's nothing quite like crossing a gated bridge onto a bike path over a raging torrent to make you feel like you've travelled.  It's up there with getting on a ferry".
Over beautiful small lanes and dales, I eventually spit out at the main road to Carsington Water but not before a massive Ford, the level marker reading 1m!  Fortunately I spotted the bridge over and took a pic before a 4x4 rolled up.  I saved him the indignity of watching him do a three point turn in the road and drive the other way.

Yep, there's road under there.  I'm on the "bikepass".
I proceeded to curse every conurbation, village, woodland and drystone wall for robbing me of any snitch of til wind I had worked so cursing hard for all morning.

As I summitted and then turned away, Carsington Water twinkled a mercury dull glow against the fading sky as the sun started to tuck behind low grey cloud.  Then I shot off across the lanes fuelled by a 17 mph til wind which had me freewheeling on the flats and braking in panic on the gravelly down hills.  Back in the Peak Park I set off up a steep hill (18.2%!!) which finally got me off and walking after the morning I'd had.

Once it backed off, I rode through to the top.  I was hungry.  I'd skirted Wirksworth.  The bar I'd eaten after Taddington had disappeared but it wasn't too far to Cromford Mills - not with the tail wind which almost caused me to lose control on the descent to the Via Gallia.

I stopped in the chippy for a second round of sausage and chips and children watched, amused as I plugged in my light battery and locked up my bike.  I hallucinated out of the chipshop window as I ate the battered sausage almost as large as the giant caterpillar on the back of the HGV parked outside the window on its way to its next fun fair.

At the lights I joined the queue behind the caterpillar and then had the busy road to myself in fits and starts through Matlock Bath and its mixture of fine hotels and amusement arcades then into Matlock proper with deserted streets and stone shop fronts.  In Rowsley I was squeezed by and then liberated into the Chatsworth estate where a boy in a Vauxhall Cavalier waited patiently to pass me with his highly tuned V8 engine until after the bus had passed.  I listened to him roar up the other side of the valley.

I'd run out of water in Matlock and was feeling it by the time I reached Baslow.  I tried to get water from the doggy tap outside the toilets but I was imaginings that but at least a bit of a walk off the bike gave me a rest before the climb up Froggat where the wind took over again and then across Owler Bar where the moorland really opened things up.  I rocked back to Sheffield and before I knew it, I was dumped back onto Abbeydale road and the meander through town.

I crossed junctions, knowing which way to go but each time being surprised at where I was - how little progress I'd made up the hill - like every one was a surprise.  It wasn't until I walked in through the door I could actually be satisfied I was home.

What an amazing day.

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