Cycling: 37.12 miles
Time: 2:25:02
Pace Avg: 15.4 mph
Avg HR: 128 bpm
Est Calories: 1859
Elev Gain: 210 Ft

Course: Flats farmland LSD (Long Slow Distance)

44.6mi
Distance
3:54:28
Moving Time
1,098ft
Elevation
70W
Estimated Avg Power
983kJ
Energy Output
Show Less

Avg
Max
Speed
11.4mi/h
27.1mi/h
Calories
1,096
Elapsed Time
4:05:30

ok here's mine... well - actually it's YESTERDAY's ride, but by the end of it I just wanted to chill for a while and spend the rest of the day eating/drinking and avoiding getting cramp in my left leg...

Went out yesterday to ride a "route" that the local authority have setup called the "Wakefield Wheel"...

It's a loop around the city of Wakefield, which is around 60km in length, approximately 35km of which is either off-road on gravel/dirt tracks or on tarmac'ed trails that cars aren't allowed on - it's definitely a little tough to ride on a traditional roadbike, but a 'cross bike, gravel bike or even a hybrid with tougher tyres is fine - certainly no NEED for suspension or full on MTB - though there's at least TWO descents where having something with meatier tyres than the 35mm file-tread 'cross tyres I was running would have meant the speed would have been much higher.

I actually decided to do the ride slightly differently to it's planned routing - the recommendation is to start either from Pugneys Watersports Centre or the Visitors Centre at Haw Park Lane, primarily because they both have car parking facilities for people driving to the ride. However, as the route actually passes within 50 yards of my door, I pretty much just started the loop from home completed the route and rode the 50m back home - or, at least that was the plan. I'll get to that in a while...

Loaded the map (or the best I could find - can't believe there was no .TCX file available, so I pretty much had to plot my own - and some of the routing wasn't even on the map, route maps available went via the nearest road in some cases - I think that one or two bits of the route were designated as footpaths originally, and have needed legislation changes to allow "shared use", so as this has kicked in, the original maps have changed, however the published routes haven't. I wasn't worried, as the route is marked with a series of route-arrows, similar to this...



By and large, I managed to find my way, only got slightly lost a couple of times.

Here's the Strava route - it's in two bits

first, the initial 5km, where I'd forgotten to start the "route navigation" on the garmin...

https://www.strava.com/activities/1118016957

and second, more important bit, where I was following the mapping right up to the last few km's...

https://www.strava.com/activities/1118349775

All in all, i was a great route - there's a few stretches of road-bashing, one or two of which are pretty much unavoidable, but, if you were to ride the route on a Sunday Morning, the roads would be completely quiet (one bit goes through the centre of a small town (Horbury) and I know for a fact that it's pretty much empty most Sundays...)

Oh yes, that comment earlier about not following the last 5km or so of the route. Well, after bashing around all the uneven surfaces for 50km or more without a single problem, I started the last main climb of the route, and while "sprinting" across a section of Tarmac to get to the next offroad bit (the final climb) I manage to ping a spoke in the back wheel. I'd dived down dirt-paths with hub deep water-wash ruts in them at 50+kph, bounced over kerbs and and bunny hopped water-bars on descents and NOTHING, then just cranking it up to get across a 100m long stretch of flat tarmac, and one of the damned spokes goes. Wheel was straight enough not to rub, but I decided that it was probably sensible to take a less rocky route home than the one in the map - and, it being so near to home, I knew the "path of least resistance" like the back of my hand.

All in all though, a good morning/early afternoon out.

59.6km, 3h40m, 514m of ascent (max gradient in excess of 34% for a short spell - lots of short sharp inclines, no real "mountains"), 1637kCals per strava, or more meaningfully, 1468kJ measured "at the cranks"...

Quick Relive Video of the Route

https://www.relive.cc/view/1118349775

and, just for fun, air speed analysis from MyWindsock...

https://mywindsock.com/activity/1118349775

(was pretty much the perfect route for yesterdays wind conditions, headwind out, tail back when I was fading a bit...)

My first Metric Century
60.9mi
Distance
4:50:53
Moving Time
1,639ft
Elevation
82W
Estimated Avg Power
1,432kJ
Energy Output
Show Less

Avg
Max
Speed
12.6mi/h
34.2mi/h
Calories
1,597
Elapsed Time
5:24:49
Garmin Forerunner 15
Bike: BLACK

6:45 AM on Saturday, August 19, 2017
RIDE SCT MARTIN to PIEDMONT & back
45 miles total as GPS would not crank

35.0mi
Distance
2:15:33
Moving Time
419ft
Elevation
96W
Estimated Avg Power
781kJ
Energy Output
Show Less
Avg
Max
Speed
15.5mi/h
23.7mi/h
Calories
871
Elapsed Time
2:45:19
Garmin Forerunner 15
Bike: BLACK

TheBigYin wrote: »

max gradient in excess of 34% for a short spell

34%?! That's not a "gradient", that's a wall