"trail"

A few posts back I put up a photograph of what the locals in Tardree consider to be a good trail. Downhill on a 30% gradient, barely wide enough between the trees to fit your handlebars, and since that's not enough of a challenge, they added dropoffs and jumps to make it more interesting.

After work today I used the Chicago Bike Trails website to find a trail and keep up my training. I know the cliche says they do everything bigger and better over here, so I was hoping there'd be something within my skill level.

When I got to the start of the trail I remembered some of the other cliches about the US of A.

There's the story about an American who visited Belfast, couldn't find the Highway, so he had to drive down some back street called the M2;

And there's the Texan who took three days to drive across his ranch in his car. (I had a car like that once).

This bike trail was wider and better surfaced than most of the main roads round where I live. It was also unbelievably flat. Where I'm staying is on the Great Lakes Plain, so the whole area is flatter than a flat-footed flat-cap wearing flat bloke with a flat tyre in a block of flats. It's flat. No hills.

It was a pleasant ride though. lots of trees and squirrels and deer, sunshine filtered through the leaves and not a soul out but me.

where to now?

One of the reasons I wanted to go to a bike shop was to get advice on where best to ride. I knew the hotel was in the middle of a forest, but I've no idea about laws regarding haring off between the trees - and coming from Ireland, I'm also pretty ignorant about wildlife. We don't even have moles, voles, weasels or toads in Ireland, never mind snakes, bears or brown recluse spiders.

Again my colleagues helped me out. Tim directed me to http://www.chicagobiketrails.net/trails.htm which has a trail going right past the hotel door!
He also reassured me that I am unlikely to be mauled, poisoned or eaten alive by the local beasties. That's a relief.

Howdy folks!

I’m in the USA now, staying in a hotel. A picture says a thousand words, so this picture is my explanation of why I don't like hotels. I had to come here for work for two weeks. You’ll be thinking I’m a real jetsetter with all these journeys abroad, but honestly I’m not, and I was worried it’d really upset my training schedule.

Work offered to hire a bike for me if it didn’t cost "too much", so I phoned GlenBrook cycles and got prices.

1 day - $40,

one week - $150,

two weeks - $300.

Apparently, because the car rental costs less than half that amount, $300 falls into the “too much” category.

The dude in the shop (I’m going all American after only a week here) said I’d be far wiser to buy a bike for $300 and dump it when I’m done, so I came planning to do something like that – maybe find a second hand one or something.

People here are really nice; especially when you consider that they’re training us up so that we can take their jobs from them.
When I got here, Sheri, with whom I’m working, phoned her husband and said “Is yower baiyke ay maowntayne baiyke?!” Apparently his response implied that he believed his cycle would meet my requirements and she brought it into work the next day.

It’s a mountain bike only in the very loosest sense of the word, probably cost about $70 when it was new, but it’s not costing me anything, and it’s well set up and it’s been well maintained (read “never used”)I should have taken a picture of it, but I didn't, so here's a photo of the bikes that are dotted round the company for people to use when travelling between buildings.

tardree

I'd often heard that Tardree is the place to go for mountain biking. Jed mentioned it when I was talking to him too, so I decided to head up there to get some technical practice in. I went with some trepidation - I don't consider myself particularly skilled, and from all the talk I expected the place to be teeming with semi-professionals laughing at my bumbling efforts, and then demonstrating the sort of skills I should really have. As it turned out, I arrived and the place was deserted.

I started off trying the southern forest, Carnearny mountain, but it was ridiculously steep. I rode as much as I could but there was a fair proportion of pushing. I've been finding that it takes me a while to get into the swing of things at the start of a ride, and after an hour or so, I can tackle sections that earlier looked impossible. My ride on Carnearny was cut short because the forestry commission have thoughtlessly cut down big sections of trees right across the track.

I headed back across the road to Tardree mountain, and investigated. I've been walking there many times, but this time I was alert, looking for tyre tracks leaving the main path off into the tres. Dozens of them, most of them terrifying, and I always seemed to be going up a trail that was designed for coming down at 70mph. You have to look closely at the picture, but there's a trail in there between the trees, with manmade jumps and dropoffs. I took a break after an hour to chat to a couple of bikers who arrived in a van. "We've never been here before so we're here to take a look"
That was supposed to be my line.
After a five minute break I rode on, and the impossible ascents were becoming doable. Then, I was turning off the path onto a trail, when my foot slipped off the pedal. The pedal banged into my calf and scratched it - at least I assumed it was a scratch until I looked down a couple of minutes later. My skin must have been at full tension when the pedal caught it, because it looked like it had exploded (the photo's from over a week later). It wasn't very sore, so I covered it and taped it, and kept riding. I usually do carry a first aid kit, but that's the first time I've needed it. Then I met up with another biker. I was trying to ride up a hideous ascent and he came up behind me. I stopped to let him past, and he said
"Oh, no don't wait for me, this is my first time here and I was following you because you looked like you knew where you were going"
That was supposed to be my line.

So with him watching me, the hideous ascent was definitely no match for my superior skills.

The cuts on my leg got infected and the doctor put me on antibiotics - which have some ... side effects - but it wasn't painful, I think I don't have very good pain receptors, so didn't stop me riding to work later in the week.

bad-good

I got the wains to bed early last night so I could go out for an hour before the sun went down.

Maybe I should reword that.

I got the wains to bed early so they'd be more alert today, better able to concentrate, have better skin, and to boost their intelligence. As a complete coincidence that also gave me time for an hour's ride before sunset.
Just near home, so no need to burden myself down with tools or anything.

I started out on the track along the sixmile water (the dirt track, not the tarmac'd mill race trail) and I was happy. Not a perfect ride by a long way, but flowing pretty well, picking out good lines, succeeding where I often fail.

You can probably write the next line without my help, but I'll write it anyway.

I got a puncture.

I decided to push it to a gap in the trees and walk out through the technology park. Coming out at the dirt jumps, it looked deserted, until I rounded one of the ramps and saw "Bloke with Spade" He couldn't help me with the flat, but we got talking.
His name's Jed, and he's a qualified architect; but riding bikes is much more important, so he works in a bike shop (chainreaction cycles) and spends his spare time riding, or preparing to ride.
He and his mates started building the dirt jumps fifteen years ago, and they're still improving them. The most recent jumps are over six feet high, but it's impossible to get up enough speed to use them, so last night he was out, adjusting other jumps and berms improving the angles, raising heights, determined to do what's currently impossible.

I've noticed this about mountain biking. It's an old-style sport. There's no pleading for government grants, demanding council action, begging money off other people so you can pay somebody to do something. Mountain bikers the world over are only too happy to get off the bike, lift the spade out of the car, and do the work themselves.

I never did get to complete my ride, but I gave Jed a hand and he gave me a lift home. I'm glad I met him.

hard - easy

Took a different route home on Friday. It's a route between Cave Hill and Divis Mountain that's rather steep in places. I'd been looking at it on the map and daring myself to try, but never plucked up the courage. Then on Friday I took a wrong turn and was half way up the hill before I twigged where I was (my sense of direction's not the best).

Actually it's not that bad, and the view of the city from the top is pretty good. If the Pennines aren't a lot steeper I'll feel cheated; and the fact that all the climbing's out of the way at the start with a long descent for the rest of the journey makes it my quickest route home, so I'll probably be going that way again next time I ride home from work.

wet

I've been getting some proper off-road riding in over the last couple of weeks. Took my mate Evan with me one day, but he's normally a fully fledged lycra-clad road rider, so the whole idea of skipping over wet tree roots, letting go down a 45º slope with a tree blocking the path, and riding through the British Isles' largest freshwater lake was sort of new to him.

Actually I've never had to ride through Lough Neagh before. It'd been a wet weekend and the lough had swollen so it covered the track almost a foot deep. Quite spectacular with the sun filtering through the trees, flickering off the water and us trying to guess where the track would have been if we'd been able to see it. Not the first time I wished I'd had a camera.

hunting for routes

Around my local area there are loads of leisurely cycle routes, and a few well trodden mountain bike trails. That's all very well, but I really do like to explore, to find out new things, to go places where nobody's been for a long time, and to believe I've achieved something slightly different.

I was looking for a suitable new route on the map when I noticed that there's a dismantled railway running from Randalstown to Toome. There's not much information available about it on the internet (which is good from an exploration point of view) except that it originally went from Randalstown to Cookstown, was built in 1856 and closed sometime around 1959. On the map it does run all the way to Cookstown, but there are significant sections missing.

The most obvious monument to the railway's existence is the amazing viaduct in Randalstown, so I started there. The viaduct is now part of one of those leisurely cycle routes and it just joins up with the main road, the original railway having had houses built over it. Following the route on the map a bit further
I did find part of the railway, at the point indicated by the blue arrow, but by that time it was dark. Looking down on it from above, by the light of my bike light, it looked like impenetrable jungle. I couldn't even see through the trees to get an idea whether there would be a rideable track on the ground.

My curiosity has been aroused, so I'll go back later and see how much of this dismantled railway is accessible. Who knows, I might find out new things and achieve something slightly different.

what a week!

I rode to work on Monday - it took an hour and a half in the rain, and I got drenched. I was wearing my spd shoes which I haven't done for a while. They make the pedalling easier, but it was a bad choice of day to start using them - they're about as waterproof as a mosquito net.
On Wednesday my schedule said I had to do some cross training so I swam in the Mediterranean and ran on the beach in Larnaca for half an hour. I wish I'd had a mosquito net there - I've got some impressive bites.
Then yesterday I did two hours on the mountain bike, riding along the sixmile water, Rae's wood, Antrim's castle gardens, the cycle path to Randalstown, before riding home in the dark.

What's that I hear you say? Larnaca? Oh, yes. I'd some business to do in Cyprus, so I flew out on Tuesday and back on Sunday. It certainly made Wednesday's cross training a bit more pleasant.

self supported

I splashed out and bought Tim Woodcock's "book" on the coast to coast ride. I put book in inverted commas because it's more of a short log with some hand-drawn maps and advice on how to prepare and undertake an off road coast to coast ride. It's still good though.

I said from the beginning that this ride was to be self supported. I assumed that would mean we'd have to camp out at least some of the time, which is why I've got whole posts dedicated to what kit would be best for a night in the wilds.

Having read Tim's book and some others, and watched a few youtube videos of a group tackling the route, I'm beginning see what Martin's been telling me for weeks:

This ride isn't across Canada. It's not even across Scotland. In fact, if we were cycling across wee Ireland we'd probably want to be prepared to camp out at least once; but this ride is across England.

I don't know much about England, but it would appear from what I've read and seen that there's a country pub, or a youth hostel, or a bed and breakfast perched on every available flat surface.
People in England don't carry food or water when they travel, they just wait until they're hungry and pop into the next pub they pass to eat a hearty lunch (with ginger beer and lashings of whipped cream, if some of the books I've been reading are accurate) before setting off to continue their adventure.
In fact if my new, better informed, vision of England is correct, we'll have to choose our routes carefully to avoid crashing into youth hostels and pubs on our way down from every inaccessible peak - instead of just at lunch time and at night when we want to crash in the "falling into bed after a physically exhausting day" sense of the word.

This is a bit of a weight off my mind - and my bike - and it means we'll be able to enjoy the exceptional off-road riding better than if we were carrying sleeping kit, pots, pans and food.

I might still squeeze a proper self-supported overnight journey into my training though.

the things you remember.

I already said I found Gideon's green today, That's not the only place I discovered.
Cycling through Duncrue Industrial Estate, Of course I got lost, but I found a few ancient dry docks and hundred-and-fifty-year-old shipping warehouses that have been converted to offices.
It's easy to forget that in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Belfast was a major player in the Industrial Revolution, home to the world's biggest shipbuilders (Harland & Wolff employed 35,000 people), the world's largest rope works, and was the largest linen producing centre in the world. Shorts was the first aircraft manufacturing company in the world. Sirocco Works (once the largest engineering plant in the world) was the place where Air Conditioning was first developed in its current form, and the Royal Victoria Hospital was the first building in the world to have air conditioning installed.

Red & yellow brick, white granite, and green copper - Belfast is actually quite interesting. I wonder if there's a self-guided city cycle tour. Maybe I could create one.

hallucinations

I decided to come in a slightly different route to work today.
I knew that there's a cycle path along the side of the M2, so I thought I'd have a look for it. From Glengormley, I headed down towards the lough, turned onto the shore road towards Whiteabbey. I wasn't quite sure how to get across the railway line and the motorway to reach the cycle path, but I ducked under the first bridge I found, out into Gideon's Green, which I'd never seen before. Then along a path where there's another bridge going under the M2. Surprisingly simple.

I was just up to speed when a hefty redheaded girl came up behind me ting-tinging her bell and forced me to swerve towards a dog-walker as she bombed past on her Raleigh. at first I was a bit miffed that she was going faster than me, but then I realised she cycles the way my mother-in-law drives - get to top gear as soon as possible and leave it there no matter how much the engine labours.

I soon reeled her in on the next incline and pulled alongside for a chat. "Hello" says I. she glanced at me and said nothing. "Beautiful day". silence. It was the strangest thing. She completely blanked me. As we rode along, side by side, beautiful scenery, lovely weather, not another soul in sight, she just kept pedalling as if I wasn't even there. When we got to the end of the path she stopped, turned and headed back the way we'd come. Maybe she wasn't real. Maybe I'd had too much lucozade sport.

seeking sanctuary

On Thursday I had to burn a pile of DVDs for the women's organisation in church - but I was also scheduled to do 30 minutes cross training.
I'm an inventive soul, so I decided to combine the two.
Our church buildings are a modern sort of design, with the meeting house, two halls and various rooms all joined by corridors around a central atrium.
It takes our DVD printer about two minutes to print an image onto a disc.

I decided to find out how many times I could run round the corridors before a disc had fully printed.

So Disc in printer, press the start button, out the door, down 3 steps , along the corridor, through the corridor's swing doors, down 4 more steps, through the doors at the back of the main hall, left, along the long wall of the hall, through the hall's side door, fast as I could run past the kitchen and up the longest corridor, sharp left past the entrance to the sports hall, past the Committee room on the right and Session room on the left, up the 5 steps and round the decorative woodwork and up the three steps into the meeting house.

The disc had loads still to print, so the next disc I did two circuits, then three, then four and finally five. so if anybody ever asks you, it's possible to run round our church buildings five times between loading discs into the printer.

45 minute road cycle

The training schedule called for a 45 minute road cycle on Saturday. It worked well, because I'd a meeting in Ballyhenry church, which is 11 miles (or 45 minutes) away. Perfect.

Of course when you ride for 45 minutes in one direction there's no option but to turn round and ride another 45 minutes to get home.

hard decision

I made a hard choice this week. The padwork in kung fu hurts, and not in a good way. I can't punch hard because on the impact I can feel the bones in my wrist crunch. Another problem I found is that my wrist's limited range of motion means I can't even be a decent sparring partner.

I've given it up.

It's a pity because it was a good way to get an hour's workout into the week, and the circuits were challenging, and I could feel my body getting used to it.

On the bright side, the nights are getting shorter, so there's more opportunity to ride.

I've a bit of a hamstring niggle after Monday's effort, so tomorrow's cross training will be mostly upper body work.