Tag rides

Be safe be seen

Light

A brighter ride with a couple of these.

Bright enough that they need to be dipped for oncoming pedestrians but still apparently not bright enough for drivers pulling out onto Shillingford roundabout…

…but then mid day summer sunlight isn’t bright enough for them either.

Boys Bike Ride

Dad with his two invisible boys

Misty muddy ride to Wittenham and back.

Dad with his two invisible boys

Posing with the boys for a lunch stop piccy.

Storm over Wittenham Clumps

storm cloud over wittenham clumps

Timed my head-clearing ride all wrong today. Did a loop, starting into a strong blustery headwind. Weather front moved through, so homeward stretch also had a headwind.

Lost the cobwebs & got a snap of the clumps from a different angle though.

Lonely Tree

Lonely Tree

One lonely tree on a bike ride in the new forest.

Ride

rest break

Blowing out the cobwebs by exploring the bridleways of South Oxfordshire…

Rolling hills

…and the views they open up.

Someone's got a dirt bike track

There’s some strange stuff hereabouts. Like this pig farm with private dirt bike track.

The road to Brightwell-cum-Sotwell

The road to Brightwell-cum-Sotwell

We’re in the parish (not village ) of Brightwell-cum-Sotwell. I guess the boundaries were drawn when travelling on Bridleways was as common as travelling on tarmaced roads since the nearest place by road isn’t Brightwell. We must visit someday.

A muddy, very muddy, ride; but a decent loop via Wittenham Woods and Dorchester-on-Thames .

Never a bad day to ride

the lane

With terrain like this (our lane) I just had to get out on the bike – turned out to be the fastest thing in town – just so long as your comfortable in not going the way that the front wheel is pointing!

never a bad day to ride

Here’s the “proof shot” although on reflection it does look rather as if I’d just fallen off. Not quite the impression I’d been hoping to make…

Bike Ride Views

IMG_2304

IMG_2303

Nearly Cholsey and back, via cake and hot chocolate at The Bloc.

(That’s the bloc in Wallingford, not the one in berko, although they are somewhat related even if the one in Berko is no longer the bloc.)

Early morning ride

Twin Trees

The boys woke up early – so an excellent excuse to get up and out for a (very) early morning ride to the clumps and back. Starting at a misty two-trees in the field next to the lane.

Lonely Tree

Lonely tree on, I think, Brightwell Barrow, was mist free.

Thames valley

Amazing views from the clumps – of mist filled river valleys.

Morning arrivals into LHR

And morning arrivals into London-Heathrow.

Shillingford Bridge

By the time I got back to Shillingford Bridge the rest of the world was beginning to wake up.

Super day to be out and about.

Back in the Saddle

Sit here

Too fast on the trail and slip-slide mud around mile 8 = bloody knee and a slower ride the rest of the way home.

Never ever a bad day to ride

end of a wet ride

Even if the trails are wet, slippy and muddy.

I want to ride my bicycle

Solo with a smile

Don't stop me now

Riding in the garden. F’s riding solo (with a small hand to get going) and was coping great with the grass.
Is it just me, or is he looking a bit big for that bike?

Balancing

Meanwhile H practiced some off-road skills.
I fear he might soon be pushing for some of the jumps and balancing logs over at Paradise.
(Although only because if that’s the case he’ll be expecting Dad to go first!)

Morning Ride

Bridge crossing

H

Riding in the woods with H…

eating Oreos

Eating Oreos

…the champion Oreo eater.

Crash hat hair style

Hard work: wet and muddy and H doesn’t have a lot of weight to hang over the back wheel!
Rode home avoiding the rain to find that the skid lid had left a bit of an impression.

Top of the hill

Top of the hill

H & I had a swift ride along the Southern Traverse Trail before it got completely dark.
H, star that he is, managed to ride all the way up the big hill on 184th on the way home.

Muddy Ride

Muddy Ride

Sunday Afternoon Ride

ride team pic

Not content with riding the ~10 miles to our house, James insisted that he drag us all off into the dank dark woods for some more two-wheeled exercise.

Actually, we had a metric tonne of fun, with H’s trail reading especially entertaining. Instead of Robert’s “tight right downhill, large rock stay left” we had “yikes”, “yeeks” followed by a “whooooaaaaa”. He jumped right back on again though, made his Dad proud (they’ll be a slight delay while I go and tell him that).

updating

Having some hi-tech gadgets in hand for the ride meant that this time we didn’t get lost (and the jolly interweb knew where we were even if we didn’t).

Note: This post was updated on 2020-10-01 19:36:29 to fix broken links

Bike Ride

Bike Ride

Following our earlier adventure biking in the Paradise Valley

Me: Sorry H, I forgot my watch, wallet, camera, and phone
H: you forgot your thinking brain too!

We thought it would be fun to give it another go with a leisurely sprint along the mainline trail and back.

Bike Ride

Surprisingly, we bumped into Fay, Finn & Ewok along the way (I think they didn’t trust us not to get lost again) and persuaded them to take a picture (good) and the camera (not so good) with them.

Bike Ride

But we did win the race back home!

Biking the Bridge

Blazing Saddles

Had to be done – biking the bridge thanks to enthusiastic blazing saddles

Golden gate Bridge

Golden gate Bridge

Golden gate Bridge

We all made it to the end of marine drive…

Batman sight spotting

…and, after some detailed examination from Finn, the tag-team decided to cross the bridge, but just half-way across mind.

Midspan

Mid-way, we thought, “why not go all the way?”.

We rode the bridge!

So we did!

We did decide not to head down to ‘beautiful Sausalito’ and headed back to down town double quick, with a little help from ‘turbo, turbo, turbo’.

Bike rider F

Good job!

MTB’ing

With H

Rest stop

H and I took the new bike for a proper ride along the trails in Redmond Watershed.
It’s a sweeping up-down-left-right ride through beautiful second growth forest.
H was biker-tastic, even managing a to get some air (controlled) on one downhill section!

Note: This post was updated on 2020-11-15 to fix broken links

Balancing Act

balancing act

Balancing bikes at the end of a new years day ride.


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