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.
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.
Blowing out the cobwebs by exploring the bridleways of South Oxfordshire…
…and the views they open up.
There’s some strange stuff hereabouts. Like this pig farm with private dirt bike track.
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 .
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!
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…
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.)
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 on, I think, Brightwell Barrow, was mist free.
Amazing views from the clumps – of mist filled river valleys.
And morning arrivals into London-Heathrow.
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.
Too fast on the trail and slip-slide mud around mile 8 = bloody knee and a slower ride the rest of the way home.
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?
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!)
Riding in the woods with H…
…the champion Oreo eater.
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.
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.
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).
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
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.
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.
But we did win the race back home!
Had to be done – biking the bridge thanks to enthusiastic blazing saddles
We all made it to the end of marine drive…
…and, after some detailed examination from Finn, the tag-team decided to cross the bridge, but just half-way across mind.
Mid-way, we thought, “why not go all the way?”.
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’.
Good job!
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