The e-newsletter said...
"On Sunday the Leisure Ride will be heading off to Radstock (approx 50 miles). This is a great ride which we haven’t run for a while (back by popular demand!) The track is rough in places therefore narrow tyres are not recommended. Meet at Chippenham Rugby Club at 9:30am."
I was in two minds which bike to take, either the Dawes Hybrid or the Peugeot steel frame road, as the weather was good I opted for the Peugeot.
I am not sure who the popular demand was, as there were only seven of us on the ride and one of them wasn't going to do the whole ride!
I was expecting some major off road exercise and was really not sure about the 700c x 23 tyres on the Peugeot as it turned out the off road was rather well compacted gravel canal tow paths and some well finished farm tracks :-)
It was quite a long ride to get to the tea room, mainly because of the constant headwind! I was also finding the hills a bit more of a challenge with the gearing on the bike.
After the tea and bacon sarnie :-) we headed back in the direction we had travelled, until we reached the canal and I opted to throw the route sheet away and head in a faster more direct route home.
We headed towards Bradford on Avon, over the very steep hill (I actually had to stand up to get up it! - I am sure it must help my hill climbing having a bike with feck all useful gears!) It was then plain sailing home...
The cycle computer had the ride as 54.77 miles in 3 hours 48 minutes with a rather sad average speed of 14.4 mph.
The GPS track can be found here...
When I got back home (After I showered of course) I set about cleaning, degreasing and re-oiling the Peugeot. Now I'm cooking Cider roast Chicken for tea (Cider is just soooo good AND its one of my 5 fruits a day :-)
3 comments:
I'm intrigued by the cider chicken (well anything involving cider). Do you have a recipe?
mik
I've somehow ended up doing some very narley stuff on slick 23mm tyres. I did a large chunk of the PBW while touring and pulling a trailer using 23mm tyres.
I certainly wouldn't recommend slick 23mm tyres for off-road but if you're carefull you can get away with creaping over some rather demanding terrain.
Mik... I will explain all about it tomorrow :-)
Red... I was happy enough on an old steel bike with wheels built like an old fashioned outdoors toilet, I would have been a bit upset on my nice road bike with very few posh spokes :-)
I think big fat tyres look a bit more solid on a wheel, I am sure the wheel is just as strong with skinny tyres, I just feel they are more likely to bend!
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