Oh what fun! (a ride report of sorts)



P

Patter

Guest
Decided to take the bike out this afternoon and ride off around the lanes for
a while. Cleaned the mud off first, grumbled at the growing rust patches (BB,
downtube, assorted nuts) and got the tyres up to pressure - 45psi with a
compact handpump then up to 60 (its an MTB, max rated to 65psi) with a
footpump I normally use on the car.

Cycled round town a bit, was going to take the old railway path out from Darlo
to MSG but the council are digging that up for a road, so I crossed town and
went the other way up to Walworth, most of the way to Piercebridge then back
down Coniscliffe road.

Pedals spinning freely, tyres purring on the road, metal singing, a complete
symphony of man & machine.

Overall distance & time: no idea, but I was in top gear a lot & out over an
hour. Now if I could just move the panniers a few inches backwards ...

--
Stephen Patterson :: [email protected] :: http://patter.mine.nu/
GPG: B416F0DE :: Jabber: [email protected]
"Don't be silly, Minnie. Who'd be walking round these cliffs with a gas oven?"
 
"Patter" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
> Cycled round town a bit, was going to take the old railway path out from
> Darlo
> to MSG but the council are digging that up for a road, so I crossed town
> and
> went the other way up to Walworth, most of the way to Piercebridge then
> back
> down Coniscliffe road.


C'mon Stephen only folk with local knowledge would realise that MSG is
Middleton St George and not mono-sodium glutamate ;-)

Get thissen to Richmond. There's nice pubs, lasses and pie shops waiting to
be taken advantage of ;-)

Having left Darlington for Leeds over thirty years ago I'm no longer
familiar with the highways and byways favoured by leisure cyclists. What
sort of impact has the cycling scheme thingy that Darlington was successful
at bidding for been? What new facilities for cyclists have been introduced?
>
> Pedals spinning freely, tyres purring on the road, metal singing, a
> complete
> symphony of man & machine.
>
> Overall distance & time: no idea, but I was in top gear a lot & out over
> an
> hour. Now if I could just move the panniers a few inches backwards ...


I was intending to pedal up to Darlington next week but I've just
resurrected my motor cycle and it needs a decent run so I'm taking the lazy
option.
 
On Sun, 8 Apr 2007 20:55:10 +0100, vernon wrote:
> Get thissen to Richmond. There's nice pubs, lasses and pie shops waiting to
> be taken advantage of ;-)


Now there's an idea, might even make cycling over Scotch Corner worthwhile.

> Having left Darlington for Leeds over thirty years ago I'm no longer
> familiar with the highways and byways favoured by leisure cyclists. What
> sort of impact has the cycling scheme thingy that Darlington was successful
> at bidding for been? What new facilities for cyclists have been introduced?


We've got a fair number of shared use & separated use (with white lines on)
pavement plus a lot of newly discovered & signposted off road track, mostly
rough lanes but the old Barnard Castle rail line and a few other central off
road bits are tarmaced. There's a pavement cyclepath gradually working its way
round the inner ring-road at the moment, so that'll be getting a bit more
pleasant to cycle round and the council have decided to signpost odd
zig-zagging residential roads as "approved routes".

There's a Darlington Cycling blog at bikedarlington.blogspot.com with
information on whats happening round here.

--
Stephen Patterson :: [email protected] :: http://patter.mine.nu/
GPG: B416F0DE :: Jabber: [email protected]
"Don't be silly, Minnie. Who'd be walking round these cliffs with a gas oven?"
 

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