All 24 entries tagged Cycle Route

The weather is beautiful out there…

I was going to take a long ride in this morning, but didn’t due to a combination of running late and my knees acting up a bit. But I’m so glad I didn’t because it meant I went out at lunchtime instead. It was a little chilly this morning, but at lunchtime was wonderful. Definitely shorts weather – with apologies to the occupants of University House:-)

One of my usual routes – Leek Wootton, 13.6 miles in the sun. Brilliant. And my fastest time of the year so far on that route, despite taking it a bit easy to make sure my knees lasted the distance. Cycling in the warm makes a big difference – my legs really do work better in the warm!

Steve Rumsby : 05 Apr 2007 16:26 |  Tags: Cycle Route Cycling |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Longest excursion yet

I ended up working a little late last night, so took a longer lunch break to make up for it and went for a nice long ride. Well, longish. I glued together my usual route to Meriden and back with my route to Leek Wooton and back to produce this:

Total distance 25 miles. Total time 1h 40 mins. Average speed 15 mph.

Normally when out on my 1 hour(ish) routes I keep an eye on my average speed and try to keep it above 15mph, since I know I can sustain that effort for that period of time. This time, though, because I was aiming for a long ride rather than a fast one, I wasn't watching my speed at all, all the way round, and was expecting to be slower than usual. If I managed 14mph I;d have been happy. To hit 15mph without specifically aiming for that is quite pleasing. And my legs (and knees) felt good at the end too, so I'm sure I could have gone a little faster, or carried on for a while longer, or maybe both. 30 miles in 2 hours seems an attainable target now, so that's my plan when next I get a chance for an extended ride. The same route, but with a diversion via Knowle and Honiley should do the job. And there's always Stoneleigh, Bubbenhall and Baginton to add in too, if I want even more distance. That will use up all the roads I'm familiar with (at least on a bike) so some research will be required…

As an aside, the Warwick Road from Leek Wooton to Kenilworth is closed due to roadworks, but at least at the moment it is passable on foot, and on a bike if you don't mind 100m of illegal footpath cycling. Apart from that little stretch the road itself is still intact.

Steve Rumsby : 14 Jun 2006 15:33 |  Tags: Cycle Route Cycling |  Comments (5) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Meriden – take 2

Follow-up to And today's excursion was… from Steve's blog

Today's ride was a repeat of this Meriden route from about a month ago. This time was a bit faster, though. Looks like the change to my pedalling technique is making a genuine difference, especially as I wasn't particularly concentrating on doing things differently but nevertheless found myself using Chris's "rope winding" technique to get me up the hills. So obviously it is starting to become automatic, which is good.

Anyway, the stats for today: 14.75 miles, 61 minutes, 14.5mph. Last time was 67 minutes and 13.2mph.

Heart rate stats: ave 154bpm, max 176bpm.

Steve Rumsby : 15 Mar 2006 13:57 |  Tags: Balsall Common Berkswell Burton Green Cycle Route Meriden |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Making up for lost time

In celebration of having a working bike again, to give it a proper work out to make sure it really is fixed, and to make up for the miles last week, I went out to Knowle today, following the same fairly boring route as usual. Because of a slight detour to avoid some roadworks the route was actually a bit longer today (17 miles instead of 16.6 miles) and took correspondingly longer (68m instead of 66m) but the overall average was still 15mph. Nice to know that higher than normal average from last time wasn't a fluke! And I think I'll be able to do it a bit quicker when I don't have to make a slow detour around the roadworks, too. I'll revisit this route later in the year…

This was also my first proper ride with my HRM. Based on the "220-age" formula my maximum heart rate (MHR) should be 179bpm (there I go giving my age away:-). My average heart rate for that ride was 160bpm and my maximum was 176bpm. I seemed to be able to cruise quite comfortably at a heart rate of about 165bpm for long stretches, but got tired quite quickly once I crept above 170bpm. Interestingly my cadence was higher than normal on this ride (average 103rpm, max 123rpm). I guess I was trying hard?

I've no idea what these numbers actually mean, though! Some research required I think. The instructions for the HRM suggest that the ideal HR zone for fat burning is 55%-65% of your MHR, which is 98–116 in my case. If this is true, it is clear cycling is never going to get me to lose weight!

Steve Rumsby : 06 Mar 2006 14:26 |  Tags: Cycle Route Cycling Knowle |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Berkswell variation

Follow-up to Today's lunchtime excursion – Berkswell from Steve's blog

This Berkswell route from last year was about the right sort of distance for me today – I wasn't in the mood for anything longer. But since last time I wanted a slightly more interesting route, today I found one. Not a huge difference – just turn right rather than left at the end of Westwood Heath Road. For extra distance you could carry on up Banner Lane before turning left (as in this route ). Maybe one nice sunny summer's day, when I've got my new bike!

Anyway, this route was 11.2 miles, 49 minutes, 13.7mph.

Steve Rumsby : 14 Feb 2006 13:50 |  Tags: Berkswell Cycle Route Cycling |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

And today's excursion was…

…Meriden. I wasn't sure if I'd make it in an hour, and I was right! It seemed to be uphill most of the way there, which makes it a bit slow (at least for me). When I got to Meriden my average speed was only 11.5mph. Things got noticeably faster after that, and I ended up above my magic 13mph target. So not bad, really.

Stats: 14.75 miles, 67 minutes, 13.2mph.

Steve Rumsby : 10 Feb 2006 14:05 |  Tags: Balsall Common Berkswell Burton Green Cycle Route Meriden |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

The second ride of the week – Burton Green & Leek Wotton

Follow-up to First excursion of the year from Steve's blog

For the second ride of the week (too much enthusiasm, here – must control myself) I've just tacked a bit extra onto my first ride via Leek Wooton. This time I headed out via Burton Green to Kenilworth to make a proper circuit with no overlaps. This also made the route a little longer, but not as much as I expected. A bit more variety is also nice, though.

13.7 miles, 61 minutes, 13.3mph.

At least the average speed was above my magic 13mph this time. Going via Balsall Common would add a few more miles to make a nice 16/17 mile ride. I also have in mind to get to Leek Wooton via Knowle and Honiley, but that's far beyond a lunchtime excursion!

Steve Rumsby : 27 Jan 2006 14:00 |  Tags: Burton Green Cycle Route Cycling Leek Wooton |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Today's lunchtime excursion – Stoneleigh & Baginton

Today's route is one that I did last summer, but somehow forgot to blog at the time – Stoneleigh & Baginton, past the airport and back along the A45. Shame about that final leg – cycling along the A45 it not exactly picturesque:-)

9.6 miles, 42 minutes, average 13.6mph. Shorter than I expected, actually. Next time I should add Bubbenhall to the route.

Riding past the airport, and seeing a few little Cessnas in the air brought back memories of my one and only flying lesson back in 2004. If only I could do it again…

Steve Rumsby : 24 Jan 2006 13:51 |  Tags: Baginton Cycle Route Cycling Stoneleigh |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Cycle Route Collection

I've posted enough entries describing cycle routes in and around the University that I thought it was worth collecting them all in one place for quick reference. Yes you can get them all by looking at all entries tagged cycle_route, but the following tables are a bit more concise. I'm going to divide them into three groups: lunchtime excursions (i.e. routes that start and end at the University, and take no more than about an hour), extended commutes between home and the University, and excursions from home. But, since home is actually only a couple of miles away, it is very easy to convert a route from one sort to another.

Routes are listed in order of increasing distance, and the time quoted is my best time (if I've cycled the route more than once).

Now that I've compiled the list, I know there are routes I've cycled and not blogged. I can think of lunchtime rides via Bubbenhall and Baginton, for instance. I'll just have to do them again, now, and blog them properly, won't I!

As I add new routes to my collection, I'll update the relevant tables below.

Lunchtime Excursions

Commuting Routes

Excursions from Home

Steve Rumsby : 19 Jan 2006 16:50 |  Tags: Cycle Route Cycling |  Comments (3) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

The enthusiasm holds out for another week

Another lunchtime excursion in January. If I'm not careful, I could get addicted to this! This time Burton Green, Balsall Common and Kenilworth via the castle – a longer version of this route from last year. 12.5 miles, 56 minutes, average 13.4mph. Nice to see the average over 13mph this time. It was very windy when I did last week's excursion – that's my excuse for an average of 12.6mph, and I'm sticking to it!

The road from Balsall Common to Kenilworth is always much longer than I expect, even though I've cycled it quite a few times now. It just seems to keep going. Each time I come to a bend in the road I expect to find Kenilworth on the other side of it, and instead find another hill. That's the hard stretch of this route. And the traffic whizzing past can be a bit intimidating.

Still, I feel a lot better after that little trek. Back to work…

Steve Rumsby : 19 Jan 2006 14:29 |  Tags: Balsall Common Cycle Route Cycling Kenilworth |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem